ROMANCE: THE SHEIKH'S GAMES: A Sheikh Romance (25 page)

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe by trying to support him, you’re holding him back. Enabling him.”

“Are you saying I should do some tough love with him or something? That’s ridiculous.”

Even as she said it, though, she was forced once more to consider the possibility. Was she holding him back?

Miles sat on the couch, the latest batch of job applications spread out on the coffee table as he filled them out. He wasn’t quitting, but with every application, he felt more and more depressed about the whole thing.

He wasn’t going to quit. He couldn’t. It’d been a week and a half, and though it wasn’t a terribly long time, rent was coming up and he had nothing to contribute. He was nothing but a drain on Saundra’s time and resources. He hated himself for it.

He was better than this. He could find a job, he could keep a job. He had to believe that was possible, otherwise what was the point? He was better than this.

Miles sniffed derisively and continued filling out the applications. This was such bull. He set down the pen and shook his hand out. He wasn’t sure what he’d hurt in his hands from beating Blake, but he’d definitely injured himself. He had been waiting for a call from the police, or for them to just show up at his door, but after so long he assumed that wasn’t going to happen. That was for the best. He’d make sure Blake knew who was in the wrong, there. This wasn’t Miles fault, he didn’t start it, but he’d sure as hell finish it.

As he massaged the ache out of his hand, he looked out over the applications. He’d worked in so many places, in so many different trades and fields. Nothing stuck. He had a little bit of knowledge in everything. It made him versatile, but he longed for the ability to just have a career, to be an expert in something. After all of these years trying to be stable, if he’d been able to just stick with one damn job, he could’ve moved up. Manager at a fast food place is still a manager! Having that title, that experience, he could totally take it to finding better jobs somewhere else.

But no. Now he was a grown man filling out applications for a pizza joint, a bagger at the local grocery store, and working in an auto parts store. Entry level, minimum wage crap. He was so damn tired of entry level crap.

He should’ve been past this stage in his life by now. Everyone else was. He was just holding himself back, holding Saundra back. He could feel himself teetering on the edge of giving up, of letting his shame overtake him. He couldn’t let it.

Shaking his head quickly to clear the thoughts, he took up the pen again and went back to filling out the applications. Stressing about it wouldn’t fix it. Only action. If he wanted change, he had to make things change. Only by doing could he make things better. Saundra had been there for him through so much, she deserved better.

After finishing two more applications, his cell rang. He didn’t recognize the number, but with all of the applications he’d been filling out lately, he was hopeful it was a call about a job.

After a quick introduction, the person on the other end informed him that his ex, Tracy, was claiming him the father of her four year old child and was now seeking back-pay for child support.

“Whoa, whoa, what? This is the first I’m hearing about this.”

“You’ve been virtually untraceable in that time. Our records show you’ve been moving from state to state for some time avoiding your responsibilities. Well I’m here to tell you that’s caught up with you.”

“I haven’t been avoiding anything!” Miles jumped up from the couch, the job applications all but forgotten. “I’ve been trying to survive. I’ve been working and trying to find a place to live. Tracy’s had my number, and she never mentioned anything before. This is crap. I don’t believe it.”

“We have your address, sir. We’ll be sending you all of the necessary paperwork. If you want to refute the claim, be sure to fill out the forms by the deadline and send them back. Until then, save everyone the trouble, and get your financial affairs in order to start supporting the life you helped bring into this world.”

“It’s not my kid,” he said as much to the operator as to himself. When the line clicked, he shouted, “It’s not my kid!” and nearly threw his phone against the wall.

Four years back-pay for child support. The thought nearly brought him to his knees. How much was that? Even if it was just a few hundred, multiplied over twelve months, times four…

His eyes ached with the need to cry in his frustration, but he denied himself the release. Finally the sense that all was lost set in. Nothing he could do would fix anything.

Feeling completely desolate inside, lost, and positive the news would lose him the love of his life, Miles picked up his jacket and went out to have a drink.

