She shook her head. “You know, all you had to say was self-defence requires skills with different stages.”
I snorted. “Sorry. Forgot who I was talking to.”
Claude rolled her eyes. “I’m nine, you know. I ain’t five.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
She sighed. “What else do you have to do?”
“Well, I need to finish this.” I tapped the papers in front of me. “Then I was going to use the gym for an hour or so, have some lunch before my meeting with the community college, then run a session or two for any kids that turn up. That’s my plan for the day.”
“Hmm,” she hummed. “Sounds pretty boring.”
I laughed. “Well, if you’re not busy for the day, young lady, how about you just try keeping up?”
The little girl smiled. “Deal.”
And so I had got myself a shadow for the day. She helped me do some filing and tidying first off, then we did some restocking. I showed her where the supply closet was, where we stored all the cleaning products, paper towels and toilet paper. “We need to make sure everything is stocked at the beginning of every day, in both bathrooms,” I told her as I loaded up rolls of toilet paper in my arms.
She scrunched up her nose. “That’s kinda gross.”
I chuckled at her and handed her two rolls. “You can take those into the women’s bathroom,” I said, and loaded on two more rolls.
I stood outside the entrance door and waited.
“Just sit ’em on top?” she called out.
On top of what, I didn’t know. “Yep,” I answered anyway.
She came out empty handed so I presumed all had gone okay. I walked to the door of the men’s bathroom. “I won’t be a second.” I walked inside, put the toilet paper in the cubical stalls and was checking the paper hand towels when Claude walked in.
She leaned against the door, looked around the large room and folded her arms. “What the hell, man?”
“What the hell man, what?”
“Why’s this one three times the size of the women’s room?”
I laughed and clicked the hand towel dispenser back into place. “Well, it was originally a fight club, and there weren’t any women fighters back then.”
Claude put one hand on her hip and raised an eyebrow. “You know,” she said, pursing her lips. “We have equal rights now. It’s the twenty-first century.”
I grinned at her. “I heard that rumour, you know, about it being the twenty-first century and equal rights and all that.” I put my hand on her shoulder and turned her around. “Come on, you shouldn’t be in here. Out with you.”
We walked out and back across the gym floor, and Arizona smiled at us. “You got yourself a helper?”
“Yep. She’s just been lecturing me on equal rights.”
Arizona stifled a laugh. “Keep up the good work, Claude.”
I rolled my eyes at him and kept ushering the little girl towards my office. “Come on, squirt. Lunch time.”
When we walked back into my office, Claude went straight over to the small kitchenette. “I’ll just have another hot chocolate,” she said.
Of course she didn’t have any lunch with her. She came in here empty handed. It was hard seeing kids come in here, knowing they didn’t have a nice home or proper food. I took out my lunch container from the small fridge and put it in the middle of the table. “You should eat something,” I said simply.
“These hot chocolates are real good,” she said.
“So are the salads Kira makes,” I replied. “Fresh greens, peppers, cucumber, carrot. But you’re right. Hot chocolates probably are better.”
She eyed the container on the table, and I knew she wanted it. I wondered just how long it had been since she’d actually eaten anything fresh if a vegetable salad looked appetising to a nine-year-old kid. “You’re welcome to it.”
She came over to the table like she couldn’t have cared less and peered into the plastic container. She took it immediately, snatching the fork and speared some greens and peppers. I watched as she ate it, like she hadn’t eaten in days. If I was hungry before, I’d just lost my appetite.
I actually felt a little nauseated.
“Is there rice in this?” she asked with her mouth half full.
“Brown rice,” I corrected her. “Kira is a bit of health freak. Each meal should have the right portions of nutrients, vitamins, protein and fibre,” I said with a smile, almost as a joke. “He only eats healthy stuff.”
“It’s good,” she said while she chewed. She looked at the almost empty container and swallowed her mouthful. Reluctantly, she handed it back to me.
“It’s yours,” I told her. “Eat up. We’re in the gym next. You need your energy.”
“Is Kira your boyfriend?” she asked with her usual level of tact.
“Well, actually, he’s my fiancé now, but yes, my boyfriend too.”
She nodded and kept eating. She obviously knew, like most of the kids did, that my partner was a man.
“Does that bother you?”
