Shelter Page 5

  He made an effort to throw his clothes, clean and dirty, into the closet and forced the door shut. Which left him ten minutes to choke down breakfast before he headed off to his day job: a landscaper with Good & Green of North Metro-Atlanta.

  But instead of grabbing a Pop-Tart and a Coke, he rooted the lockbox out from under his bed and opened it up, thinking he should probably go to the trouble of locking the thing sometime. The top tray lifted out, and beneath the old family photos and keepsakes, he found his Glock 9mm semi-auto and the product Sean had given to him the night before. It frightened him just looking at the baggies full of fine white powder. Getting busted with enough cocaine to qualify for possession with the intent to distribute would not only end both his careers, but his life. Unlike his cousin, he didn’t think he could survive lockup.

  With a deep, shaky breath, he pocketed the baggies and put the box back under the bed. The address for the drop was written on a McDonald’s napkin and he slid it up the sleeve of the thermal knit he wore under his Good & Green shirt. He wondered, as he slapped on his hat and headed for the door, what Alma would think if she knew she’d almost slept with a bar tender/landscaper/part-time drug pusher.

  **

  “Brightside Publishing, this is Alma, how may I help you?”

  Her boss had given her a generous three weeks off after Sam’s funeral, and then had cut her back to half days when it had become apparent that she wasn’t capable of handling much more than that. Her time away from work was spent napping, brooding, staring off into space, suffering her mother’s shopping trips, but she managed to pull herself together for the few hours she spent behind her desk four days a week. Though judging by the whispers and stares in the break room, she was becoming dead weight, and her coworkers didn’t figure she had a prayer of keeping her job.

  Once upon a time, when she’d still been living under her parents’ roof, when she’d still believed anything was possible, she’d wanted to be a writer. And not just a magazine contributor or a blogger. She’d wanted to be a novelist. Just the word itself had rolled off the tongue so exquisitely when she’d said it aloud to her empty room, fingers poised over the keys of her laptop. She had a flare for the melodramatic, a love for all things steeped in detail and nuance. And she was a sucker for an unconventional love story. All qualities that had led her English professors to doodle little smiley faces in the corners of her papers.

  But she’d married Sam two months after she’d graduated from Georgia State and had scrambled to find steady employment. Her writing dream had gone to live someplace where little girls stowed dreams once they grew up, and she’d been at Brightside for a year and a half, coordinating local book fairs.

  “Alma Morales?” a woman asked on the other end of the line.

  “Yes, ma’am, I’m - ”

  “You were supposed to be at Red Oak Elementary this afternoon!”

  Alma slapped a palm over her forehead. Shit! Mrs. Cartwright, she recognized the voice now, continued to ream her out while she added her own personal insults mentally. Of all the things she was supposed to have been worrying about, all she’d dwelled on that morning, staring blankly at her computer, was her almost-sex with Carlos.

  She’d stared at herself in the mirror a long time that morning, a hand over her still-flat belly, wrestling with the notion that she’d almost allowed a man who wasn’t her child’s father to…be near that tiny life. That knowledge had left her shaking. It wasn’t just about her anymore. It was about protecting her child too.

  But Carlos would care about her baby, wouldn’t he? Of course he would. They would be family after all, her little one and her almost-lover. And how strange would that have been? Honey, before you were born, I almost fucked your cousin.

  “Are you even still there?”

  “What? Oh! Yes, I’m sorry, Mrs. Cartwright.” Her palms became damp. She hadn’t been listening to the woman’s tirade. “I can’t apologize enough for missing our meeting this morning. Please let me make it up to you in any way I can. How about - ”

  “How about you patch me through to your supervisor?” the school administrator snapped. “I’m done with you.”

  Alma sighed wearily. “Yes, ma’am.” She forwarded the call and then collapsed forward onto her desk, head in her hands once she’d hung up. Spacing out, being distant, those sins could be forgiven. But screwing up the Red Oak account? That was a firing offense for sure.

  She peeked through her fingers at her computer monitor, wondering how many other agenda items she’d overlooked. Instead, her eyes went to the framed photo of her and Sam beside her keyboard. She shook her head. Why did life have to suck so badly?

  Her phone rang and she prepared herself for a thorough ass-chewing. But it was her mother.

  “Hi, sweetie!”

  “Hi.”

  “Everything alright?” Diane was just bursting with overdone perkiness, obviously content to ignore their disagreement the night before.

  “Peachy.”

  “Listen, your aunt is leaving in the morning, and I thought it might be nice if we could all go out tonight, the four of us. I thought we could go to Chili’s, grab some dinner. It’ll be a blast.”

  “Sounds like it.”

  By the time she had the receiver in the cradle again, she’d agreed to yet another family meal. Perhaps she was suicidal. As she glanced up over the top of her cubicle and saw her boss marching toward her, she wondered if Carlos was having a better day.

