Nickolas-1 (2 page)

Nickolas could hear her voice get just a tad more pitch behind it with every word until she got to his full name. A kid always knew when he was in trouble because his mom would use his entire name to yell for him. It didn’t change much as an adult either.

“Are you saying that Becky attacked David? That just doesn’t sound—”

“Her name is Morgan Becky, not Becky Morgan, you jackass. And why would I lie to you, I ask you? I sent her in there in good faith to get a job. And what do you do? You—”

“Mom she’s an ex-con, I can’t—”

“You will not interrupt your mother again, young man. She is
not
an ex-con.

She was acquitted of all charges and released. I am not her parole officer; I’m her counselor and friend. Well, probably not after this. How could you?” He could hear the hurt in her voice and felt bad that he had put it there.

Nickolas didn’t know what to say. He felt like he was six years old again and had just broken the cookie jar. Or rather, his brother Jamie had broken it—he’d just dared him to it. Of course ,Jamie had done it; he never could turn down a dare.

“Mom, I’m sorry. Let me see to David, and then I’ll find Ms. Mor ... Becky, and make it up to her. I’m really sorry.”

“See that you do. And I want you to call me as soon as you have apologized to her. Apologized to her several times, I mean. Nickolas, if you don’t make this right, I’ll go back to setting you up with potential wives again. I swear. And I won’t be as choosy this time.”

“God, no! Please don’t do that. I beg you, please. I’ll make it up to her, I swear. You can depend on me.” That was a promise he would follow through on even if he had to buy the little twit all of Tiffany’s.to make her happy.

Nick walked over to the scene and, in a glance, could see that David was indeed in need of paramedics. His head was bleeding quite profusely from the open wound on the back. One of the girls from his brother Damon’s office—he had an office in the building too—was holding a pad over it and talking quietly to him. And there stood Ms. Mor ... Becky, nearly vibrating in her anger.

“You all right, David? Did anyone call your wife?” He decided to ignore the beautiful woman for now, at least until he got a better control on his temper.

“Yes, sir. Roger called her. She’s gonna meet me there. It’s all my fault, Mr.

Grant. Miss Becky told me to let her go and she said that she’d hurt me if I didn’t.

I should have just let her go like she said. My missus is gonna be pissed about this. I ripped her shirt too. Miss Becky’s, I mean.” David handed the small strip of material over to Nick that he still had clutched in his hand. Nick looked up at Morgan.

“Don’t you have something to say to David, Ms. Becky? I mean, was it really necessary to hit him in the head?” Her hands were trembling when she took the material from him. Snatched would have been a better word, but he let it go. He was in enough trouble with his mother without adding insult to injury.

“You mean I should apologize? I don’t think so. I’m sorry he was hurt. I never meant for him to hit his head. If anyone should apologize, it should be you.”

“Me? What the hell did I do? You’re the one who knocked him over. I wasn’t finished talking to you and you left.”

“Screw you.” And with that, she turned on her heel and stormed out of the building. Nick would have given chase, but the ambulance showed up just then and, as David’s employer, he felt it was his duty to go with him.

David Tulle was fine after a quick trip to the hospital and fifteen stitches later. When he had grabbed at Morgan’s arm as she moved to pass him, she countered with a sweep of her leg under his and threw him to the floor. Falling down, he had hit his head on the corner of the front desk, grabbing at her borrowed shirt and ripping it.

Of course, the firm paid for the entire thing and even sprang for lunch for David and his obviously pregnant wife, who had met them at the hospital. Nick then made the trip back to the office to pick up Ms. Becky’s file and make everything all right with his mom. No way was he letting her set him up on blind dates again.

Nick was okay with being single. He dated when he wanted to, which wasn’t really that often. At twenty-nine, he was a widower of nearly eight years now.

His wife Nancy had been killed in a car crash about a year into their marriage, along with his dad on their way back from dropping him off at the airport. He had been on his way to a conference in Milan when slick roads and a drunk driver had crashed into them.

