Break Away (The Moore Brothers Book 4) (5 page)

T
he whole diner
erupted in sound and activity as people broke into excited conversation. Lou waddled out from the manager's office, followed closely by a wide-eyed Christy-Anne, and guided Lilah to a nearby table. “You okay? Did he hurt you?”

Lilah held out her arm, an angry mark standing out on her forearm. “I think I’m okay. It hurt, but I don’t think I’m injured.” Lilah hated the way her hand trembled. She clenched it into a tight fist and pushed it into her lap.

“He would have hit her, I know it,” sighed Christy Anne, her voice shrill as she bounced from foot to foot. “But that guy saved her.” She looked towards Cole, admiration swimming in her eyes. Lilah looked over her shoulder at Cole and saw the same look reflected in Penny’s eyes.

“Thank you, Christy-Anne,” said Lou. “That’ll be enough.” The other waitress looked mildly disappointed and wandered back to check on her tables.

“You sure you’re okay?” Lou asked Lilah. There was genuine concern in the old woman’s eyes and somehow that made all the fear dash from Lilah’s shaking hands and make an appearance as tears blurring her vision. “Oh, hell. Why am I not surprised you’re a crier?” Lou pulled a clean napkin out from around a roll of silverware and handed it to Lilah.

“I’m sorry,” Lilah said, dabbing at her eyes. Anyone would cry in her situation. Right?

Lou blew a long blast of air through her mouth. “I’m starting to think that’s the only thing you know how to say.”

Lilah looked up and saw good humor painted across the other woman’s face. “I can see how you’d think that.” She took one more swipe at her eyes and let out a shuddering breath, pretty sure the threat of tears had passed. She gave Lou a watery smile. “I’m a pretty terrible waitress.”

“You are one hell of a bad waitress.” Lou patted Lilah’s hand. “But I bet you’re all kinds of inspired to improve now.”

Lilah nodded her head. “God, yes.”

“Well good. It’s about damn time.” Kindness crinkled the corner of Lou’s eyes. “You go get yourself cleaned up. Then you take your happy ass back to the drink station and mop that sticky disaster you left for us back there and then get back to work. Understand?”

“You’re not going to fire me?”

“Not yet.”

Thankful, Lilah bounded to the restroom and splashed some water on her cheeks, careful to avoid her eyes so she didn’t make an even bigger mess of her mascara. What would have happened if Cole hadn’t stepped up? Would that man have hit her? She remembered those bloodshot eyes, watery and unfocused, the stink of liquor tainting his breath, the barely controlled rage in his voice. She was ninety-nine percent sure that she’d be sporting more than a bruised forearm if it weren’t for Cole.

Oh, shit!

And she hadn’t even said thank you!

Lilah dabbed her face dry and burst out of the restroom, making a beeline for Cole’s table only to find that he had already left with Penny. Damn it. She would have to knock on his door and thank him when she got home. Of course, she would probably interrupt his night of passion with Penny, but that might give the poor girl one more chance to come to her senses.

She checked his table for a tip and found nothing.
Fucking hypocrite
, she thought as she headed back to collect the money Cole made Mr. Drunk & Scary leave for her.
Making such a big deal about me being a human being and deserving a decent tip and then stiffing me himself.
And wouldn't you know, the five-dollar bill was missing from the drunk’s table, too. Lilah sighed and shook her head before trudging back to find the mop.

* * *

A
t least the
rust bucket started and made the whole five-minute trip home without any problems. The fact that that was the high point of the evening made Lilah roll her eyes. God, she missed her old life. Surely, this wasn’t the real world. This had to be some extreme version of normal life, made all the worse because of all the things her brothers wouldn’t let her bring with her.

As she pulled the car into her parking spot, she saw Cole sitting on his doorstep, twirling a mostly full beer in his hand. He looked up as she got out of the car. “Hey there, 3B,” he said with a little nod of his head. “I got something for you.” He leaned off to the side and dug in his pocket, pulled out a wad of bills and held it out for her.

Lilah crossed the small patch of mostly dead grass that separated her sidewalk from his. “What’s this?”

“Some of it’s my tip. The rest is a replacement for that jerk’s tip. That bitch with the wet shirt swiped the fiver off his table while you were in the restroom. Didn’t want her swiping my tip, too.”

Lilah took the money, peeled the five-dollar bill away from the rest and held it out to him. “You don’t have to tip me for that jerk.” She looked down at the rest of the money in her hand. “And honestly, I didn’t earn a tip from you either.” She tried to hand the whole wad of money back to him.

“I’m not taking that money back.” How could he make kindness seem so stern? “You just put it in your pocket and use it to buy yourself another pack of pens or something.”

Lilah shook her head and arranged the money before folding it neatly and sliding it into her pocket. “I didn’t get a chance to thank you,” she said.

