Chapter Nine
Christopher
I was suddenly reminded of a term my father used to use all the time: You give someone an inch, they take a mile.
He usually meant it about some business dealing or another, but with a secretive teenager who refused to let me in on anything, it took on a new meaning for me.
Because I’d been trying not to hold the reins too tightly with Liam. He was a teenager. He had a right to some freedom. Maybe even a little secrecy. Especially after everything he’d been through.
But some shit was already not lining up for me with him.
Sure, my money had loosened up a bit now that I was back at work, so I was giving both the kids an allowance.
Charlotte, because she helped me out around the apartment, keeping things tidy.
And Liam because I did rely on him to watch his sister here and there if I was running late or had a side gig to work on to make some extra cash.
So he had some money in his pocket to spend.
That said, he was bringing in what felt like too much. Too many bags. Too much fast food.
I hadn’t questioned it at first because I had no proof, and I knew one surefire way to push the kid away further would be to accuse him of things without any evidence to back it up.
And, yeah, I’d honestly been too busy to look into it.
I gave the inch.
He was taking the mile.
I’d honestly been excited when my phone rang and I saw Alara’s name on the caller ID.
She’d been strategically avoiding me for two weeks. How, when I had to show up for the bag? Once, because she ‘ran into’ Leo and gave it to him. And another time because she ‘dropped by’ Brio’s place and gave it to him.
She was pissed at me.
I got it.
She’d taken a chance.
And it hadn’t gone her way.
Fuck, it hadn’t gone either of our ways.
I didn’t want to push her away.
I wanted to pull her deeper into the alley, pull her pants and panties down, and slam into her until we were both weak and satisfied.
But Alara was young. Too young for me. And she was the baby sister of my cousin’s wife. That was just all sorts of off-limits. Whether I liked that or not.
She probably felt rejected and was trying to avoid me because of it. If only she knew that there wasn’t an ounce (or inch) of me that had rejected her.
It just couldn’t happen.
That said, it’d been impossible to put her behind me. First, because she’d been starring in every goddamn fantasy, no matter how hard I tried to focus on someone else.
Second, because the kids couldn’t seem to let a day go by without bringing her name up.
Charlotte wondered endlessly if Alara had finished the book, if she had continued on in the series, and if she enjoyed them.
Even Liam brought her up.
One night, he came home with a grocery bag full of supplies to make us “that sandwich Alara said would change our lives.”
She hadn’t been wrong.
I’d been craving the damn things ever since.
“It’s Alara?” Charlotte asked, turning over the back of the couch to look at me, wide-eyed and hopeful.
But any excitement I felt died right off when I realized why she was calling.
“You didn’t ask her about the books,” Charlotte said, pouting.
“You can ask her yourself. I don’t want to leave you here alone, so grab your shoes and let’s hit it.”
I’d never seen her move so fast in her life.
I worried as I watched her bounce around on her heels on the subway that she was craving something I couldn’t give her.
A female presence.
A mother figure, for the one she’d lost.
I’d been working so hard to make sure all their practical needs were being met that I hadn’t really stopped to consider what other things they might have been missing, seeking, wanting but were unable to express to me.
I thought maybe that kind of thing would have come up in therapy, and then the shrink would relay anything important to me.
I was sure that would be the case with Charlotte.
But maybe Liam wasn’t talking to his shrink much either. It was still new. He was a hard nut to crack.
I wasn’t prepared for the way seeing Alara again would feel like a punch to the gut.
But the second she opened that door, it was like all the wind got knocked out of me.
She looked a little frazzled and confused, maybe even a little annoyed—likely at me—but she brightened the second she saw Charlotte. And I had to be grateful to her for that.
I made my way out of the shop as they were already deep in a conversation about the book Charlotte got Alara to read.
I made my way outside, glancing up and down the street, wondering what kind of trouble Liam could have gotten himself into.
From what I understood from the studying I’d been trying to do in my limited free time, this neighborhood was in a bit of a transition period, crime-wise.
There’d been a street gang who used to have it on lock for years, but the boss got locked up, his guys were too weak to hold onto power, and it had been a power vacuum ever since.
There were any number of small-time crime crews around here. All of whom would be happy to have a young, hungry teenager to work as a scout or to deal their drugs, so their own hands were never dirty.
If that kid got himself involved with drugs, I swear to God…
I did a lap down one side of the street, just checking out everyone standing around, trying to see if he was hanging out with any of the other kids or doing any deals.
