Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 90098 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90098 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
He showed me the picture, and I wasn’t sure what I’d expected to see, but it wasn’t that. I mean, I could see the kid was older than what he came off as, standing there next to Ben with a big grin, both wearing matching Bulls tees. Alvin was significantly shorter than his old man, though I could clearly see the resemblance. Alvin’s features were just…softer and way, way younger. He wore glasses too.
“That was last year,” Ben said.
I lifted my brows. Okay, damn. I would’ve guessed thirteen or fourteen, maybe.
He pocketed the photo and his wallet again, and I didn’t know how to ask. ’Cause I knew shit like this was always sensitive. Tina and Scottie—one of their daughters had bipolar, and that whole world had its own language. I didn’t wanna offend anyone by putting my foot in my mouth, but in the end, I also wanted to understand.
After putting a lid on the wings and lowering the heat, I straightened and rubbed the back of my neck. “So, I don’t know if I’m using the right terms, but brain damage can stunt growth, or what?”
“It depends on the damage, but yes.” He nodded. “Now, Lindsey was very short, and her DNA is in there too. I don’t know where that ends and the birth defects begin, but it has to do with the regulation of the growth hormone.” He scratched his jaw and looked like he was trying to remember something. “Sometimes, I wish Lindsey were still with us—for other reasons than she was simply a great mother to Alvin. But all these diagnoses… Whoosh.” He made a gesture, how things went in one ear and out the other.
It made me smile.
He didn’t sound like a shitty dad to me. He wanted to protect his son from thinking there was something wrong with the way he was, and I told Ben as much.
He shrugged a little and picked up his pop again. “I do what I can, but the wrong parent got leukemia.”
I winced.
Fuck.
The way he said that—he really meant it.
I swallowed a bout of discomfort that was stuck in my throat, and I stirred the soup.
What a fucking idiot I’d been for even thinking about banging one out with this man. It was laughable. Hookups had to be the last thing on his mind.
“Did I quench your curiosity this time?”
I glanced over at him, finding him smiling faintly.
Funny, I didn’t feel like smiling at all.
“No. I have more questions. Sorry.”
He snorted softly and leaned back against the counter. “Figures.” He watched me put the cheesy bread into the pan with the wings. “Interesting reheating technique.”
“Trust,” I said. I knew what I was doing. I had half a stick of butter in there too. I’d take the bread out when it was soft and warm, and then I’d sear the wings for a minute or so. Perfection every time. “So where’s Alvin now?”
He paused, about to take a swig of his drink. “With my mother.”
Oh.
Let me guess, out in Elmwood Park.
“And you can’t stay with them,” I said. I didn’t wanna ask or assume. People’s living situations… They all had their reasons for why they could or couldn’t take someone in.
Ben shook his head and drank from his pop. “If you don’t mind, I’ll save that story for another day.”
Oh, but I did fucking mind, and it was starting to frustrate the shit out of me. Why did I care so much about this dude?
“Another day sounds good.” Technically not a lie, because I was holding on to the another-day part.
Chances were, he wanted to create better living arrangements for himself and his son, maybe his mother too, and he needed a job for that. So maybe he’d be interested in staying here. He could look for jobs, knowing he had a bed to come back to at the end of the day, and when we were ready to hire, he could work here.
“What about you?” he asked. “What’s your life story?”
Yeah, we weren’t going there.
“I don’t have one.”
“Everyone has a story, Trace.”
Mine was classified.
Perhaps that was a stretch. I didn’t have much of a story, but I had two years of my life that still haunted me. That was enough.
I could easily gloss over that time in my life, though.
“Your whole family must have an interesting story,” Ben noted. “According to your sign outside, you opened in the late 1800s.”
I inclined my head and grabbed two bowls to pour the soup. “We managed to document that story pretty well,” I conceded. “My ancestor’s family scraped together enough money that he could leave Ireland during the famine. He got settled in Chicago and worked at a lumberyard to send money home. Some of them eventually followed, but I’m sure a smart cookie like you can guess what happened next.”