Cole shrugged. “No need.” He swirled his beer and took just the tiniest sip.

“Yeah, there really is.” Lilah rubbed the sore spot on her forearm. “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t stood up for me.”

Cole ran a hand across the back of his neck and looked up at her. “You okay? Did he hurt you?” His eyes were a tempest of anger and concern.

“I think I’ll have a bruise.” Lilah looked down at her arm. “And a damn good story, I guess.” She had hoped to make him smile, but the tiny muscle in his jaw pulsed and his eyes darkened. “Where’s Penny?” she asked as he took another tiny little sip from his beer.

That brought out the shit-eating grin she was used to. “I thought I’d save you from having to bring another message to me tomorrow.”

“How very chivalrous.” Lilah wrapped her arms around her middle and waited for more explanation. “Well, thank you again,” she said when none came. “I’ll see ya around, I guess.” Unnerved by his silence, Lilah took one step back towards her door and stopped. Waited for him to say something and then blinked a few times as she turned her back on the still silent Cole and dug in her purse for her keys.

“You get that battery replaced?” he asked after she stepped up to her door.

She stopped and took a few steps back towards him, surprised by how much she didn’t want to be done with this conversation. “Yep,” she said, smiling, proud of herself for being able to say that she had taken care of it.

“But I bet it wasn’t until after you were stranded again.” Cole smiled at her and Lilah’s stomach dissolved into girlish giggles. “Right?”

“I may have needed to call a tow truck.”

“That’s what I thought,” said Cole, shaking his head and chuckling to himself. “You need to take better care of yourself, princess.” He took a long drink of his beer and stared ruefully at the bottle as he swallowed. Somehow, Lilah got the sense that the conversation was over and turned on her heel, smiling to herself as she stepped into her apartment.

C
ole watched
Lilah let herself into her apartment, stared at the door for a few seconds after she closed it behind her. Princess or not, she had a really nice smile. Like a ray of sunshine piercing a long row of storm clouds. Giving her the money had been the right decision just because it was actually the right thing to do, but that smile … what a bonus. He wanted to do more nice things for her just to see that smile again.

Lord knew Cole could use some extra sunshine right now.

He swirled his beer one more time, stared down at the bottle in his hand with a disdain that soured his stomach. He typically enjoyed a drink at the end of the day. Just one. Enough to take the edge off, and enough to prove he wasn’t his dad, in control of the drink rather than the other way around. Tonight though, he felt like a hypocrite, drinking his beer on his doorstep.

He stood and stretched, rubbed a hand up his jawline and right on through to the back of his neck, before he cracked open his door and snuck inside. His mom was upstairs, hopefully asleep, busy resting and healing. The call had come in right as Lilah had disappeared into the restroom at the diner. His mom. Frantic and discombobulated. Whispering fragmented sentences that took too long to understand.

Turns out his dad still packed quite a wallop. Enough of a wallop that his mom had waited for him to pass out, packed a small bag of stuff, and called Cole to come pick her up. She hadn’t even had to get the whole story out for Cole to be in motion. While his mom choked on her story on the other end of the phone, he stood, pulling a protesting Penny out of her chair, and after he threw some money at the cashier, informed his date that she would have to find her own way home.

He left her stomping her foot and scowling after him as he jumped into the truck and raced towards his parent's house. He made his mom stay on the phone, even if she didn’t have anything to say because he couldn’t stand the thought of something else happening to her before he got there. At least this way, with the connection open between them, he could pretend he was in control. He listened to her hitching breaths and ragged coughs until he pulled into their driveway, the gravel crunching under his tires in that familiar, stomach-clenching sound that meant home.

His mom had been waiting. She ran silently from the house and climbed up into the passenger seat, closing the door and pulling on her seatbelt without saying a word. When Cole saw his mom’s face, his heart surged with anger and sadness, guilt and despair and a rage so black and red and violent, he probably shouldn’t have allowed himself to drive. But there was a monster in that house. One that might wake up at any second and he didn’t have the luxury of time to sit in the driveway and calm down. Not if he really wanted to save his mom.

Working on keeping his breath slow and even, he pulled out of the driveway and drove back to his apartment—hyper aware of the silence in the cab, the whistle in his mother’s swollen nose, each and every moment between his parent's house and his. When he pulled into the parking lot, his mother had just sat there, staring blankly ahead until Cole opened the passenger door and helped her out. He led her straight upstairs to the bedroom where she curled up on his bed and fell asleep while his heart shattered into a million pieces.

Now, stepping into his darkened apartment, a half-finished beer in his hand, Cole focused on Lilah’s smile. Needed a break in the clouds for that ray of sunshine. He headed straight into the kitchen, where he poured the rest of the beer down the sink and started digging through his cabinets for dinner. He didn’t have much, not that would count as an honest to goodness meal anyway. He finally settled on some spaghetti and got a big pot of water onto the stove to boil.