I crossed the street and headed down the next one, pausing when I came across an unhoused man with a veteran’s hat on.
“Hey, man,” I said, reaching for a fifty in my pocket. “You been here a bit?”
“All day.”
I handed him the fifty, then pulled up an image of Liam on my phone. “Any chance you’ve seen my nephew? He was around here about half an hour ago.”
“Don’t wanna get him in trouble. But yeah, I’ve seen him every day this week.”
Every day? That definitely didn’t bode well for him being in the area for some innocent reason.
“Was he hanging out with the local crews around here? Getting his ass into trouble?”
“Not that I’ve seen, no.” He paused, looking down the street, then nodded his chin toward a storefront. “He goes in there.”
“The toy store?”
“Coffee shop. Brings me coffee or those mixed drink things sometimes. Pastry once.”
He was hanging out in a coffee shop?
I suddenly felt like an overprotective parent. Maybe he’d found some friends. Or a girl. And he wanted some privacy.
“Well, get yourself whatever you want on me,” I said, handing him another fifty.
With that, I made my way toward the coffee place, deciding to just peek in and make sure he wasn’t doing anything he shouldn’t.
If all seemed like it was on the up-and-up, I’d just head back to pick up Charlotte and act like nothing happened.
Let him have his little excursions, even if he was technically outside the zone I asked him to stay within.
He was sitting right by the window at a table by himself. With eight different drinks set in front of him along with two different cell phones.
“That’ll do it,” I murmured to myself as I reached for the door.
He didn’t glance up at the chime on the door, or even when my shadow fell over him.
“You mind? You’re fucking up my light.”
“Language.”
His head shot up.
“Are you stalking me?”
“No.”
He glanced out the window toward the pawnshop.
“Didn’t peg her as a narc.”
“She was worried about you. Don’t blame her. What are you doing all the way out here? And why do you have so many drinks? And an extra phone?”
His face went tight, his jaw ticking.
“Come on, kid. Fess up. We both know I’ll figure it out eventually.”
“I’m working.”
“You’re… working?”
I glanced around, wondering if he was a barista or some shit.
“Working doing what?”
Leaning back, he kicked out the chair across from him. I knew an invitation to sit when I saw one. Even if it was a little smoother than I expected from him.
I sat and waited.
“Last month, Moira Madeline came to this coffee shop every day and posted about it on her socials.”
“Moira Madeline?”
He rolled his eyes.
“She’s an influencer.”
“Alright. So, what does Moira have to do with you?”
“Nothing really. Except she made this place a hotspot for wannabe influencers.”
“Kid, I’m aging here.”
“Most of these wannabe influencers live in the middle of nowhere. And they don’t have the money to fly to the city. So they pay someone who lives here to take pictures like they’re here. Had sixty of them so far this week.”
“Sixty? Sixty people will pay you to buy coffee and take a picture?”
“Well, they pay for the coffee too.”
“This is really a thing? People pay for this?”
“Ten bucks per picture, plus the coffee.”
Ten bucks per picture.
And he had sixty clients this week?
“You’ve made six hundred bucks this week?”
“No,” he said. Then shrugged. “Twelve hundred.”
“What?”
“It’s not just the coffee shop. Lotta places people wanna pretend to go. I’d be making twice as much if I was a chick, so my hand could be in the pictures. But I get inventive.”
“How are you getting paid?”
“App. Don’t worry, I do it friends and family with a note attached saying ‘coffee’ so there’s no issue with taxes.”
“You’re making enough money to be thinking about fucking taxes.”
“It’s good to have a hustle.”
My eyes narrowed.
“Who said that?”
“Heard Miko say it to his brother.”
“So, is that what this is? Trying to prove that you can be an earner?”
“Maybe.”
“You wanna be Made one day?”
“We’ll see.”
He was playing it down. He absolutely planned to work his way toward that. I guess I could only be happy that his hustle was technically legal.
“What? You gonna forbid me?”
“From joining the Family? That’s your business.”
“What about this?” He waved to the coffee.
“Alright. I’m gonna let this pass. But there are going to be some rules in place.”
“What else is new?”
“Hey, I’ve been pretty fucking lax, kid. Work with me here.”
“Fine. What rules?”
“All that money doesn’t get blown. Start saving some of it.”
“Don’t got a bank account.”
“We can handle that.”
“Fine. How much?”