Page 85 of The Disputed Legacy
Because he wasn’t here to wake up Oscar, I hurried to do it and had to recall how he’d barely woken me up to tell me that he had to go. Not to leave, but to handle something for work? To take care of something? I didn’t remember his exact wording, but I knew he’d tried to tell me something when I was still mostly asleep.
He’d be back, though. That much, I remembered.
Oscar asked about where he was, and I told him he had to go for work but that he’d be back. As I made him breakfast—somehow not as good as Saul’s now, according to him—he asked me about what Saul did.
I didn’t know. I hated that I didn’t know. I couldn’t regret that I hadn’t found out last night when I intended to talk to him, really talk to him, because instead of talking, we’d done something else that was so meaningful and pleasurable that I wanted it again.
I would never get enough of that man. It was a fact, and one more example of how I couldn’t seriously think about telling him to leave.
As I walked Oscar to school, he told me what Saul mentioned to him last night. That he had brothers. A family. A father who had been ill.
Those were details I hadn’t managed to extract from my mystery man. Oscar, somehow, had gotten him to open up like that. It was silly to be jealous of my son who knew more about Saul than I did, and I took it as a sign that Saul and Oscar weren’t just faking this bond. He had to really care about him to talk about his brothers with him.
Still, after I dropped Oscar off and I walked to work, I noticed that Saul still hadn’t given away anything too detailed. He was still an enigma. He hadn’t shared his last name with Oscar. No hint of where he lived or where he’d been born. No adult-like details I could use to figure out more about him.
I clocked in and saw that the rain would likely keep this day on the slower side. It wasn’t great for tips. It also sucked that the hasty repairs from the contractors showed a new leak from the windows they’d replaced. Water dripped in various spots near that pane. We set out cups and bowls to collect it all, but it wasn’t like we needed those tables anyway because traffic was so slow.
“What did I tell you?” Irene said to me and Rosie as we waited at the counter for more people to walk in. The lunch rush was decent, but this afternoon lull was dragging into a non-existent dinner period too.
“You tell us lots of things,” Rosie replied, getting a little cheekier now that she’d been here a while.
“I said that once the construction projects are gone, we’ll dry up and have no work.” Irene pouted as someone reached for the door to enter, then seemed to realize it wasn’t the entrance they thought it was and continued walking under their umbrella, ear bud in their ear and mouth moving like they were on a call.
She turned to me with a naughty smile. “I guess that means you’ll have more downtime with your boys.” Facing the booth Oscar sat in, she frowned. “Well, one of them. Where’s Saul?”
I shrugged, not bothered that he seemed late to arrive. He didn’t have a traditional job, that was obvious. But I wanted to believe him when he said that he’d see me later today.
“He seems to show up at different times each night,” Rosie remarked. “What does he do again?”
I wanted to cringe. I still didn’t know. “He said he’s in security and consultation.”
Irene gave a low whistle, rubbing her finger and thumb together to gesture at the universal sign for big money.
His suits were the only thing that made me guess he could have money. Nothing else he did or said indicated that he was loaded. If he was rich, he was definitely lowering his standards to be with me at my tiny apartment.
“Do you think he could be an undercover agent?” I asked, blurting out the fear that had messed me up yesterday.
“Saul?” Irene scrunched her face. “No. I can’t see that.”
“Why not?” Rosie asked, still so naïve.
I was curious, too, though. Irene liked to think she knew it all, but I wondered what she was assuming about him now.
“I doubt Saul would be an undercover cop. He seems too… dangerous for that. Like he’d rather play by his own rules than be ruled.” She shrugged. “Never mind me. That’s just my take.I’ve been binging a new dark romance series so I might be a little biased.”
“You read?” Rosie blurted.
Margo grunted as she passed by, clearly listening in. “Now that’s rude.”
Irene laughed it off. “Only spicy books,” she said with a wink.
When a couple of customers came in, we were distracted and went about our business. The time to gossip about Saul or offer opinions about Irene’s literacy was over.
At the end of the evening, there was still no sign of Saul. Oscar was curious, and also a little worried.
“Mama?” he asked as we walked home.
“Hmm?”