  **

  The Dolman property was twenty-six acres being converted from farmland to estate home lots of two to three acres each, topped off by five-hundred-thousand dollar mini mansions. Good & Green had been contracted for all of the landscaping and Carlos enjoyed this type of gig. Guaranteed money and a consistent few months of working on the same job site rather than running back and forth raking leaves. And because the subdivision was already prestigious – out-of-state buyers had already purchased homes sight unseen – it had gained attention, for Marietta, and for Good & Green. Everyone knew about Dolman Plantation. Which was why he rolled up his work shirt and left it stuffed behind the seat of one of the crew trucks when he took his lunch break. He might get his ass killed, but he wasn’t keen on getting his supervisors clued into his little side business.

  At one-fifteen, he rode with the guys to Wendy’s, made a pretense of needing to buy more smokes, and walked across the street to the half-occupied shopping center and the liquor store down on the north end. Around the back, between the fire escape ladder and the dumpster, he put his back to the brick wall and waited, the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up so that hopefully it, and the bill of his cap, would keep his identity a mystery to any onlookers. By the time his buyer showed up, his knees were quivering as he replayed Sam’s death over and over, wondering if this buy would be any different than that buy, the one that had left him putting pressure on his cousin’s gunshot wound.

  The guy who approached him, checking over his shoulder for witnesses in a casual way, was Hispanic, clean-shaven with a cleft jaw and prominent nose. If not for the gelled black hair, thick brows and dark complexion, he might have passed for your average white guy. But Carlos could always spot a fellow Latino, especially those of indistinguishable heritage just like him. The buyer had on a dark long-sleeved shirt and puffy vest, jeans and boots. He might have been a total gang-banger, or just a regular dude out for a fix. Carlos didn’t care.

  He nodded toward the customer. “Diego?” That was the fake name Sean had told him to use.

  “Yeah.” The guy returned the nod, stuffed his hands in the slash pockets of his vest, and closed the gap between them. He never looked at Carlos, but at everything else around them. “You have it?”

  “Yup.”

  The transaction took all of four seconds. Carlos shook hands with him and in the process, lost the baggie he’d clenched between his fingers and came away with a wad of cash in his palm. He stowed the money with a relieved sigh and watched “Diego,” or whatever the
fuck his name was, walk away around the side of the building.

  He had really nice shoes, Carlos couldn’t help but notice. Shiny. With those squared toes only the GQ set shopped for. He frowned, filed away the information as useless, and moved away from the dumpster. If he was lucky, he’d still have time to choke down a burger before he had to be back on the job site.

  **

  Dinner had been such a bad idea. Alma had known it would be, but after she’d carried a cardboard box of photos and notepads to her car that afternoon, she’d wanted to believe that she could find some sort of comfort. She should have known that being twisted and hammered and warped into the Alma her family wanted to know would only make her heart hurt worse.

  In a large, six-person booth, she sat with her parents, aunt, and cousin Tanya. Tanya who was engaged to an entrepreneur who’d started his own marketing consulting firm. Tanya who was always so “put together” according to Diane.

  Alma pulled a French fry through the ketchup puddle on her plate and tried unsuccessfully to tune out the chatter around her.

  “That’s so exciting!” Diane said and leaned across Alma so she could better see her niece. “Where will you be looking? It’s a buyer’s market right now; you could pick up a really nice place for a steal.”

  Tanya was pretty, but not beautiful. Made up for it by being a fashionista. Bubbly. Ex-cheerleader. Nice, but not always in the most sincere way. When she brushed her hair back and smiled at Diane, the move was so practiced it appeared automatic. “Well, since Rod works in Stone Mountain…”

  No one had asked Alma, with delight shimmering in her eyes, where she and Sam had been shopping for a home. No one had hugged her with an excited squeal, demanding to know all the details of the wedding. Blank stares, startled congratulations…and those had been false. She had heard it in all their voices. She stared down at her plate and hated that she was so petty, that she was responding to the slights as a child would. What did it matter what her family had thought of her nuptials? She had known that Sam wouldn’t fit in. She’d made a choice. But that choice had been so much easier to defend when he’d been sitting next to her. Was it too much to ask to want someone to look at her and understand the magnitude of her pain? To want a heartfelt apology?

  She didn’t think so.

  And she’d had that. With Carlos.

  Alma had lain awake the night before, staring at the ceiling, tears trickling from the corners of her eyes, wondering why her body was betraying her. How could she feel so guilty for thinking about another man, and yet keep thinking about him? She’d tried to tell herself it was hormones; pregnancy was wreaking havoc on her emotions. But she knew it was deeper than that. Carlos was her connection to Sam. Carlos was the only one who felt the way she did. The only one who…wanted her.

  “Alma.”

  She shook herself out of the safe, warm little mental hideout she’d developed over the past several weeks, not sure who had spoken. But of course it was her mother. Diane’s silver hoop earrings caught the light as she swiveled her head around, dark hair swishing elegantly over her shoulders. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “I said isn’t it wonderful that Rod and Tanya are thinking of having a baby right away?” Alma blinked. “I recommended our OB/Gyn. Don’t you think Dr. Laramie has the best bedside manner?”

  “I hear you’re about ten weeks along,” Tanya added.

  At another time, given different circumstances, Alma would have been appalled at her own reaction. A small part of her subconscious mourned the loss of her manners, grieved for the rational, polite girl she’d been before Sam’s death. But none of that stopped her from biting down hard on the tip of her tongue to hold in the remark she wanted to scream.

