The Offer (8 page)

Just before
I’m about to knock on the door, it opens and Stephanie is staring
at me with a suspicious twist to her lips.

“What are you
doing here?” she asks, blocking the door.

“What are you,
her guard dog?”

“Well, I am a
bitch sometimes,” she says. “Woof, woof.”

“Can I come
in?”

She shakes her
head, her skull earrings rattling. “Why?”

“I want to
know if they’re okay.”

A line slowly
forms between her brows. “They’re going to be okay,” she says in a
drawn-out tone. “Sorry, Bram, not used to you caring about
people.”

I guess I
deserved that. “Can I talk to Nicola? Alone?”

Steph
flinches. “What?”

I look over
her shoulder and see Nicola appear just beyond the door. She looks
like shit. Her hair is greasy and pulled back, her face sallow, her
eyes puffy and red. Other than sad, though, I can’t really read her
face and tell if she’s happy to see me, or pissed off, or
indifferent. I’m betting it’s the latter.

“Hey,” I say
to her. “I just wanted to check up on you. You never called,” I
add.

Steph looks
between the two of us. “He gave you his number?”

“Business
card, actually,” Nicola says wryly.

Steph folds
her arms across her chest and I try my damndest not to stare at her
cleavage. Damn, Linden is a lucky guy. Good thing I think of her
more as the mother type. “What did I tell you?” Steph whispers
harshly to her.

I raise
a brow. “What
did
you tell
her?”

“Never mind,”
she says quickly, fixing her eyes back on me. She’s like mother hen
with teeth in that beak. “I’m watching you,” she says to me.

I raise my
arms out to the side. “Watch all you want, babe, I’m used to
it.”

Nicola gives
out a small sigh of resignation. “It’s fine. Bram, you can come in.
Just be quiet, Ava’s sleeping.”

Victory. I
step inside and take a quick intake of my surroundings. It looks
like some trendy grandmother’s cottage in here. The type who puts
ruffles and doilies on everything but also listens to the Rolling
Stones on vinyl to remember the days when she’d get so bloody
high.

Nicola walks
over to her tiny kitchen, which is cluttered with bright cups and
plates. “Want coffee? Or tea?”

Do I admit I
drink tea over coffee? Hell. “I’d love a cup of tea, please. Do you
have orange pekoe or Earl gray? With cream?”

I can’t see
her face but I know she’s not looking too impressed. “I have
chai.”

“That’s fine,”
I say, aware that Stephanie is staring at me. “What?” I say to
her.

She just
narrows her eyes, points her finger at me as if she’s about to say
something, then picks up her purse. “Okay, Nic,” she calls to her.
“I’m going to go. Call me later, okay? Please?” Now I’m not sure if
that please is because of Ava’s situation or the fact that I’m
here.

“I will,”
Nicola says. “Thanks for everything.”

“Love ya!” And
then Steph is out the door and I’m alone with Nicola.

It’s suddenly
very awkward. While the kettle is boiling, I sit down on her sofa.
It’s like sinking into a marshmallow. I’m afraid I won’t be able to
get up.

She’s not
talking, so I attempt to fill in the gaps.

“Nice
apartment,” I comment.

“Thanks,” she
says, still puttering around in the kitchen.

“Did you
inherit all your furniture from your grandmum or something?”

She shoots me
a killer look over her shoulder. “It’s from Anthropologie.”

I shrug and
run my hands over the couch cushions. I can feel all the rough
threads where she tried to sew together any rips and tears. I don’t
think she’s hanging onto it out of love, but out of necessity.

“How’s your
little one?” I ask.

She doesn’t
say anything for a moment. Her voice turns quiet. “I think I’m
having a harder time than she is.”

I hear her
pour the water and the clank of a spoon against porcelain and she
comes over, placing a cup of tea on the coffee table in front of
me, making sure to use a coaster. It’s black.

“Sorry,” she
says, cradling her own cup of tea and sitting at the opposite end
of the sofa, legs curled up, as far away from me as possible. “I
don’t have any milk in the house. I’m lactose intolerant.”

Though she’s
curled in the corner, she doesn’t look all that comfortable. Her
head is up high, chin out and her mouth is set in a firm line. I
can’t read her eyes at all, so I stop trying.