Finding Ms. Becky proved to be much harder than he had thought it would be. The cell phone number she had listed belonged to the group home she was staying in. The warden, because there was no way he was calling her Betty White, had told him in a stern voice that her clients were not allowed to have the phones for more than one trip out of the house, and they had to return them to her or else. He didn’t ask what the “or else” constituted; no way did he want to know. When he asked to leave a message, the warden said she was
not
her secretary, so no; she would
not
take a message for Ms. Becky.

He drove there next. As he got close, he really wished he hadn’t. The neighborhood was one that he would never be caught in after dark—maybe even after the sun came up, either. The building had been a grade school at one time, he guessed, and was now a halfway house for female ex-cons. He was given a pager and told to wait in the main hall. If Morgan wanted to see him, she’d page him and then someone would take him to her.

As he sat there waiting in the foyer, one tough-looking woman after another passed him, eyeing him up and down appreciatively.
Is my shirttail out or what?

he wondered. There was a full-length mirror in the hallway, so he surreptitiously checked himself out.

He had always considered himself an okay-looking guy. He was tall, six-five in his stocking feet. His hair was black, so black it had a blue sheen to it, and straight as a poker, as his Dad used to say. He had a nice eight-pack that he worked very hard to maintain with exercise and healthy eating. His eyes were perhaps his best feature, he thought—light gray, almost a clear blue in the sunlight. But right now, at this moment, he felt like a slab of meat hanging on a rack somewhere.

As word got around that someone had a male visitor sitting in the entrance hallway, more women found a reason to pass by and gawk at him. The women, and he wasn’t always sure about that, came out in droves to stare at him. One woman had even asked him to turn around so she could see his “nice ass.” He felt really stupid, but did turn around for her, but it was mostly to have her stop staring at his crouch. She hooted with laughter and made rude sucking noises to her friends.

He took out his cell phone and called his mom again. If ever a guy needed his mommy, it was now.

“Mom, it’s Nick, your son. Have you ever been down here where Ms. Becky is staying?” He had kept his voice low—there wasn’t any sense in offending anyone.

“No, why? I heard once it was a big place, but not much more. It’s sort of a revolving door for most of them. They have to stay there until they have a permanent place to live. Most of them end up back in the same situation as they were when they got into trouble.”

“It’s in a questionable neighborhood. Actually, I would consider that to be an understatement. It’s in a horrible part of t—” Suddenly, he was interrupted by a loud voice. “Hey, ass boy!! Turn around; let me see your stuff. I need a man, and you look like you can handle a woman like me.” He looked around and saw a huge, voluptuous African–American woman staring at him lasciviously.

“Uh, Mom—”

“Leave the building right now, Nick. Turn around and get out.” He decided his mother’s advice was right on for a change. He got up and started to leave.

“Where you going? Come on back here. I want some lovin’ and you’re gonna do it. I don’t wanna have to hurt you.” He glanced back once and saw that she was lumbering toward him. He took another hasty step forward and felt someone grab his arm. He was being jerked around before he could he could blink.

“Whoa!”

“Nickolas, get out! Right now!”

He tried, he really did. The huge momma pressed herself against him and tried to kiss him. As he was trying to extricate himself, he heard another voice, one he was vaguely familiar with.

“Big Martha, you need to step away from that man. He’s here to see me.

Why, I have no idea, but I’m sure he’ll tell me. I don’t want to have to hurt you, so step away.” Morgan Becky. He couldn’t see her around the woman who was now groping his crouch.

“You? A little thing like you? Get real. I ain’t afraid of a little nothing like you.” She banged his head against the wall as she spoke.