She shrugged and speared the last of the salad with the fork. “Nuh.” And she kept on eating like I’d asked her if she was bothered by the colour of my shirt. “It’s the twenty-first century, remember?”
I laughed at that. I held out my fist which she bumped with hers, still holding the fork. “I like you, kid.”
She slid the empty container back onto the table. “Tell Kira I said thanks. It was real good.”
“Come on, time to hit the gym. You can go slow at first. We’ll be going for an hour, so pace yourself.”
“Why do you exercise so much?”
I quickly rinsed out the lunch container and wiped it down. “It’s good for your body. You have to look after your body. It’s the only one you’ve got.”
And that’s pretty much how the day went. I did an hour or so on the bike and treadmill, then practised jabs with Arizona, then Claude did too.
She had fun. Asked a hundred questions, and seemed to absorb everything she learned. She sat quietly through my meeting with the community college while I tried to garner as much information on free courses and things the local kids could get into. I explained our goals to help the kids learn and better themselves and I think I made a good contact.
Janelle, a middle-aged lady with purple hair, was impressed with my Narcotics Division background and my new direction of teaching kids about drugs and trying to better their lives. I asked if I could get a group of kids together, maybe we could visit the college and take a look around. Janelle thought that sounded great and she left with promises that she’d be in touch.
“That went well,” Claude said with an approving nod. “You really gonna take some kids up there?”
“Sure,” I said, putting away my folders and locking the cabinet. “Maybe Rueben would be interested?”
“Maybe.” She shrugged again.
I wondered where her older brother was. They were never too far apart. I’d asked once already today and she’d chosen not to answer, so I left it alone. But about half way through the defence class I ran for the kids in the afternoon, Rueben came in.
Without disrupting the class, I gave him a pointed nod towards the other kids, silently asking if he wanted to join in. He quickly got into formation with the others, picking a spot next to his sister and finished the class with her.
When the class wrapped up, Rueben gave his sister a bit of a hug. “Thought I might find you here,” he said to her.
“You took all day, Ruby,” she chided him. “I was here all day.”
Rueben scanned the room until he saw me. “She wasn’t too much trouble?”
“Not at all,” I said, walking over to them. “She was my little helper.”
The older boy, all of twelve or thirteen, looked at his little sister and smiled. “As long as you don’t get in his way.”
She rolled her eyes. “Matt said I was
helpful
, Ruby, not in his way.”
“Come on,” he said to her, putting his arm on her shoulder to lead her out through the doors. But then he stopped and turned back to me. “Thanks, Matt. I appreciate it.”
I checked my watch. “Kira will be here soon to pick me up,” I told them. “Do you guys need a lift home?”
“Nah, it’s cool,” Rueben said. “Thanks anyway.”
Then Claude frowned. “How come you don’t drive?”
“I do,” I answered. “Sometimes. If Kira’s working late, I’ll drive myself, but if he’s finishing work around the same time, he’ll swing past and pick me up. I’m not supposed to drive too much,” I admitted. “Doctor’s orders.”
“Because of your ear, right?” Claude asked.
“Because of the vertigo, yes.”
“That must suck.”
I smiled. “It does. But it could have been worse.”
“If you say so.”
I chuckled at her snarkiness. “Well, Claude, you did good for your first day on the job. Wasn’t too boring for ya?”
She shook her head. “Nah, it was fun.”
“Will I see you tomorrow, or are you going to school?”
She raised an eyebrow at me, like I had no right to ask.
I added, “You know, just so I know if Kira has to make two lunches instead of one.”
She tried not to smile. “Maybe.” And with that, she waved her hand, said, “See ya,” and she and her brother walked out the door.
I followed them out about ten seconds later, but when I looked up both sides of the street, they had already gone. I climbed into the waiting car and said hello to Kira.
“Good day?” he asked, probably curious about my smile as he pulled out into traffic.
“It was,” I said “Productive and kinda fun. I had a helper today.”
“A helper?”
“Claude. She was just hanging around so I told her she was my assistant for the day.” Then I added, “She loved your salad, by the way.”
“She ate your lunch?”
“Well, she didn’t have any,” I said. “Actually, by the way she scarfed down a vegetable salad, I don’t want to think about the last time she ate.”