His mom wandered into the kitchen as he snapped the long noodles in half and began dropping them into the water. The bruises on her face looked worse, and the look in her eyes was a little stunned and vacant, but damned if she didn’t try to smile at him. Cole swallowed hard, anger clenching his jaw and sadness softening his heart.

“You have any bread?” she asked, pulling open the pantry.

“In the fridge.”

“The fridge?” She looked confused. “Who puts bread in the fridge?”

“A man who doesn’t eat bread very fast.” Cole pulled open the refrigerator and gestured toward the single loaf of bread. “It lasts longer in here.”

His mom dipped her head in acknowledgement. “Makes sense.” She leaned into the fridge. “What about butter? Garlic?”

“Butter’s in the door and I’ve got garlic salt, if that’ll work.”

“That’ll work just fine, son.” She put the butter and bread on the counter while he reached into the cabinet and pulled out the garlic salt. She went to work buttering some bread, sprinkling it with some garlic salt, and popping it into the toaster oven.

They finished putting the simple meal together and ate quietly at the dinner table. Cole had a million questions to ask her. A million things he wanted to say. But just like he knew that she would hate him for taking her to the hospital before she decided she wanted to go, he knew that she needed to move at her own pace with the ‘now what’ discussion.

She flinched as she chewed and put a hand to her bruised and swollen cheek. Pushed her plate away before she had eaten enough to get full. “Thanks,” she said, sitting back in her chair and meeting his eye for the first time since he picked her up that evening.

Cole put his fork down. “Of course.”

“Don’t stop eating on my account.” She waved her hand at his plate. “Eat.”

Cole shook his head and picked up his fork. “I thought you could take the truck to work, drop me at the docks first. I’ll find a ride home, no problem.”

His mom shook her head. “I’m not going to work.” She dropped her focus to her fingers and started picking at her nails. “Last time he hit me, I threatened to leave. He showed up at work the next day, drunker than the day before. He had me backed into a closet, promising things would change…” She shook her head. “He got mad.” A long breath. “I’ll call Gloria and tell her I need to use my vacation days.”

Cole studied his mom’s battered face. How could she be so strong and so broken, able to stand living with a monster like his dad, but not able to leave? He had spent his whole life imagining rescuing her and this was the first time she had even come close to letting him. He was afraid to move. Afraid to say the one thing that would send her running back. He just wanted to keep her safe.

So, he said nothing. He just nodded and twirled his fork into the long noodles on his plate. Mopped up the sauce with the garlic bread she made for him. Finished the whole damn plate even though he was full long before and sat back, patting his belly. “That was delicious. Good call on the bread.”

“My boy, charmed by some toast and boiled noodles.” His mom smiled and a familiar glimmer of happiness danced in her eyes. “You need a woman in your life.”

Cole rolled his eyes. “I need no such thing.” He said it with a playful smile on his face but meant it with every fiber of his being.

Love hurt. One look at his mom proved that simple fact. But to make matters worse, it was his own father who hurt his mom. A monster who loved with his fists and tore into his family with his vicious mouth. And despite all his efforts to prove that he was
not
his father, that man was in Cole’s DNA.

“You can’t live in fear of him,” his mother said, eyeing him as he cleared the table. “You’re half me, too.”

Cole froze and turned to her. “I’m not afraid of him.” He said it and he meant it.

“I’ve watched you your whole life. You are not him. You never were and you never will be. You’re your own man and I’m proud of you every day.”

Damn if her voice didn’t crack. Cole cleared his throat and turned his back on her as he headed into the kitchen with the dirty plates. “Dang mom, laying it on awful thick, aren’t you? There’s no need to flatter me, I’ve already given you the bedroom.”

She laughed, a tense coughing sound, and stood, following him into the kitchen. “I’ll wash if you dry,” she said.

“Sit down, woman,” Cole responded. “You forget I’m living the high life. Got me a dishwasher.” He waggled his eyebrows and patted the appliance while his mom shook her head and wandered back into the living room.

“Show off,” she muttered as she eased herself down onto the sofa. Cole thought about what she said as he filled the dishwasher and got things started. He would love to find out that he wasn’t anything like his father. He would love to have proof that he was truly his own man and that he wouldn’t end up a drunken monster who spewed hatred in the faces of the people who loved him. But how could he be sure? How could he find out that was true without letting some poor woman fall in love with him? Without letting himself fall in love with her?

How was that even right? Entering into a relationship when he might be a time bomb? Where one wrong word at just the right time might send him over the edge. Like Bruce Banner into the Hulk. Like Jekyll into Hyde. Cole Bennett would dissolve into Maxwell Bennett, a monster. A mean, selfish man, hell-bent on bringing pain to those who loved him most.

He couldn’t risk it. It was that simple. Cole Bennett didn’t do girlfriends and that was all there was to that.