Saundra sat on the couch biting her thumbnail while watching the commercials go by on TV. The shows were barely enough to keep her occupied so she didn’t implode out of anxiousness. Miles had been gone all day and wasn’t answering his phone. It was two in the morning, and she knew she was going to be a zombie the next day at school, but she just couldn’t sleep if she didn’t know he was okay. He’d been depressed about the job thing, and money. No matter how much she tried to tell him she had a handle on things until he had a new job, but he didn’t listen.

When she heard his keys at the door, she jumped from the couch and rushed over to unlock it and let him in. The slow way he looked up at her, confused as to why the door was open told her everything she needed to know.

“You were drinking?”

“Good evening to you,” he slurred. When he stepped into the door, she knew he didn’t mean to, but he lost his balanced and shoved her aside.

“Don’t tell me you rode your motorcycle home.”

Miles stumbled into the living room, looking around as though he lost something. “What was I supposed to do? Leave it all alone and scared in the parking lot. Hungry, crying.” He spun around to face her. “I had to.”

“I have been up worried to death about you, and you were out drinking.” She couldn’t believe what she was witnessing.

In all of the scenarios in her head, this had never even occurred to her. He was always so responsible with money, never spending anything he couldn’t replace with his own. After being together for so long, they had a joint account, and in all that time this was the first time he’d ever done anything like this.

“So how was it? Did you find a job in the bottom of a beer bottle?”

Miles snorted, kicked off a shoe and walked into the kitchen. His face was awash in the glow from the refrigerator as he was no doubt looking for something to drink.

“Miles, would you talk to me?”

He slammed the refrigerator door closed. “And when I speak you’re going to ear with your face?”

“What?”

“I’m just saying.” He took a few steps forward and leaned his hip against the counter, crossing his arms over his chest. “You’re standin’ there, and I’m over here like, pfft, and I know it’s not going to matter.”

“Miles…” She pinched the bridge of her nose as she tried to calm herself. Losing her temper now wouldn’t win her anything. He was drunk and not making sense.

“It’s stupid, okay?” he said. “I can be a pilot and sharpen pencils, and it won’t matter, because you’re just here like an island.”

“What does that even mean, Miles?”

He cupped his hands together in urgency. “You’re an island! And you’re not even floating, ya know? You’re there, and it’s like, you’re paradise and I’m just flying over. Well you know what? The plane is going down. Engines three and four blew. So drink all the little liquor bottles in the back, because when we crash, it won’t even matter anyway.”

All Saundra could do was watch with wide eyes as he furiously unbuttoned his shirt and pushed his pants down to his knees as he walked into the bedroom and fell onto the bed. What plane? He was beyond making any sense. The best she could hope for was to just let him sleep it off and hope he made more sense in the morning.

He was out in seconds, and she had to go take off his other shoe and finish undressing him before throwing the blanket over him.

She couldn’t stomach falling asleep in the bed next to him, so she grabbed a spare blanket and pillow and got comfortable on the couch. As she settled down in the dark living room, the words of her friend came back to her.

Was she holding him back because she was being so supportive? This behavior wasn’t like him at all. Was he getting worse? Did he rely on the fact that she’d always be there for him, so it gave him a safety net to go mess around and do whatever he wanted instead of taking care of his responsibilities?

She hated to think that was true, but she was starting to lose sight of what else it could be. She didn’t know how she could help him, and didn’t know if she should stop helping.

Miles sat slouched against the bar, staring into nothing, swallowing the last taste of his beer. He idly tapped the bottom rim against the cheap cardboard coaster as he waited for the bartender to come back around. The place was quiet, and smelled like stale cigarettes and even more stale people. There wasn’t much going on in the bar that night, which was why he preferred it. It wasn’t too far from home, but there wasn’t so much commotion that it made him feel overwhelmed.