  She took a deep breath, and then another, another, then said through gritted teeth, “I can’t even hold down a motherfreaking job, so don’t ask my opinion on anything.” No one protested when she slid out of the booth and headed for the door.

  5

  There was a very good chance Carlos wouldn’t be at home. A great chance, actually, because juggling two jobs was hectic and his bar gig was hit or miss during the week. So Alma rolled her lips together nervously when she pressed the buzzer of apartment 3G and waited for a response.

  She had nearly turned around several times on the way to his complex, chastising herself. But the thought of her empty, cold, lonely bed at home spurred her on. That and the overwhelming sadness she’d felt during dinner. She had no job, no husband, no family. No idea what to do with the baby who’d taken up residence in her body. She just wanted something tangible. Even if it was a mistake.

  The intercom crackled with static and Carlos’s muttered “yeah” startled her.

  “It’s me,” she was hesitant, maybe a little short of breath. “Alma.”

  There was a pause. “Come on up.” And then she heard the door unlock.

  He answered the door to his apartment in a pair of basketball shorts, barefoot and bare chested. His skin was glowing, little droplets of water clinging to his buzz-cut. He had just gotten out of the shower, and as she leaned into the threshold, suddenly not sure which hurt worse – her pounding heart or guilty conscious – she registered the clean soap smell of him.

  “Are you working tonight?”

  He shook his head and then stepped aside, inviting her in with a sweep of his arm.

  Alma nibbled at her lower lip, let her eyes travel up and down his body. “I’m afraid I’ll do something stupid if I come in,” she admitted in a voice barely above a whisper.

  A door opened behind her and she shot a glance over her shoulder. One of Carlos’s neighbors – an arthritic old man curled over his cane – came into the hall with a garbage bag in one gnarled hand. He spared them a look.

  Carlos sighed, drawing her attention again, making her realize she already looked stupid standing out here like this. “Me too,” he said. “But I think we’re past the point of worrying about that.”

  And they were, weren’t they?

  He took her jacket and hung it up on a peg by the door after he’d locked them in together, and Alma studied her hands while he did so, listening to the tiny sounds his movements made. She set her purse on the floor with a soft thump. When he came to stand in front of her again, he was backlit by the glow of the TV, all blue around the edges, eyes almost black by contrast. Carlos had a way of looking so sweet and approachable, a tantalizing mix of strong, sexy but friendly. But in the moment, he only looked hungry. Dangerous almost. More like his cousin than himself. That bit of similarity stirred desire in the pit of her belly. It felt wrong, dark, a bad kind of desire, but it was there, and tonight it didn’t want to be shut out.

  “Carlos.” She thought he stood straighter at the sound of his name. And he definitely took a step closer. “Would you just…kiss me?”

  A beat passed in which she took a deep breath and held it. And then he reached up, slowly, as if afraid he’d startle her, and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. The pad of his thumb skimmed her cheekbone. His fingers threaded through her hair until he cradled the back of her head in his palm. She closed her eyes when he dipped down.

  The baby, she thought as his lips brushed against hers. Which spiked her guilt: she only seemed to think of the child growing inside her at her most fragile. No, she wanted to tell him. We shouldn’t. But her fingers landed on his chest, and then she splayed her hands wide, feeling the hardness of his pecs as she leaned in closer, opened her mouth against the pressure of his tongue. This is wrong. But they’d been here before. Before Sam had claimed her as his own, when a younger, skinnier, more awkward Carlos had gotten in her face and asked her if she understood just what the fuck she was doing chasing after Sam. Didn’t she know how dangerous that was? Didn’t she know other people cared about her?

  Other people meaning him: Carlos had always wanted her. He loved her. There was no one else in the world she could trust more with her baby.

  He backed her up against the door and his hand
slid down over her shoulder, her breast, landing on her hip. Their lips came apart with a wet smack. “I want you,” he was obviously done pretending he didn’t. “I’ll make you feel good. Promise.”

  Alma wet her lips. “I know.”

  “You sure about this?” He rested his forehead against hers, so all she saw were his deep chocolate eyes. “Cause…”

  He wasn’t sure he could stop once it heated up even further.

  She hooked her fingers into the waistband of his shorts. “I’m sure.”

  **

  To Carlos, she was the picture of perfection. He’d fantasized about her for years, and it had only intensified in the past weeks.

  Now she stood at the foot of his bed in nothing but her purple lace panties. Her skin was the color of fresh cream, her hair a deep, dark tangle over her shoulders that just brushed the tops of her full, round breasts. She had great tits, nice and high, her nipples peaked, chest heaving up and down with each deep breath she took. The baby hadn’t changed her shape yet; she was still all sleek curves and long limbs. A question burned in her eyes, silently asking if he approved, where they should go from here. She quivered head to toe.

  “Come here, baby.” And she did. He took hold of her hips and guided her down into his lap, her legs splitting on either side of his. He kissed her, pushed her lips apart with his tongue. In a matter of seconds, her hands were clasped together at the back of his neck and she was the one deepening the kiss. Their tongues danced.

  “Please,” she whispered as he trailed the kiss down her neck.