Shelter (4 page)

Bruce squinted, as if he was trying to remember the last time.

“Ah, wasn’t it 2007?” Bruce snapped his fingers, “Yeah, it was. It was the year I met Lucy. You’d come back to town for a couple of weeks for dad’s birthday.”

Caden remembered it. He had been twenty-one and living in New York for a year. He had come back for two weeks because the first boyfriend he had out there, Jack, dumped him over email and he had been devastated. They’d only been dating for a couple of months but he remembered how hard he had tried to hide it from everyone because he felt like a fool. Caden had never been good at keeping secrets and he had dramatically let everything slip out after a few beers with Bruce. Bruce was five years older so he was always there to lend his little brother a shoulder.

If Caden remembered correctly, his advice back then had been ‘
screw that jerk. You deserve better
’. As a twenty-one-year-old, he would believed him. He thought there would be somebody great out there for him. He thought he had met that person in Finn.
Ha, look how that turned out.

“I remember,” Caden nodded, “how’s the family?”

“Becca starts elementary school next week,” Bruce bit his lip, “she’s growing up so quick.”

Caden was about to ask more about his niece but his eyes wandered to the giant TV behind the bar when the sound of a cheering crowd signaled the first touchdown for the Havenmoore Rangers. Caden had never been interested in football but he remembered his dad saying that the game was starting at four.

“Shit,” he gulped the last of the beer, “there’s somewhere I need to be. Oh, fuck. Mom’s gonna kill me. I’ve got my first Helping Hands meeting with this guy.”

Shrugging himself into the jacket, he ripped open his canvas bag and quickly looped his new ID badge around his neck.

“You’ll have to stop by the house. The girls would love to see you,” Bruce waved, “and if mom gives you any trouble, blame me.”

“Will do.”

Marching across the square, Caden pulled the thick file out of his bag, flicking to the address of the guy he had been assigned that morning. Underneath ‘
Elias James
’ was an address and Caden let out a sigh of relief when he recognized it as the apartment over the bakery. Straightening up the collar on his shirt, he quickly walked around the corner, the smell of fresh bread hitting him in the face. It made his stomach grumble, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten since the eggs that morning.

Craning his neck to look up at the small window, he tried to ignore the nerves circling in the pit of his stomach. In those couple of months he had spent working with his mom, he always got nervous when meeting somebody for the first time. It was a lottery and there was no way to know who he was going to meet on the other side of the door. Sometimes, they’d be friendly and accepting of the help that he was there to offer, but more often they wanted nothing more than to be left alone.

Ducking into the narrow alley next to the bakery he saw a green door in the shadows. It didn’t have a number on the door but he knocked anyway. Wiping his hands on the backs of his jeans, he cracked his neck and pushed a smile up his stubble-covered cheeks. He had skimmed over Elias’ file that morning but he had been so nervous slipping back into a job he hadn’t done for eight years, he hadn’t soaked up much of the information.

Clenching his eyes, he tried to muster the information on the file he had already stashed away in the bag hanging over his shoulder.

The door swung open and Caden’s eyes opened wide. The jumbled words on the file in his memory disappeared when he saw the man in front of him. He didn’t know what he had been expecting but he hadn’t expected a man in a pair of very tight green and blue striped briefs standing in front of him. Caden’s eyes landed on his package, which was jutting out under a creased grey band t-shirt. He had a slight build, differing from Caden’s strong and wide frame. He had picked that up from his dad’s side, which apparently all Walker men inherited, making them look like they worked out without having to try. He looked a couple of inches shorter than Caden’s own six feet two inches but he wasn’t short by any stretch of the imagination. With his darkly haired lean thighs crossed, his narrow hips poked out as he clung to the edge of the door, waiting for Caden to introduce who he was.

A quick reminder of why he was there sent his eyes running up to the man’s face. He had black hair, a slim face and a lip ring, which his tongue was playing with. Caden was used to working with older people who fit the stereotype of ‘
addict
’. Elias looked younger than Caden and he was ignoring how good looking he was.

“What?” Elias snapped, “What do you want?”

Caden blinked heavily and shook his head, ridding himself of the stage fright. He was frantically trying to remember what he had picked up on the couple of days he had spent shadowing his mother but it was useless.

“Hi,” Caden jutted his hand out, “I’m from Helping Hands Outreach.”

Elias rolled his eyes, ignoring the hand. Stepping to the side, he kicked the door out, his toned thigh holding it in place.

“C’mon then,” he jerked his head upstairs, “let’s get this over with.”

Nodding with an awkward smile, Caden jumped in and stopped the door from shutting when Elias started to run up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Caden tried to ignore the bounce of his cheeks in the underwear but he couldn’t.
Pull it together Caden, you’re here to do a job.

Closing the door behind him, he followed Elias into the tiny apartment above the bakery. It wasn’t what he had been expecting at all. It was clean and nicely decorated, if not a little simple. From what he remembered, nice housing had never been a luxury to the people at the bottom of the social ladder.

“What did you say your name was?” Elias grabbed the ID card around his neck and twisted it, “
Caden Walker
.”

Elias dropped the ID badge and jumped over the back of the sofa. He sat in the corner of the couch, his arms over the back and his thighs spread.

“Let’s make this quick,” Elias already sounded frustrated.

Caden took this as his invitation to get things rolling. He sat on the couch next to Elias, who seemed oblivious that everything was pretty much on show. Gulping, Caden was almost surprised how affected he was by a man in a pair of underwear. He had barely looked at another guy in five years and now he was sitting next to a semi-naked one.
Pull it together, man
.

“How’ve you been?” Caden pulled the file out of his bag, resting it on his knee.