“Matt…”
“What?” I asked. “She’s just a kid. I wasn’t just gonna eat in front of her.”
“I know, but you can’t start feeding the kids. If you do it for one, you should do it for all of them, and, Matt, that’s—”
“I know,” I said, cutting him off. “It’s not my responsibility. But it kind of is, Kira. Claude comes in and fills up on hot chocolates like it’s the only thing she’ll have all day and that’s hard to watch, ya know?”
Kira slid his hand over the console and took mine, giving my fingers a squeeze. “I know.”
“Anyway, I told her I’ll bring another salad for her lunch tomorrow if she turns up for work.” I could feel Kira’s eyes on me as he drove, and although I deliberately didn’t look at him, I squeezed his hand. “I know what you’re going to say, babe, and I get it, I do. But she’s just a kid.”
“They’re all just kids.”
I nodded. “I know. It harder than what I thought it would be,” I told him honestly. “For years when we encountered kids on the street, they were just nameless faces. Each of them was different and, sure, they each had a story to tell, and I guess we were kind of jaded as cops…”
“But they’re not nameless anymore?”
I looked at him then, and when his eyes left the traffic and found mine, I nodded. My voice was quiet. “No, they’re not.”
“Matt, you’re doing a good job,” he said reassuringly. “You knew there’d be issues you’d have to deal with.”
I exhaled loudly. “I know, I know.” I tried to shake it off. “How was your day? Tell anyone you’re a spoken-for man?”
“I’ve been a spoken-for man for a year and a half, thank you very much,” he said with a smirk. “Did I tell anyone we got engaged? Yes.”
I smiled automatically. “Who?”
“Chris,” he said. “Being my boss, I figured I should tell him first. Then Abby and Jeff, the other trainers that were on today.”
“Any clients?” I asked, wondering if any of my old workmates knew.
“Thought I’d leave those honours to you. Mitch isn’t back yet.”
“No, he has another week on his honeymoon.”
“And Anna will kill you if you call him,” Kira said with a half-grin. “For anything.”
I laughed. “She might have told me that.”
“She
did
tell me that.”
I snorted out a laugh. “I have to tell him first, out of all the guys. Oh, but I told Arizona, but he one-bettered me.”
Kira looked at me and smiled. “What’d he do?”
“He and Lashona are having another baby.” I shook my head. “You should have seen him. He was still grinning when I left.”
We pulled up at the house, grabbed our gym bags from the back seat and went inside. “What did you want to do for dinner?”
“You haven’t eaten all day, have you?”
“Not since breakfast.”
“Oh, Matt.”
I pulled a pint of yogurt out of the fridge, grabbed a spoon and ate it straight from the carton. “Oh,” I said, “I almost forgot. Boss got some half-yearly financials through and kinda panicked about the money side of the business so I suggested a think-tank of sorts with the boys. Anyway, we’re thinking of holding a sort of fundraising, family day.” I shoved another spoonful of yogurt in my mouth and swallowed. “I gotta do some homework, see what we can find out, but it was a pretty good idea.”
Kira smiled warmly at me, but he didn’t say anything.
“What?”
“Just you.”
“What about me?” I asked, wondering where he was going with this.
“You used to say you loved being a cop, but you never smiled then the way you do now when you talk about your day.”
I put the lid on the yogurt and opened the fridge to put it back. I leaned over to him and kissed him softly. “That’s because I’m happier doing this than I was being a cop.” I turned back to the fridge and pulled out the raw chicken. “How about I cook dinner?”
Kira took the dish of chicken out of my hand and when I looked at him, he shook his head. “How about
I
cook dinner?”
I pouted. “I’m not
that
bad a cook.”
With his free hand, he took my chin between his thumb and forefinger and pulled me in for a quick, hard kiss. “But, baby, you’re not that
good
a cook either.”
Chapter Four
“Come in, gentlemen. Take a seat.” Tamara smiled, closed the file in front of her and gave us her full attention.
We walked into the psychiatrist’s office and took our usual seats—with Kira on my left so I could hear him—and Tamara wasted no time. “You’re both looking well. Kira, I believe congratulations are in order,” she said. “Tell me, when Matt was here earlier this week, you were going to tell your parents that you were engaged. How did that go?”