“Are you a runaway?”
The kid shook his head. “No.” The plaintive, almost desperate way he said no wrapped a web of pity around Cooper’s heart. Cooper took in the worn clothes and shoes and ratty backpack.
“Are you homeless?”
The kid swallowed and shifted his stance. He ran a hand over his face and sighed. “Yes, sir.”
Well, hell, what was he going to do with a homeless kid? There must be shelters, places a kid like him could go.
He wished Izzy were here. She always knew how to handle stuff and say the right things.
Only Izzy wasn’t speaking to him because he was an overbearing idiot of immense proportions. In fact, she hadn’t spoken to him since that fateful night, except when it applied to their mutual project, and his pride refused to beg her to take him back.
“Look, kid, I can’t have you stay here. It’s—it’s not legal.” Cooper patted himself on the back for coming up with such a logical reason.
“I don’t need a place to stay. I need your help.” Frustration laced his voice as if Cooper was missing the point, and he was.
“I’ll find you a place for the night. Let me make a few calls. That’s the most I can do.”
“She was right.” The kid’s shoulders slumped. His brave front crumbled, and his blue eyes filled with defeat and despair. Turning, he hoisted his bulging, beat-up backpack over one shoulder and started down Cooper’s front walk.
Cooper stood there, uncertain if he should let a juvenile leave without insisting he go to the proper authorities. Besides, it was getting dark, and they were a long way from any kind of shelter. The kid probably hadn’t eaten in hours. Come to think of it, neither had Cooper. He started after the boy.
The boy kept walking.
“Hey, wait. Who was right about me?”
“My mom. She said I couldn’t depend on you, any more than she could.” His eyes were filled with disappointment and accusation, the most emotion Cooper had seen from him all night.
“Mom? Do I know your mom?” Cooper quickly did the math. Surely, this couldn’t be his kid? “How old are you?”
“Fourteen.” Riley stood up straighter, his jaw jutting out, and his shoulders squared.
He’d had to have been eighteen when Riley was conceived. No, not possible. The one girlfriend he’d had at that age had never been pregnant as long as he’d known her. He blew out a relieved breath.
Riley stared at him, as if the answer to the question should be obvious, and Cooper had to be stupid not to see it. Cooper hated feeling stupid. Really hated it. He narrowed his eyes and wracked his brain, but couldn’t come up with one hint of how he might know this kid or his mother.
“You don’t get it, do you?”
Cooper shook his head, causing the shaggy mess to fall in his eyes. He swore to God the next free hour he had, he’d get his head shaved. He shoved it back from his face and waited.
“You think I’m your son?” The kid rolled his eyes, exasperated.
“No, but do you think you are?” Cooper asked. Yet, Riley looked like a younger version of Cooper, and that made his stomach hurt.
Riley shook his head, regarding Cooper as if he were too dense for words. “My mom is your sister.”
“My sister?”
“Yeah? Remember her?” Sarcasm-laced sadness filled his quiet voice.
Cooper remembered all too well, even though it’d been over a decade.
Riley watched the almighty Cooper Black with the growing dread he’d made a dumb mistake. He was all kinds of idiot to come here, but he’d been all kinds of desperate. Fuck, he still was.
Cooper didn’t want to help them, just like his mother had warned. The same mother who’d walked out the door of their ratty hotel room fourteen days ago and never come back. The fear and desperation almost strangled him.
His mom had been gone before, a few days at a time, but she’d always come back, full of bullshit apologies that meant nothing because her addiction meant everything, but Riley forgave her. She was his mother, and she was all he had. He didn’t know who his father was, and he didn’t think she did either.
Yet, there’d been moments when she’d gone clean, gotten a real job that didn’t involve selling herself, and they’d almost lived like real people, but those times didn’t last long.
Now Riley was scared, really scared, about what had happened to the only person in his life who cared about him and about what would happen to him. Shit, he’d have been better off continuing his search on his own. His uncle would probably have him locked up in some foster care place or God knows what. He’d never be able to find her if that happened.
Cooper watched him warily, standing on the balls of his feet, as if he expected Riley to bolt any minute, and he’d have to give chase. Riley fully intended on bolting, but his feet wouldn’t cooperate.
Finally Cooper seemed to find his voice. “Have you eaten?”
Riley’s stomach growled in response. “I’m fine,” he lied, and not very convincingly.
Cooper closed the few steps between them and wrapped strong fingers around his arm, reminding Riley that his uncle was supposed to be the fastest man on skates, at least in professional hockey. “Come in the house. My housekeeper made a stew in the crockpot.”
Riley resisted, but Cooper didn’t seem to give a shit. He hauled him into the house. Riley blinked a few times as he stood near the spacious, open kitchen that looked like it had survived from the set of a really old sitcom, the kind he and his mom used to watch on Nick at Night on the rare nights she hung out with him.