Series: The Laws of Opposite Attract Series by Vi Keeland
Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 105253 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 526(@200wpm)___ 421(@250wpm)___ 351(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105253 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 526(@200wpm)___ 421(@250wpm)___ 351(@300wpm)
“Then what’s with all the Vera questions?”
I supposed we were all in this together. “How about if me, you, and your brother talk when we get home? All together?”
“Fine.”
I couldn’t get more than a shrug or a one-word answer the rest of the walk.
As expected, Heath was already at the apartment when we arrived. I was going to have to deal with him skipping school, but that was a separate conversation. Right now, the priority was finding Vera.
Hannah tossed her backpack on a kitchen chair and spoke to her brother. “Do you make enough money for food and stuff? Devyn said she wants to leave.”
“No, that’s not what I said at all, Hannah.” I shook my head. “Can you two please sit down at the table so we can talk?”
Heath pulled a chair out and flipped it around, straddling it backwards. “I make enough for food. I can ask for more hours to try to pay the rent.”
I looked over at Hannah, who was still standing. “Can you please sit?”
She rolled her eyes but took a seat at the table.
I sat between them. Beating around the bush with these two only caused them to fill in the blanks with the idea that no one wanted them, so I figured I should shoot straight this time.
“CPS came to the apartment this morning. They wanted to speak to Vera. I was able to buy us some time, but they aren’t going to go away. We need to find your mother—our mother. They’re coming back in a few days.”
“What happens if we can’t find her?” Hannah asked.
I didn’t want to scare the kids and mention my four stints in foster care. “Let’s take this one step at a time. Right now we just need to focus on finding her.”
“How are we supposed to do that?” Heath asked.
“I don’t know. What can you tell me about the new guy she’s dating? The one she left with?”
“Bo? He’s got a bad accent,” Heath said.
“What kind of accent?”
“He sounds like that dude in the Ted movies. The one with the stuffed animal that talks.”
“Mark Wahlberg?”
“Yeah, I think that’s his name. He doesn’t say car. He says ka.”
I nodded. “Boston.”
Hannah pointed to her brother. “I think he said something about moving there. He fixes trucks, like big eighteen-wheelers. His hands are all cracked, and they always look dirty, but he says they’re not. Mom said she wanted to help him decorate his new apartment.”
“Do you know Bo’s last name?”
Both kids shrugged. “No. He only started coming around a few weeks before Mom left,” Heath said.
That sounds about right for Vera. “Alright, well, anything else you can think of about Bo?”
Hannah wrinkled her nose. “He burps a lot, and he strings together the sounds to form words. He thinks it’s funny. But it’s not.”
Sounds like a real peach. Bo the burper from Boston. I had a lot to go on now.
We talked for a little while longer, but neither of them knew much of anything about Bo or the trip Vera had taken with him.
A few hours later, after the kids were in bed, I poured myself a much-needed glass of wine. Heath wandered back into the kitchen as I sipped and took the seat across from me.
“Did CPS come because I cut school?”
“Yeah, buddy, they did. I was going to talk to you about that tomorrow. You can’t cut school.”
“I did it to work at the pizza place. One of the day guys took off a few days, so I lied and said I didn’t have school and could help out. I wanted to pay you back for all the money you’ve spent since you got here—for food and stuff for me and Hannah.”
My heart squeezed. “Oh, Heath. You don’t have to do that. It’s not your job to support yourself and your sister.”
“It’s not yours either,” he said. “I guess I really screwed things up by not going, huh? Are they going to put us in foster care?”
“Not if I can help it. I promise to do everything in my power to keep that from happening, Heath.”
He nodded, but his face was glum. I reached out and covered his hand with mine. “You said you wanted to pay me back for things I bought for you and Hannah. Do you feel like it’s okay for you to pay for Hannah’s food?”
“Yeah, of course. She’s my sister. And she’s too young to have a job.”
I squeezed his hand. “I feel the same way about both of you.”
He looked me in the eyes, but said nothing.
“We’re a family,” I explained. “We take care of each other. Besides, I promise I’m not hurting for money. I do pretty well for myself. Okay?”
Heath nodded.
“So no more cutting school. Do you promise?”
“Yeah.”
I mussed his hair. “Go get some sleep, kiddo.”
Once it was quiet again, I couldn’t help but reflect back to my own childhood. I’d walk into our apartment each day not knowing what I would find. I’d squirrelled away canned food under my bed so there would be more to eat when Vera inevitably took off the next time. I’d felt like maybe if I was a better kid—smarter, prettier, more helpful around the house—she wouldn’t want to leave as much.