“Were they like Dad’s parents? Is that why?”
“Uh—”
“Jace’s parents were pieces of shit,” I explained. “Beating, neglect, going hungry, all that.”
“Oh...that explains a lot,” Levi said with a frown as he fidgeted with the wrapped silverware in front of him. “No, for a while, all I had was my mom. And she had to work very hard to take care of us. So it was either spend a lot of time at home or be somewhere else. My mom was...overjoyed when she realized I’d made a friend, and after she met your family, she was even happier when I started spending time with them rather than at home.”
I smiled at the memory of Levi’s Mom meeting the whole crew for the first time. She had tried her best not to be taken aback by the hotel when she’d first come in, but she hadn’t succeeded all that well. It hadn’t helped when she went to the private dining room we used for family meals, but it had quickly eased when all of us began to show up.
Matty dragged Marcus in while they tried to wrangle all the kids to the table, where they probably hoped everyone would be on their best behavior. It was pointless, but she had tried her best. Levi’s Mom, however, had watched the entire circus with wide, curious eyes. That was all she had needed to see that large family in a hotel or not, we were a normal family overall.
That dinner had been all it took to get Levi’s Mom to be more than happy to let Levi come and stay with us whenever she wasn’t home. It was a great relief for her, not just because Levi always struggled to make friends, but because she’d worried about him, his safety, and what he was doing with his time.
“My mom actually used to work at this place,” Levi said, looking around. I wasn’t surprised to see a shadow creep over his features as he frowned. “I’m surprised it’s still standing, actually.”
It had been the place that had claimed his mother’s life. The shitty owner and his buddy in the government had helped to keep the place open and a death trap for far longer than it should have. Levi had been...well, saying he’d been devastated by her death was an understatement. I remembered how furious and wounded he’d been, furious that her death had been preventable, and wounded beyond words that he’d lost the one parent he had known and trusted his entire life. Sure, he’d had us, but that wasn’t the same as the person who had birthed him, raised him, and loved him to that point...something I could understand completely.
His true anger stemmed from the fact that no legal action had been taken against the owner and his friend. I had never gotten the whole story, but if he could get away with keeping the place a total dump and a hazard to life and limb, I suppose he could avoid legal trouble. As far as I knew, at the time, the worst he had suffered was a fine that had probably hurt, but was nothing compared to the life of a wonderful, loving, and amazing human being who left her son behind.
“Why?” Micah asked. “Is it that old?”
“No,” Levi said, frowning at the back window. “It was...poorly run. This place was far too dangerous to open, and it...well, this is where my mother died.”
“Oh,” Micah’s eyes went wide, and for a moment, I felt a twinge of concern. I loved the kid to death, but lately he had taken his ‘speak whatever is on my mind’ tendency from childhood and cranked it up to max ever since puberty had started flowing its insidious way through his system. “I’m sorry, why would you come here then?”
“I...came to see what had taken its place,” Levi said with a scowl. “I never expected that it would stand so long. Truth be told, I hoped to piss on the ashes...metaphorically speaking.”
“Literal wasn’t good enough?” Micah asked, and I watched as Levi’s scowl softened, his lips twitching.
“I suppose that would have been enjoyable as well,” Levi admitted.
“Well, the current owners run a pretty tight ship from what I’ve heard,” I said with a shrug. “They heard what happened with the last owner, and wanted to shake off the old image and bring in something...better. I mean, it’s still a greasy spoon, but considering it was also once a giant death trap, I guess that’s an improvement.”
Micah cocked his head. “What happened with the old owner? Prison?”
I shook my head .”Honestly, I don’t know. When I saw this place still standing years ago, I came in to see if that asshole was still running it like it was a Saw trap waiting to happen, but found new staff, renovations, and new owners. I talked to one of the servers at the time, Wanda?—”:
“She still works here?” Levi asked with wide eyes.
“Now and then,” I told him with a smile. “She’s not as quick as she used to be, but that’s what happens when you’re over eighty. She remembers you by the way.”
“She remembers my mom.”
“And you. And she was the one who told me everything I know now.”
“Of course she did, that woman always picked up the latest gossip and gave it to the people she trusted...which included me when I was eight for some reason.”
“Well, she probably just liked you.”
“Perhaps.”
“It’s nice to see that she’s still around and kicking. Although I think she could have found a better place to work.”
Micah frowned. “So the old owner just...ran off? Caused a bunch of problems and disappeared? That’s ridiculous, where were the cops?”
“Letting him get away with it,” Levi told him, his dark mood returning. “He had connections, and he was able to talk his way out of trouble on a technicality that shouldn’t have existed.”
“So he gets off and runs off?” Micah asked with a scowl. “That’s stupid.”
