“Fire department!” The two words came in one big burst of sound, accompanied by another quick round of pounding on the door.
Fire? She scooped up Ian up, still in his blanket, and carried him to the living room. There, she could see the pulse of red lights and she could hear the rumbling of engines. She opened the door just as the firefighter was about to knock again.
“What’s happening?”
“Gas leak in the next duplex over. We’re temporarily evacuating until the line gets shut down for repairs. Shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours.”
“Oh, okay.”
Great. She slipped on the flip-flops she kept by the front door and carried Ian outside. The firefighter directed her to a spot down the street where she could see other residents huddled together. At least it’s summer and not raining.
“Mickie,” a voice called from the side of the street.
She turned toward the voice. Josh. He was sitting cross-legged in the grass, looking as cute as ever. Even relaxed on the grass, those shoulders—damn. She walked over, said hey and tried to ease herself down near him, but ended up losing her balance and falling flat on her ass. Ouch! At least she cushioned the plop down for Ian, who was still asleep in her arms. Not an easy armful. Ian was getting bigger every day and hauling him around wasn’t easy. He’d stirred as her butt hit the ground, but thankfully it wasn’t too much.
“Shhh. Go to sleep. It’s okay,” she murmured to him as she rocked him in her arms.
“Nice night to get kicked out of bed, huh?” Josh asked. His hair was a bit messy, but in a sexy way, like he’d just been stirred out of a nap on the sofa. She imagined... Wait, no!
“Ugh. Tomorrow morning is not going to be pretty,” she said. She was already imagining all the things she had to do tomorrow and how much more pleasant they’d be without any sleep. “Do they have any idea how long it’s going to take?”
“Someone from the Red Cross just got here. Said they have emergency shelter for people with no place to go.”
“Is it going to be that long? Where is it?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t ask. If it’s more than an hour, I’ll call DeShawn, go to his place.”
“Oh.”
“You have some place to go? To take the kiddo?”
She shook her head, pressing her lips together. Awesome. Another thing she’d never thought of. What to do in an emergency. She could barely take care of them when everything was going perfectly. She shifted Ian in her arms and fussed with his blanket. When the fear and the shame hit, it was like a slow trickle of cold in her gut, dead center, that spread outward and upward, all through her. She hated not knowing what to do next. Because she was supposed to know. She was the mom. And, yet, here we are. Don’t cry. Do not cry in front of him. Whether she meant Josh or Ian, she wasn’t sure.
She blew a breath out. There was a throb in her temple now. If she wasn’t careful, she’d end up with a whopper of a headache on top of it all. That’s help. That’d just be the icing on the cake.
“Hey. You okay?” Josh asked. “You want me to get the Red Cross guy so you can talk to him?”
His voice, warm and low, full of concern, should have comforted her. Really, it should have. But it only made her feel worse. Because she was the worst mother on the planet. What would happen? What if the apartment burned down? What if there was a flood? Or a tornado? What if she got sick? What would happen to Ian? How would she take care of him? It struck her, all at once, just how precarious this plan of hers was. Make it to the start of nursing school, power through, come through the other side financially solid. Who actually thought that was going to work? And the thing was, she hadn’t just put herself in this position, she’d put her son in this position, and that was indefensible.
She turned her face away from Josh, curling forward to rest her cheek on the top of Ian’s head. There were bad thoughts piling up in her head and she knew—she knew—that she had to let that bad talk fall away. She couldn’t let that plow her under, that big mudslide of bad. “No. I’ll talk to him if it’s going to take much longer.”
Take care of the immediate problem. The one that’s right in front of you. Okay, great plan. How, exactly?
“I’m sure DeShawn would make room for all of us,” Josh said. “If it came to that.”
A small shuddering laugh escaped her lips. Oh, God. Not just alone with Josh. Alone with Josh and his buddy? No. Just, no. She hugged Ian against her. “We’ll be okay.”
This is where you are. On the street with a stranger offering to take you and your son to an even stranger stranger’s house. Giving in to the heavy weight of guilt and shame, her constant companions these days, her shoulders slumped. Looking at the ground beside her to make sure there were no fire-ant mounds there before running her hand across it, she gently lowered Ian to the grass and took a moment to make sure he was covered with the blanket because she could feel Josh’s gaze on her back. She shook out her aching arms. He’s getting so big.
“Can I ask you something?”
She bit back the profane remark that rose to the tip of her tongue. She was too tired for this. He’s a nice guy. Don’t take it out on him. “You can ask.”
“I saw you going to the Laundromat the other day,” he said, instantly horrifying her in fifty thousand different ways by this observation. Then he doubled down by adding, “Please use my washer and dryer. It’s right there. I barely use it. If you want, just let me know when you need it and I’ll leave the back door unlocked so you can come and go while I’m out working.”
The thing about it was...he looked so innocent and guileless when he said it. Just sitting there on the grass, like it wasn’t a thing, waiting for a response.
“What does it matter to you?” she said, brushing a loose strand of hair away from her eyes. She started playing with her whole mess of hair, wishing she’d grabbed a scrunchie on her way out the door. They were everywhere in her apartment: on the dresser, on the sink, on the floor, behind the sofa. Every time she cleaned, she’d find at least half a dozen and have no idea how they got where she found them.
He huffed out a burst of air in such obvious exasperation that she looked over at him. He was grinning at her. “You don’t know this,” he said, “but you are so like my boss, Sadie, that it isn’t even funny.”
She glared at him, glad for the spark of anger that burned out her feelings of failure. “And what is that supposed to mean?”
He held up a hand and began ticking off fingers, one by one. “Stubborn, mule-headed, prideful, wouldn’t ask for a glass of water if she was on fire. Should I continue?”
“Why not?” she said. “You still have a thumb to use.” But she turned away before he could finish, making sure to flounce her hair. She turned back to him and scrunched up her nose. “You act like those are bad things.”
“No, not bad,” he said. “Just unnecessary at times. Why are you dragging yourself and Ian to the Laundromat a couple of times a week, in this heat, spending the money when you can walk next door and do it for free?”
“Because nothing is for free, Josh. You know that.”
That made him shut up. After a few minutes, a firefighter made his way down to the small crowd. “Okay, everyone can return to their homes. The leak is secured. The gas is off until the repairs can be made but the property owners told me that only the heat is gas-powered so you shouldn’t be impacted at all.”
“Other than dragging us out into the street in the middle of the night,” Mickie grumbled.