By the time I got to my room and transferred to my bed, everything ached, not just my body, but my soul, too. I hoped JaQuade would be the one doing the repairs. Maybe being around that kind of strength might help me find some of my own.
I didn’t go backto the shop right away. Instead, I parked a block down from the house I’d just visited and sat there deep in thought. I wasn’t even supposed to be at that house for real. I was only told to visit to keep busy, to “check in”, and record some paperwork. The project was already closed. Northside Rebuild had all of this year’s applicants locked in already.
“Damn.” I sat behind the wheel of my truck, turning through the pages of her application. Her name was typed clean across the top.
Noa Green
Age: 30
Diagnosis: Systemic Lupus Erythematosus.
I stared at that last line longer than I meant to. I didn’t know people with lupus could be wheelchair users. Then again, I didn’t really know a lot about lupus. She wasn’t the friendliest person in the world, but she was beautiful. Not that European standard bullshit either. Her skin was brown and soft-looking but unperfect at the same time. Her dark, almond-shaped eyes went perfectly with her cute, wide nose. Her short cut gave her a 90s fine I thought I’d never see in this day and age. Even in that chair, she had a presence and a glow. She knew she was beautiful.
Closing the manila folder and tossing it on the passenger seat of my whip, I peeled off slowly and headed back to the shop. My knuckles were tight around the wheel the whole drive with thoughts of her, like how she’d recognized me and called me out, right in the middle of her narrow-ass hallway. But she didn’t judge. She didn’t shade or clown me or ask, “What happened to you?” like a lot of others had. She just carried on with business, unfazed. I guess she’d seen worse.
By the time I pulled into the parking lot at the Northside Rebuild office, I was certain of what I was about to do. Noa needed this program, and I was going to make sure she got in. I hopped out of my car with her file in hand and booked it straight to Ronald’s office. I didn’t stop to nod at the crew or any of my usual bullshit. I had tunnel vision as I slipped into the side office where Ronald was hunched over a blueprint.
“You back already?” Ron looked up from the blueprint with a raised brow. I’d been gone less than an hour and a half. It didn’t take hours to walk around Noa’s house and see that it wasn’t fit for her.
“Yeah.” I dropped Noa’s file onto the desk. “And I want to pass her through.”
“Pass her through?”
“Yeah.”
Ron set his pen down slowly, like he already knew where this conversation was going.
“Can’t do it, man. Contracts already locked in. Funds too. Closest I can offer is top of the waitlist for next year.”
“That’s not good enough.” I opened the folder, spreading out the paperwork across his blueprints. “Look at this. She needs widened doors, lower cabinets, handrails, and that busted ramp outside rebuilt from scratch. Her house ain’t livable for a woman in her condition.”
“Quade…” Ron lifted a hand, trying to shut down my rant before I got going, but I cut him off. I wasn’t taking no for an answer.
“This program is about helping people, right? She needs the help.”
“I hear you, Quade. I do. But with the number of projects already in motion and the amount of work she needs, we’d be lucky to cover half her repairs. The grant money’s stretched thin this year. There just isn’t enough left in the budget.”
I sighed as I stared down at her file. My eyes locked on a picture of her. I didn’t know why, but something in me pained at the thought of letting her down.
“What if I cover the difference? Whatever the program can’t cover out of pocket. Would that be enough to fit her in?”
Ron blinked. “You serious?”
“Dead ass.”
“Quade,” he said, slower this time, sitting back in his chair. “Just off what you reported, we’re talking thousands of dollars in labor, materials, and permits. You ain’t even got your own place yet, and you’re talking about dropping stacks on somebody you don’t know?”
“I don’t have to know her to see that she needs help and want to actually help,” I snapped. “I’m tellin’ you, Ron, she’s not gonna be able to get the repairs if we don’t step in… If she couldafford it, she’d have done it already. Whatever it takes. I’ll do the labor myself if I have to.”
“I get it, man. It’s hard to turn people away. It used to keep me up at night, too. But we got rules for a reason.” He shook his head slowly as he let the bullshit spew from his mouth. I knew how this worked. It was his company, and he could bend the rules if he wanted to, the same way he’d done for my sister when he’d made repairs on her home. He just had to want to.
“You can make exceptions, though. Isn’t that what you did for Jess?”
He looked at me hard. I’d called him out.
“Why do you care so much?”
I honestly couldn’t even give him an answer, because I didn’t have it yet myself. It could be the way she looked at me, how she didn’t pull back when she found out who I used to be. She didn’t see a washed-up rapper. She saw a man in work boots, ready to help, maybe even one she could trust, and something inside me was aching to be that man.
