She was going to kick him in the shin. Hard. “I didn’t know anybody when I moved here. I do now, so if I decide to buy a couch I don’t want or need, I’ll call a friend to help me carry it up.”
“I want you to move out of here and live in the apartment across from mine.”
Whoa. One hell of an ambush before coffee. “Sure, because you just hand out empty apartments at random.”
“You’re not random. There are apartments over Jasper’s. Paulie lives in the big one on the second floor. I’ve got one of the two on the third floor. The other one’s empty. And furnished, so all you need is clothes and food.”
“I can’t do that.” She shoved her hair back away from her face. “I can’t just move into your building, Kevin.”
“Why not?”
That stumped her for a few seconds. Because…she just couldn’t. There was Kevin across the hall, for one thing. It was bad enough her new pregnancy hormones seemed to be causing some pretty steamy dreams. Seeing him every day?
Even thinking straight was beyond her right now. She was supposed to be saving her money for a bus ticket and a new start, not diapers and a minivan. Not thinking about moving into a fully furnished apartment that could end up being a home. Home meant building relationships with people who would want to know where she was and what she was doing. Home meant hovering.
Albuquerque. That was the dot on the map her eye kept landing on.
She could still go. There was time to escape the New England winter and start a new life before she even started showing. Sure, it was harder for a pregnant woman to find work, but she’d manage.
But even as a part of her was mentally leaving town, another part of her recognized those days were over. And the man standing in front of her was a big reason why. The only way she could have disappeared would have been not to tell him and she couldn’t live with that. So now she was stuck.
She jumped when Leo jerked open the door and waved a discolored cotton swab in Kevin’s direction. “We got lead paint.”
Her stomach dropped. Lead paint? Weren’t there laws governing that sort of thing in apartment houses?
But that probably required somebody to report it and the people who rented apartments there were people who didn’t have a lot of residential choices. But lead paint…that was so dangerous for the baby.
“Jesus, it’s cold out here,” Leo said. “And whose cat’s pissing in the hallway? This place should be condemned.”
He closed the door on them and Beth would have laughed if there wasn’t a hot ball of shame in the pit of her stomach. The Kowalskis were one of those perfect Cleaver family types and they probably didn’t get she lived there by choice, not necessity.
Sure, it was a shithole, but it was her shithole.
“I’m sorry about him,” Kevin said. “He’s not trying to be offensive. He’s just…honest. This is no place for you, Beth. I can borrow my brother’s truck and we could have you moved today.”
Tears of frustration shimmered in her eyes and she blinked them back. It was too much, too fast. He was bulldozing right over her. But to knowingly spend another night in an environment that was toxic to the speck of baby she was carrying? “How much is the rent?”
“We can worry about that later.”
“No. We can’t.”
“Fine.” He gave her an amount that was less than what she was paying and she shook her head. “Beth, come on. You get the mother of my child discount. You know I wouldn’t charge you any rent at all if I thought you’d let me get away with it.”
“I don’t sign long-term leases. I only rent month to month.”
“I can live with that.”
She wasn’t sure she could, but she didn’t have a choice. “Okay, but only because of the lead paint.”
His grin lit up his face, making her feel warm despite the temperature in the hall. “You might wanna get dressed then because I’m about to unleash my mother and she’ll have anything not on your body packed before I get back with the truck.”
***
He was almost right. There were still a few things left to pack by the time Kevin got back to her building with Mike’s truck. Most of it was packed in garbage bags. No points for style. They just wanted Beth out of there.
So that’s what they’d done, so efficiently that his parents were gone by suppertime. He’d worry about trading vehicles back with Mike later. Beth still had a few odds and ends left to unpack but she was more or less home. And judging by the sigh of contentment as she sank onto the cushions, she really liked the couch.
“I have to call the utility companies,” she said. “And the phone company. But I’m not going to worry about it right now.”
“Oh, the phone. There’s one here. An unlisted number and we mostly just had it so whoever was staying here could use it. Mike and Joe and the rest of them have cellphones, but not Pop. If you want you can just give that number out to your job or whoever instead of trying to get yours switched over.”
She started to speak, but he held up his hand. “And every month I’ll bring the bill over and you can write me a check.”
“Promise?”