Nick was starting to get a headache again.
Wham!
Suddenly everything went black.

~~~

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Morgan. Of course not. You have to be able to get there first, don’t you? Why you are so stubborn is beyond me.” Nick woke up to the sound of his mother’s voice, then he heard her huff. He’d never heard his mother huff at anyone but him and his brothers before and wondered at the cause.

He opened his eyes, and looked around. He was obviously in a hospital room, but why? Thinking hurt his head. He tried to move his hand up to touch his forehead, but he ended up hitting himself in the head with the board attached to his wrist with the IV in it.

“Mom? What happened? Why am I in the hospital?” He moved to sit up straighter and got a stabbing pain in his right temple for his effort. He had to take a couple of deep breaths and close his eyes before he moved again.

He heard another voice. “I hit you. It wasn’t on purpose. You sort of got used as a human shield and your eye got in the way. The doc said you’d be okay in the morning, only a little bruising.” He looked over and saw the ex-con, or whatever she was.
What’s her name again? Morgan.
Her lip was swollen and her jaw had a large bruise on it. He also noticed that she had a tear in her T-shirt.
My
eye got in the way? Huh?

“Oh, Nicky. I told you to leave. Why the hell didn’t you listen to me? You aren’t used to those kinds of women and she could have really hurt you.” His mother didn’t sound very motherly at the moment, but pissed off.

“I’m in the hospital. I think someone did hurt me.” He turned to Morgan.

“Who did that to you? What did you call her? Big Martha?” Instead of answering, Morgan pursed her lips, stood up, opened the curtain that surrounded the bed, and walked away. ER. He was still in the emergency room.

“She really didn’t mean to hurt you, you know. She told the police that she was trying to rescue you from Big Martha, and when Martha pulled you in front of her, she couldn’t stop her foot from connecting with your face. She won’t let anyone look at her, but the woman who runs the place, Ms. White, said that she took quite a beating from Martha’s crew before she rendered Martha unconscious.”

She knocked Big Martha out? While she was outnumbered?
He didn’t remember that, or anything else, as a matter of fact, after Big Martha went after him.

“Did she say
why
she won’t let anyone look at her?” Things were starting to come back now with alarming clarity. That big woman, presumably Big Martha, had said she needed some loving. And he was going to give it to her. He shuddered at that. He remembered Morgan’s voice and she had asked her to let him go, that he’d come to see her.

“She won’t say, stubborn girl. Why I’d like to tan both—” Just then, the doctor walked in.

“Hello, Mr. Grant. How are you this fine morning? Quite a beating you took there. Let’s have a look at those peepers, why don’t we? Ms. Parker, how are you?” Dr. Emily Fraley took out her little flashlight and pointed it at his left eye.

The pain was immediate and sharp and he jerked back from it. She let him, and then frowned down at him.

That couldn’t be good
, he thought. “What? You frowned.” He rubbed his chest.

There was that annoyance again. He refused to call it a pain.

“I’m going to want to keep you overnight. I don’t like what I see in your eyes. I think you might have a good-sized concussion.” She took his chart off the end of his bed and made some notes.

How could I have any-sized concussion from a foot to the head? And how the hell did
she get her foot that far up? I’m six–five! And where the hell did the owner of that foot
go, anyway?

“Where did Ms. Becky go, Mom? She should have to stay too. She’s the one who kicked me.” He believed in equal punishment for equal guilt.

“The young woman? Oh, that policeman, Officer Denty, is still talking to her. She’s just down the hall, I think. Mr. Grant, is there someone who could bring you some personal things? I’ll see where we can put you now.” Dr. Fraley disappeared around the curtain, his mom close on her heels. He hoped Mom was going to see to Morgan. The silly girl needed to be looked at too.

“Are you paying attention to me, girly? I don’t think you’re givin’ me the respect this here badge says you should.” Officer Alex Denty had been talking at her for the past twenty minutes. This was the second time he’d referred to his badge like it was the Holy Grail or something. But she’d learned that you didn’t argue with the badge, or the man behind it.

“Yes, sir, I’m paying attention. You said that my things at the halfway house had been destroyed. And I do respect you as an officer.” She looked down the hall and saw Ms. Parker coming their way. Shit! She
so
didn’t need this.

“Hello, Denty. Don’t you have other innocent victims to harass? This ‘girly’

is with me, and you know how much respect I have for you, you ...” Morgan started to laugh, and then quickly turned it into a cough when the cop jerked back around to her. She didn’t have a lot to laugh at most of the time, so that had caught her off guard. She nearly missed the wink Ms. Parker sent her way.

“I was just tellin’ the ... Ms. Morgan here that her things got torn up at the halfway house, ain’t nothing left. Not that she had much anyways, but there you have it. You can’t go back neither. Mrs. White says she runs a respectable place and she ain’t having you causing trouble.”