Ride Steady (Chaos #3)(28)
But he was all about us, our future, our family, making strong stronger (his words), one of those times I did not get—and got it less now that it was over—when he was so devoted to me it didn’t seem real.
Maybe because it wasn’t.
But it was beautiful.
So I again turned a blind eye and gave in, quitting my job when I started showing, and shortly after ending up in hell.
I told them all that and more.
So I’d cried a lot. Lanie had cried with me. Tyra teared up a few times.
Elvira just looked angry.
If she wasn’t so funny and friendly and nice, she would scare me. Luckily, she was all those things (but also scary).
They left and now my eyes were tired because after they did, even though it felt good to get it out, share it with people who seemed to care, I didn’t sleep.
I didn’t because I didn’t want to do bad things God would frown on (seriously) to keep Travis.
Not unless it was a last resort.
And it wasn’t.
Not yet.
That was why I’d put out the stuff on my bar.
The platinum necklace with the quarter-carat diamond pendant Dad had given me. The pearl and diamond earrings my grandmother gave me to wear to my wedding. The emerald and diamond tennis bracelet Aaron’s parents gave me when we’d become engaged. The gold bangles Aaron bought me for Valentine’s Day every year (which also was our wedding anniversary—cliché, now embarrassing, what with me being a hopeless romantic with emphasis on hopeless).
And my engagement and wedding rings.
I would start with selling the useless stuff Aaron and his folks gave me and then move on to the others when needed.
And I’d find an attorney who would take my case, be ruthless, get me the child support that Travis deserved, and make it clear to Aaron I was not going anywhere.
If that ran out, I’d find other ways, selling the furniture I got in the divorce that I had in storage (well, Dad did, since he paid for the unit) being one of them.
And if it came to it, I’d get on my knees.
I was just going to exhaust all my other options first.
But I wasn’t going to lose my son.
On this thought, there was a knock on the door and I looked to it.
I didn’t need company and I couldn’t comprehend how I’d have any. No one visited me.
But I’d left my car at Ride and I had a day shift at the store. I needed to take the bus. I’d looked up the route and one dropped off about three blocks from the store. But I had no idea how long it took. My normal commute was twenty minutes but I’d added on another thirty just in case.
I needed to get going.
I slid off the stool and went to the door. I looked through the peephole, saw coverall guy from Ride was standing outside (again in coveralls), and with some confusion, I opened the door.
“Hey,” I greeted, ready to tell him he could have called with the estimate. I hadn’t exactly given him my number, but Tyra was office manager at Ride and I’d given it to her.
He spoke before I could.
“Car’s downstairs.”
He held out my keys and my hand automatically lifted to take them.
He dropped them in my palm and continued talking, “New tires. New tranny. New plugs. New shocks. New exhaust. Oil change. Oh, and new wipers. Boys filled the tank and detailed it too. You’re all good.”
I blinked at him. “Tranny?”
“Transmission.”
Transmission?
What on earth?
Those cost a fortune.
“Transmission?” I whispered.
“Yeah.”
“I… uh, asked about an estimate—”
He interrupted me, “On Ride.”
“Sorry?”
“No charge. Ride is covering it. Means Chaos is covering it. You don’t owe anything.”
How?
Why?
What?
He looked behind him, then to me. “Later,” he said, and without waiting for my farewell, or one of the many other things I could have said, he jogged down the open air walk that ran outside our apartment building.
I watched and was about to call out to him when my phone rang. He was already at the stairs at the L to the building and I had a phone ringing so I closed the door, locked it, and hurried to my phone on the kitchen bar.
The display said Unknown Caller.
I took it anyway.
“Hello?”
“May I speak with Carissa Teodoro?” a businesslike woman’s voice asked.
“This is she.”
“Right, hold for Ms. Howard, please.”
“Sorry? Who?” I asked.
“Ms. Howard. Of Gustafson, Howard and Pierce. Hold please.”
Oh no. I didn’t like this.
Did Aaron find a new way to make trouble for me?
Gustafson, Howard and Pierce sounded like an attorney firm. I didn’t need any more of those in my life, except the one selling off Aaron’s false tokens of love was going to buy me.
“Ms. Teodoro,” a more businesslike woman’s voice said.
“Uh… yes,” I replied.
“Right. Hello. I’m Angelique Howard, but my clients call me Angie.”
“Well, okay,” I got in before she kept speaking.
“I received a call from Mr. Allen this morning so I’m introducing myself before I send you back to my assistant. She’ll take the details of your last attorney so we can contact them to get your files. When we get them, I’ll go over what’s been happening with your former husband and construct a strategy.”