Page 95 of Bourbon & Blood

“How you doing, bro?” Saint asked, sticking his head and upper body through the bedroom doorway after a while. I glanced up just in time for La Croix to give Saint a meaningful look and then to glance in my direction as though to sayyou should really be asking her that.

Saint looked over at me on the floor hidden by innumerable boxes, my very own cardboard fortress springing up around me. He slipped more fully into the room and said, “Hey, ’Lina… I didn’t see you down there.”

I smiled. “It’s okay,” I murmured.

He didn’t ask me how I was doing, instead pulling a knife from where it was clipped to his pocket and taking up one of the piled empty cartons.

“Let’s get you out of there, huh?” he asked with an easy smile and I forced a smile back as he sliced through tape and folded the first box flat.

By the time he was on the last one or two boxes, everything clothing had either been folded and put away, or had been hung up in the closet.

“This is your sewing machine?” La Croix asked, and I looked up.

“Oh, oh, no… that was Maya’s,” I said. “I make my own paper and bind books. Sometimes I paint watercolors. Maya was the one who sewed.”

“Oh, shit. Well, oh, well. Uh, where did you want me to put it?” he asked and lifted the machine in its carrying case out of the box.

“Front closet floor?” I asked.

He nodded. “You got it.”

He went out into the chaos outside the bedroom and I sighed.

We’d set up all the furniture in here – the nightstands, their lamps, the dresser, my desk, my easel and watercolors which had been a housewarming gift at the new apartment from Maya and was averyfancy and portable setup… but somehow, we just couldn’t find my bedroom sheets for the bed. They were lost in a box somewhere or something, maybe even back at the old apartment. It was frustrating.

“Hey, ’Lina. Heard you were looking for these.”

I looked up and Louie stood in the doorway with my sheets.

“Where were they?” I asked and I smiled.

“In a box labeled ‘Kitchen’ with some pots and pans,” he said. “We just started opening everything until we found them.” I laughed, and he held down a hand to help me up to my feet. I took it and sighed, dusting myself off a little. He pried the sheets apart and handed me the fitted one, dumping the rest on the dresser then coming over to help me make the bed.

“Thanks,” I murmured. “Just trying to make this room livable for tonight so I can just shut out the rest of everything – you know?”

He nodded and after the fitted sheet was on, he turned back with the top sheet and said, “You know, I know it’s not the same but I… I-uh, I lost my momma real recently and so I just wanted you to know that I sorta know what it feels like… except, you know, my momma didn’t care about me like your friend did.”

I felt my shoulders drop and said, “That’s awful, Louie. I’m really, really, sorry.”

He nodded and said, “Yeah, me too.” He sighed.

I bit my lips together and caught his hand as he flung the top sheet over the bed and I gave it a squeeze in solidarity, letting the compassion flow for a minute. He met my eyes and his were a startling light green. He gave me a brief, weak smile, and I saw how much it hurt him. Maybe not the fact that she was gone, but definitely the fact she didn’t care and boy, could I relate to that too, with my own upbringing.

“Nobody really cared all that much about me when I was a kid, either,” I murmured. “I don’t think that’s a hurt that ever really goes away.”

“I don’t see how,” he said.

“Don’t see how what?” I asked.

“How anybody couldn’t care about you,” he said and his ears turned red.

I smiled. “Well, thanks for that – but my mamma was a teen who didn’t want me, and my grandmamma made her have me because of her,” and I made air bunnies with my fingers in the air at this next part, “‘deeply held religious beliefs.’ So as soon as I was out, my mamma abandoned ship and my grandmamma ended up raising me, and…” I gave a low whistle. “She never let an opportunity pass where she didn’t let me forget it, I’ll tell you what.”

“That’s shitty,” he said, and I smiled.

“That’s where my great-grandmamma came in. She’s the one that taught me what real love was supposed to look like. Then Maya finished my education and threw in a bunch of lessons on strength and tellin’ the people in my life who didn’t add to it in positive ways to kick rocks.”

Louie considered me a minute and said, “All I’ve got left is the club, now.”

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