“The who?”
“Not into sports,” she laughs. “Got it. They’re the local baseball team. My dad never missed a game. All I’m trying to say is, if you need someone to talk to, I can do that. Or not.”
My lip twitches. It’s been a long time since I’ve had friends. Lily has been getting closer to me. I’m good with that because Lily doesn’t ask questions. She works for Elegance, in turn, the MC but she isn’t a part of their world. Unlike Taylor.
I get the sense that she isn’t someone who would throw a person under the bus. There is something about her that makes me want to trust her, not enough to tell her anything deep. Her suggestion of small talk,or having a living breathing person in the space with me while Callum is gone might be nice.
“Do you work at the hospital?”
“No, a private clinic,” she ducks her head, like she’s sort of embarrassed by that. “I’m a diabetes nurse.”
“You still had to train like every other nurse,” I point out.
Taylor smiles at me, gratitude clear on her face.
“Does it bother you what people think?” I ask her.
“Not usually. It’s always a bit nerve-wracking telling new people though. Sometimes I am judged.”
“I don’t judge anyone by what they do. Look at what I do,” I roll my eyes. “I wouldn’t worry about what other people think. Until they’ve walked in your shoes, or even your patients shoes, they have no worthwhile opinion on the matter. Anything they have to say about it is their problem, not yours.”
“That’s true,” she smiles. “I’m going to use that line. People are far too quick to judge, I guess I’m sensitive.”
We make more small talk and then she asks if I want to talk about what happened at the club. I get the sense it’s not about getting intel for Nero, being comfortable with that is hard for me though, so I brush it off. I’m not sure Taylor believes me.
“Coming into this life,” she says, after we’ve finished our coffee and exhausted the conversation. “It’s a transition for sure. I never thought I’d fall for the leader of a motorcycle gang,” she laughs. “Sorry, that’s a joke Noah and I have. I kept calling the club a gang. Lucky for me he found it amusing.”
“He seems intense, from what I’ve seen. I haven’t talked to him.”
“He’s not so bad. He wants to protect his people, and it’s a lot on his shoulders so sometimes he can be a bit direct but his heart is in the right place. It’s been nice talking to you, Charley. I know it must feel weird having a stranger show up out of the blue, but thank you for the coffee. If you do need anything, I’m always around,” she takes a small pad out of her purse with a pen shoved into the wire rings then scribbles out a number. “If you need anything.”
I take it, grateful she didn’t ask for my number. Taylor is astute, she hasn’t pushed me and she can tell I’m not that comfortable with strangers. She made the effort and I am grateful for that.
She reiterates I can call anytime as I see her out and I close the door before she gets to her car.
I’m not one hundred percent capable of taking my own advice. What if she is judging me? What if she thinks I'm weird? Taylor is a good, decent person, she’s nothing like me.
Before I second guess myself, I put her number into my phone. I may never use it and can delete it if I move on from Baltimore. Picturing Callum’s face, I wonder if that is something I’m ever going to do.
Another night and day pass with no word or sign of Callum. He knows I’m in his house so hasn’t forgotten about me. I’m going stir crazy with how quiet it is here and even resorted to pulling up my fake social media profile so I can check on Stephen, Adeline and Blair, something I haven’t done in a long time.
There are continuous tribute posts to their mother, along with veiled, obscure comments about retribution, betrayal and cowardly behavior.
All aimed at me. Of course they don’t put it on social media but I know what they’re doing behind the scenes, it's partly why I ran and kept running.
It hurts to see my father in the photographs. He lost the life in his eyes after mom died. It felt like he was on autopilot and was glad when Helen came into his life and basically took it over. He didn’t have to think anymore because she took control over everything.
I lost both my parents the day he married her, and we moved into their huge house in Woodside.
I’m still not sure what she got out of the marriage. Not to be disparaging but we didn’t have anywhere near what they did. But what we did have, once upon a time, was love.
One thing that did come out near the end, and made a little more sense about why Helen did it, was that she went to the same middle school as my mom and they were enemies.
Could a grown woman want to get back at an old rival, who was already dead, by marrying their partner? And taking in her daughter and treating her like shit.
Not a normal one. Helen was not normal.
I hate this, sitting here alone in the silence is bringing back too many memories and giving into the temptation to check up on them is proofof that. It doesn’t look as if they’ve traced me here, so I shut the page and lock my phone.