“Did you get
the medicine okay?” I ask.

She nods and
takes a sip. “Thanks to Steph’s insistence on paying, yes. The
doctor at the hospital gave me a month’s supply of insulin, but
Steph paid for everything else. The pharmacist at Target gave us
both a crash course on injecting Ava again, so I don’t have to go
and pay for my doctor either.” She exhales heavily. “I really
needed that reminder. Last night just seemed like a horrible
nightmare.” She looks at me and maybe I see her face softening.
“Thanks again for driving me around. I kind of ruined everyone’s
night.”

“Shit
happens,” I tell her with a wave of my hand. “It’s no big
deal.”

“I bet your
girlfriend was upset.”

“Aye,” I nod.
“But she’s not my girlfriend. Especially not now.” I don’t say
anything else.

“So, what did
you want me to talk to you about?” she says, sounding tired. I
realize talking to me is probably the last thing she wants to
do.

“You look like
you need a nap,” I tell her. Her eyes look sad and I realize it’s a
jerk thing for me to say. No one wants to hear they look tired. “I
mean, you’re still pretty hot but you look tired as hell.” And now
I’m just making it worse.

“I don’t dare
sleep,” she says. She seems to shrink down before my eyes. “Not
now, not when something can happen to her.”

“You could,” I
say. “Right now. Just have a nap. I’ll stay here. I’ll be up, make
sure that everything’s okay.”

She looks at
me like I’m crazy. Maybe I am. I have no idea why I just
volunteered to do that – maybe because it’s the right thing to do –
but it makes me sound like the world’s biggest creeper.

“No thanks,”
she says, looking a wee bit disgusted. “So.” She sounds impatient
now. “What is it that you want from me, Bram?”

I lean forward
on my elbows and twirl the watch on my wrist over and over
again.

“I have a
proposition for you.”

She watches me
for so long I have to look up. She doesn’t look curious, she looks
worried.

“Is this going
to be like ‘Indecent Proposal?’” she asks. “Because Robert Redford
loses at the end.”

“A) I’m
surprised you’re old enough to remember that movie,” I say. “And B)
no, it’s nothing like that. I know my reputation precedes me –”

“That is
does.” She takes a quick sip of her tea.

“But, this
offer is coming from a good place. An honest place.” I pause. “I
think you should move in with me.”

She nearly
drops her mug.

For my first
week of age twenty-nine and second week of being a small business
owner, I wonder if I’ve ruined one of the best friendships I’ve
ever had.

No, not
me and James, even though he would be the cause.
Did I just hear him right? My hand starts
to shake and I put the mug of hot tea down before I scald
myself.

“I’m sorry,
what?” I ask Bram, bewildered. “Did you just ask me to move in with
you?”

He gives me a
placating smile. “Not exactly. What I mean is, the apartment next
to mine is vacant. The tenant moved out at the start of the month.
I think you should take it. You can live there rent free, just
until you get a good job and your feet back on the ground. What do
you say?”

What do I say?
I have no fucking idea. Why on earth would Bram McGregor offer me a
place to live for free? It doesn’t make any damn sense and I don’t
want any part of it.

“You can think
about it…” he goes on.

“No,” I say
and he looks shocked. “Sorry, but…no. Move into your empty
apartment? Why? Why would you do that? Why not rent it out for
thousands of dollars a month, which is what I’m sure the rent
is.”

“But I don’t
want the rent to be that high,” he says.

“It doesn’t
matter what you want,” I tell him. “You have a mortgage on that
place and I know it costs a pretty penny.” And it doesn’t really
jive with everything I’ve known about Bram. He’s grown up with
money. He spends it like a gambler who thinks he has nothing to
lose. Everything about Bram screams, “I’m here to make money and
spend money!” Letting Ava and I live in his complex for free would
completely mess up those plans.

It doesn’t
make any sense and I sure as hell don’t like it.

“You let me
worry about matters of money,” he says, rolling up the sleeves of
his dress shirt. I notice his perpetual tan, his skin a nice honey
bronze that I don’t think is fake and makes me wonder where on
earth he’s gotten color like that. His forearms are large, muscular
and toned. Forearms are my weakness. As are hands. He’s got good
hands too, big and strong.