“Peachy,” Elias grinned sarcastically, “is that everything?”

The shallow circles under Elias’ eyes told a different story. This had been the part Caden was expecting and it was always the part that made the job harder, or so he was told. The more they resisted, the harder he would have to try to get them to cooperate. Sometimes, they wouldn’t cooperate and there was no way to help them but his mom had always taught him that you didn’t give up on people until they gave up on you. The fact Elias even answered the door was a step in the right direction.

“Are you settling in okay?”

“You can see it’s clean,” he tossed his hands out, “don’t I look settled in to you?”

Elias scratched the side of his face as his tongue angrily toyed with the lip ring. Similar rings cluttered his ears, leading down to a tiny plug in a stretched out part of his ear lobe.

“I’m not here to judge you,” Caden delivered the line they’re all taught to say when things turned sour, “I’m just here to help you help yourself.”

“Cut the shrink crap,” Elias laughed, “you’re here because my mom wants somebody to keep an eye on me and she’s too busy.”

“Your mom?” Caden saw this as his way in.

“Our lord and savior,” he rolled his eyes, “the mayor. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Because she can’t keep her nose out?”

Caden flicked open the file on his knee, hovering over Elias’ surname. James.
Judy James is his mother? Judy James has a son?
Judy had been the mayor of Havenmoore for as long as Caden could remember. She was a permanent fixture in the town hall and a regular at public events. People trusted her and they liked her so she ran unopposed for most elections. The small town mentality meant that any change was usually discouraged.

“Look, Elias,” Caden closed the file, “I’m here because the court said you needed follow up, but that isn’t all this has to be. You can really benefit from -,”

“Don’t tell me. I can become a functioning member of society? Get a nice little job somewhere? Maybe get married and have some sweet little kids and live a normal life?”

“Exactly.”

“Sure,” Elias tossed his head back, “aliens will land and we’ll have a woman in the White House before that happens.”

Elias jumped up and headed over to the kitchen. Caden watched as he poured himself a glass of water with shaky hands. It wasn’t rare for people fresh out of rehab to start using again but Elias didn’t seem high.

“Do you want to talk about your time in rehab?”

“Nope,” he gulped the water.

“What about your mother?”

“Double nope.”

“Anything?”

“No,” Elias tossed the rest of the water into the sink, “if that’s everything, you can go now.”

Caden wasn’t going to give up that easily. An average session could range anywhere from ten minutes to two hours, all depending on what the person needed. A quick glance at his watch told him he had been there for six minutes.

Elias headed into the bathroom, leaving the door open. When Caden heard the sound of peeing, he re-opened the file and scanned over Elias’ file. Words like ‘
cocaine
’, ‘
repeat user
’ and ‘
serial offender
’ caught his eye in a flash. Snapping the file shut, he stood up and dumped it on the couch, heading over to the kitchen. Pizza boxes and empty beer cans were piled up next to an overflowing trashcan. T-shirts, jeans, underwear and socks were stacked high in front of the washing machine and dirty cups and plates were dangerously balancing by the sink.

Shrugging off his denim jacket, he rolled up the sleeves of his stiff white shirt and started to fill the sink.

“What are you doing?” Elias reappeared, tugging at his manhood through his underwear.

“Washing up,” Caden shrugged.

“Whatever,” Elias sighed, heading back over to the couch.

As Caden squirted a healthy dose of dish soap into the water, Elias flicked on the TV, turning it up over the sound of the running water. Reclining on the couch, his eyes fixed on the screen as a group of reality wives argued about wine.

It wasn’t Caden’s job to be a cleaner but he knew that if he showed he was willing to help, no matter how he was helping, Elias might open up. Turning off the faucet and dunking the dishes in hot soapy water, he glanced over to Elias who was acting as though Caden wasn’t even there.

“I never knew the mayor had a son,” Caden said as he scrubbed a plate.

“That’s what she wants you to think,” he mumbled, “I bet you knew she had a daughter though.”

Caden cast his mind back. Now that Elias mentioned it, he was sure he had seen something on the front page of the Havenmoore Herald about a daughter graduating.

“Is she a doctor?”

“Bingo,” Elias rolled his eyes, “everybody knows about Ellie.”

Elias shared the same black hair and dark eyes as his mother but he didn’t seem to share any of her people skills. Rinsing off the soapsuds, he stacked the dishes on the strainer. Drying his hands on a towel looped over the front of the oven, he moved onto filling the washing machine with the dirty clothes. They smelled strongly of an unwashed man.

“Detergent?” Caden looked over the counter.

Elias shrugged as he turned up the volume on the TV, “How should I know?”

Sighing, Caden started to look through the cupboards until he found a bottle of detergent and a bottle of softener. Dumping them into the washing machine, he set the cycle after figuring out how the machine worked. It looked unused.

“Do you want me to show you how to use this?” Caden called over.

Elias shook his head, not looking away from the TV as he scratched his balls. Caden looked around the kitchen for more things to do. When he found some bags in some of the drawers, he started to stuff the pizza boxes into the bag along with the mountain of beer cans.
He couldn’t have drank through all of these in less than a week?

“Did you drink all of this?”

“The magic fairy helped,” Elias rolled his eyes, “what’s it to you?”

Elias jumped up from the sofa and marched over to the kitchen. Snatching the bag from Caden, he dumped it on the floor and pulled a beer out of the fridge.

“If there’s anything you want to talk about, I’m a listening ear,” Caden watched as Elias sipped the beer, “that’s what I’m here for.”

Elias arched a dark brow, almost amused at how hard Caden was trying. Leaning in slightly, his dark eyes pierced into Caden’s, making his lips part. Elias’ eyes darted down to his parted lips with a smirk.