By all accounts, Abilene should have him running for the hills. She was dependent, to say nothing of her child. She was a train wreck in ways he couldn’t entirely pinpoint, and her baggage was big enough to cram an ex-con into. Whatever else was in there, he was afraid to know. And he didn’t need to know. They weren’t a couple, wouldn’t ever be; plus nobody was a completely open book. There were always a couple pages glued to the cover. Always a few unknowns.
He chanced one last squeeze of her fingers before letting them go. “I’m real proud of you for talking to him.”
She shrugged. “I’m real ashamed of how scared I was. How much worry I put everybody through, avoiding it for so long.”
“You did your best in a fucked-up situation.”
“Doesn’t feel like I did.”
“Honey, if you could see all the shitty decisions I’ve made in my life, or Vince, or Raina . . . Anybody except Miah, basically. You’d think we were all the biggest dumb-asses you ever met. Fucking things up is just part of life. The best you can hope for is that you get most of it done before you hit thirty.”
“I have a child, though.”
“Well, fine. Thirty or parenthood, whichever comes first.”
And even thirty was pushing it—Casey hadn’t begun to clean up his act until last summer, after all, and how old had Vince been the last time he’d been put away? Thirty-two, probably.
Way out of left field, Abilene whispered, “Do you believe in God?”
He shook his head against the covers. “No. You do, though.”
“Yeah. I used to wear a cross, even. Constantly. In the shower, to bed, all the time. It was silver, on a silver chain. I lost it last winter, right around the time some things started going extra-wrong.”
He smiled. “You think God was punishing you, for losing it?”
“No, more like maybe somebody upstairs decided I didn’t deserve to wear it anymore.”
“Now, that’s just nonsense.”
“It’s how I feel . . . I think I’d like to start going to church again. Not a church like I grew up in, but something, I dunno, low-key.”
“There’s a Unitarian place downtown. Aren’t they supposed to be pretty liberal?”
“Maybe I’ll check it out. I don’t think I’ve gone more than a dozen times since I left home. It used to be such a huge part of my life . . .” She trailed off, eyes unfocused, thoughts folded up deep inside. After a minute or more she said, “I think I might like to get another one. A cross, I mean. Save up a little money.”
“Like a reminder to keep your shit together, when you look in the mirror?”
“Something like that.”
He smiled. He’d wanted to be able to buy her something, something not too gift-y, but more meaningful than the diaper rash cream or hair elastics she might ask him to pick up at the drugstore. Was she thinking of the plain old cross kind, or a hard-core crucifix with the tiny suffering Jesus and all that . . . ?
“I’d better go relieve Miah,” she said, pushing herself up to sitting.
“Okay.” Casey rose to follow her. She was probably exhausted from all the stress, but he was wired. Maybe Miah felt like a movie or a game of cards.
Abilene turned with her hand on the doorknob, looking him up and down. “You don’t need to go.”
“I figured you must be wiped and that I’d give you some space.”
She turned fully, leaning back against the door. “I feel better with you than I do just by myself.” Her tone was shy, maybe nervous. “I mean, if you felt like hanging out, that is.”
Hanging out? What did that mean, exactly? A heart-to-heart, or another collision, like yesterday afternoon? He swallowed. “Whatever you need.”
What the girl needed, of course, was more than he had to give—a future, for one, and security. Not security like he was offering, playing bodyguard this week, but the real stuff. That C-word he’d been running from his entire life—commitment. And yet . . .
Maybe it was the possessive caveman in him not wanting to imagine her with anybody else, but some selfish part of Casey refused to think there was anyone better for her. He knew what she deserved. A man who’d do anything, risk everything, to keep her safe and to make her smile.
He could do that much. But all the rest? The long-haul stuff? To commit not just to one woman, but to a child as well. If he even had a future to look forward to, was he really capable of offering all that? If he had any doubts, the choice was obvious. There was no way in the hottest corner of hell he’d get himself in a position to let Mercy down the way his own father had done to him and Vince. Some men just weren’t built for that shit.
Make no promises, break no promises. That was the simple answer. Until those test results came back, it was the only answer. Once they did, if somehow, through some stroke of good karma he’d never earned, Casey found out he did have a future, then what? Then, he supposed, he’d have a choice to make.
Keep things simple and selfish, or finally man the fuck up.
Chapter 13
Casey used the guest bathroom while Abilene was downstairs. As he scrubbed his face with a cold washcloth, he had to wonder, did the Churches think there was something up between the two of them? Miah wasn’t naive, and Christine was a bloodhound about that stuff. He returned to the bedroom and shut the door as silently as he could, cheeks warming.
Abilene had returned and was leaning over the crib. As she turned, she pressed a finger to her lips.
He nodded. They might talk all night or wind up fooling around again, but either way it would be going down in whispers. He didn’t mind. And he honestly didn’t mind either way, what sort of “hanging out” this might be. If all she was after was a warm body against hers and a decent night’s sleep, he could be that.
He’d dedicated so many years to taking, he’d forgotten that it could feel this good, providing. Maybe he’d never even known it, before her.
I turned into my old man after all. The one vow he’d ever made to himself, he’d broken. He’d run off when things turned grim at home and called it freedom. In reality, it had been cowardice.
Well, fuck all that.
“How you feeling?” he asked softly.
Abilene shed her jacket and rooted through the dresser, pulling out pajama pants and a T-shirt. “Good, I think. Dazed, and still a little scared, but good. Could you turn around a sec?”
He went to stand over the crib, studying Mercy’s peaceful, fat little face while Abilene changed.
Her shyness didn’t bother him. He’d had lovers who liked to keep the lights off during sex, partly, he guessed, because he was attracted to girls who were a little bigger than average, and maybe a little more self-conscious than average. He’d been with brazen girls, too, skinny and curvy alike, but the shy ones prevailed, looking back. Opposites attracted, he supposed.
“All set,” she said.
She was climbing under the covers when he turned around. Uncertain what she might be after, he sat on the other end of the bed, content to talk. He squeezed her foot where it tented the blanket. “Anything in particular you need?”
She shook her head. “It’s just nice to have you here, with all this stuff running through my head.”
“I can stick around until you fall asleep, if you want. Maybe talk about something super boring, to help you get there quicker . . . ?”
“You could maybe stick around for the night. If you want to.”
Casey swallowed, his ever-hopeful dick growing curious about the invitation. “I could.”