He catches me
staring and smiles, just a little. “Please, this isn’t anything
weird.”

“Like hell it
isn’t.” I scoff, tearing my eyes away. “This is an insanely
generous offer and I have a hard time believing you aren’t coming
from a despicable place.”

He flinches.
“Wow. Just how poorly do you think of me?”

“I don’t think
of you at all,” I fire back.

He mouths,
“Ouch.” For a moment I feel bad but then I remember him pulling
that chick into the bushes and how humiliated I felt, and I don’t
feel so bad anymore.

“What do you
want, really?” I ask him. “Just be honest.”

He throws his
hands up. “I am being honest. I want to help you and your little
one. Sometimes people do things because they can help and because
they want to.”

I ain’t buying
it. My eyes narrow at him. “What do you want in exchange?”

“Nothing,” he
says, sounding strangely sincere.

“Right. As if
I’m not supposed to be your sex slave or something and, like, suck
you off anytime you want. Nothing is for free.” Boy did I know
that.

He grins.
“Sweetheart, you wouldn’t know what to do with my dick even if you
tried.”

“I most
certainly would!” I blurt out, unable to help myself. I regret my
words immediately.

There’s one
hell of a long, mortifying second as he slowly raises his dark
brow, a twinkle in his eye. “Oh really?” he muses, smile dancing on
his lips.

Shit.

I cross my
arms. “You know what I mean.”

“Not really.
But you could show me.”

“You aren’t
selling me on this at all, you know.”

He rolls his
eyes and gets up. In another lifetime, a naïve one full of
meaningless sex and yellow-brick roads, I would have been
completely enamored with how damn handsome this man is. Because,
really, he is. But in this lifetime, the short stick I’ve been
handed (I haven’t had a long stick in a long time, if you know what
I mean), his good looks and hot bod and slick suits mean nothing to
me.

“Look,” he
says. “I’ll be honest with you. I’m not just trying to be a nice
guy.”

And the truth
comes out. I breathe a sigh of relief that we’re finally getting
somewhere.

“If I take in
a low-income resident,” he explains, “someone who can’t find
affordable housing in the city, then I get a big tax break from the
government.”

“Well, why
didn’t you just tell me that to begin with?”

He gives me a
lazy shrug. “Thought I could earn some extra brownie points with
you.”

“And why would
you want to do that?”

“I don’t want
to live next door to a bitch, I guess.”

I actually
laugh at that. “Fair enough.”

He sticks his
hands in his pockets and peers down at me. “So, what do you say? Do
you think you and Ava will be comfortable in a nice building, south
of Market? Rent free, take the time to get a job, get a handle on
things?”

It sounds too
good to be true. I hesitate.

“Can I think
about it?”

“Of course,”
he says. He looks at his watch. “I better be on my way. You do have
my card right? You didn’t spit on it and throw it out?”

“I still have
it.”

“Good. Because
if I don’t hear from you over the next few days, I will have to
find someone else. I don’t want to have to show up here unannounced
again. And I’m guessing you’re not about to give me your phone
number either.”

“I’ll call
you,” I tell him and this time I know I will.

I just don’t
know what I’m going to say.

***

After Bram
leaves, I take my time to think about it. Actually, I don’t take
that much time at all. Ava wakes up from her nap and though she’s
lively and happy as ever – as if last night never even happened –
she also asks if she’ll have to get the needle tomorrow. I can’t
lie to her. I tell her the needle has medicine that will keep her
strong and healthy, so she can turn into a big girl. She seems to
understand but…it’s still something I can’t wrap my head
around.

Giving her the
injection earlier was also a challenge and if Steph wasn’t with me,
I don’t think I could have done it. It doesn’t seem right putting
your child in pain, even though it’s the only way from now on, even
if it’s what will help her in the end.

But as proud
as I am, as much as I want to turn down Bram’s offer, I honestly
can’t. For Ava’s sake, I can’t. My pride must be swallowed if she’s
going to have a shot at life. Living rent-free would save me $1000
a month. If I put that money into food and medicine, we could get
by. It wouldn’t be fun, but I could do it. And that’s before I even
get a job. I know I can’t afford to be too picky about that either,
but I decided to give it another week just to see if I really can
shoot for something that pays well and in my field. It’s a
longshot, but I have to try.