He was already on sensory overload. He needed to numb himself. Numb his brain numb his heart, numb everything. Everything was collapsing all around him and the pain was just too much to take. Miles never considered himself a weak man. He’d had to fight and scrape just to survive every chapter in his life. Fighting was what he did. This was just a testament to how utterly devastated he felt. His support, his love, his strength was gone from him. Piecing away one at a time.

He’d have to tell Saundra eventually about this child he supposedly had, and then she’d leave him for good. He just knew it. There was no way she’d stick around, and he wouldn’t ask her to. How could he? After being such a screw up for so long, and then to suddenly dump a child and four years of child support on top of his perpetual unemployment? Who would stay?

The emotions started to rise from the void in his chest up to his face again, and he shoved it down with anger. Slamming his palm against the bar to get the bartender’s attention he called out, “Come on! What are you serving them, the whole bar?”

“I’m only saying this once, buddy,” the bartender called back. “Shut it and wait quietly, or get the hell out.”

Miles opened ups hands, ready for a fight, ready for any excuse to not think about the imminent loss of Saundra. “It’s not my fault you’re taking forever. If this place was a desert I’d be dead already.”

“What jerks,” a man said as he took a seat beside Miles at the bar. “Am I right?”

“Seriously,” Miles said. The anger, while a momentary distraction, was also driving off his buzz. Futilely he tipped back the empty beer bottle, hoping for a last few drops still in there but all he got was a touch of foam against the tip of his tongue.

The stranger set a beer down in front of Miles. “Here you go, have one on me.”

Miles set down the empty bottle and snatched up the fresh one without a word. He took a long pull from the bottle, needing the alcohol in his system, needing that coolness to wash through his stomach.

“Thanks,” he said belatedly after taking a few breaths.

“No problem,” the man said. “I always order two. I tend to go through my first pretty quickly and I don’t like having to wait for the second.”

“I’ll get you back as soon as he finishes up whatever he’s doing,” Miles said, raising his voice as he neared the end of the sentence so that he could be heard on the other side of the bar.

“Don’t worry about it. You seem like you could use it more than me. Troubles with the wife?”

“Sorta,” Miles said, taking another drink. The addition of the new beer reminded his body it was already loaded up with beer and his buzz started to come back. “Money troubles. It’ll lead to woman troubles.”

“Ahh,” the man said knowingly and took a drink from his own beer. “Ain’t that always the way it goes?”

Miles tilted his head, contemplating the bottle he was drinking. As it was he was spending money that wasn’t his just to pay for these drinks. Knowing he was doing that filled him with such horrific guilt, all it did was thrust him deeper into the abyss.

Maybe it was the man’s willingness to listen, or maybe Miles just couldn’t take it anymore, but he started talking. He told the man about his childhood, fighting all through his adulthood, and now trying so hard to be a person and just failing. Utterly. He even told him about finding out about the kid and knowing he was going to lose Saundra when all of that came out.

“What if money wasn’t an issue?” the man asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, let’s say I could help. If you were making money, do you think it’d help smooth things out?”

“I…” The possibility had never occurred to Miles for even a second. Now just to entertain the notion was almost frightening for him. He gave a slight jerk of his head. “Maybe. What are you, like a loan shark or something?”

The man laughed. “I’m not talking about loaning you money. Even if I were a loan shark, you just told me you wouldn’t be able to pay me back. In the end I’d just be losing money and I’d have to break your legs in the process. More work for me. No, I’m talking about you working and earning yourself some money. Good money.”

Could this solve everything? Miles looked at his new friend and sized him up. He was obviously a guy that knew how to handle himself. Whatever this job is, it wasn’t going to be something as simple as computer tech support or customer service.

Still, whatever he offered, if it kept him from losing everything he loved in his life, everything he’d worked so hard to achieve, he owed it to himself, to his future to at least consider it.

Saundra had her forehead propped against her hand, her elbow wedged against the car door as she drove. Miles sat in the passenger seat, watching the scenery go by. It was noon, and she honestly wasn’t sure if he was drunk this early in the day, or if he was simply still drunk from the night before.