Followed by more blocks dropping on the floor and her loud laughter. Then, “Babababa!”
Along with the Pack ‘N Play, a handful of age-appropriate toys, and enough clothes to do the baby for a week, she didn’t have much else. The diaper bag that came with her held a single can of powder formula that was already half gone and diapers that would be used up by that evening, likely.
He needed to buy more.
She needed a lot more.
Right then, however, he was trying to deal with yet another one of his problems. His work, that was.
“Nickie here,” came the voice through the speaker pressed to Lev’s ear.
He took a second, dragged in a breath for yet another battle he was sure to face with this phone call. Considering the way his boss acted the night before when he called in, without much of an explanation as to why to be fair, he didn’t expect this time to go much better. Although now, he was willing to at least tell Nickie why he needed one more day before he could get back to work at the bar.
“Hey, Nickie,” Lev said. “It’s Lev. I’m calling in again tonight, but I was hoping if it was early, you would be able to get someone to cover my shift at the bar. I’ll be back in tomorrow night; I just need tonight to get some shit in order that I’m trying to handle. I know—”
And that was all he got out.
“That’s twice—two times too many. Don’t bother coming in at all.”
Lev blinked, unsure he had even heard his boss correctly. “What?”
“You heard what I said. You’re a decent guy, and I appreciate that, but I don’t have time to chase your ass about coming into work. Nor do I give a fuck when I’ve got a handful of resumes on my desk on any given day to replace you with. You don’t want to come into work? Fine. Someone else will. Don’t bother coming in at all. Not tomorrow. Or anytime. You got me?”
“I’ve kind of got a situation going on here, man.”
And now more than ever, he needed a fucking job. Regardless of how much said job paid, he just needed one to satisfy the damn social worker.
“Oh, really?” Nickie asked, not sounding at all interested.
“Yeah, just found out I have a—”
Kid, he was about to say.
Nickie didn’t give him the chance. “Couldn’t give a single fuck, Lev.”
Click.
It took him ten entire seconds to realize the asshole had hung up the phone on him. In that time, Arely had also decided to start screaming her little lungs out because she had run out of blocks to throw out of her Pack ‘N Play. He couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry himself because in the next breath, a knock sounded on his apartment door.
“Give Daddy one second,” he called to the crying baby. Then, to himself, he muttered, “Swear to God if it’s that bitch upstairs again ...”
She spent the entire evening before beating her broom on the floor because Arely wasn’t quiet enough for her liking. The cunt.
He didn’t use that word lightly.
It’s what she was, though.
“Bababababa!”
Arely’s angry babbling mixed in with her cries which did nothing to help Lev’s already frayed nerves when he yanked open the apartment door with a sharp, “What?”
The teenager waiting on the other side with a scowl was not who he expected to be standing there. Nessa, the troubled granddaughter of the building manager, pursed her lips and folded her arms over her chest as she stared up at him. Bigger men than this teenage girl had cowered at the sight of Lev looming over them.
She just glared.
“That’s not how you greet somebody,” she told him. “Could at least be polite.”
Lev drew in a deep breath, his patience already long fucking gone. “And what would you know about being polite, huh? You spend your days skipping school and calling your grandmother a bitch. Hypocrisy isn’t a good look on anybody, kid.”
Nessa sniffed and then glanced away down the hall. “Yeah, well ...”
The screeching from the baby inside the apartment picked up a notch, making Lev straighten a bit in the doorway and Nessa flinch.
“Jesus—she’s got good lungs, doesn’t she?”
“It only gets louder from here. Welcome to birth control. Best kind there is. Wanna babysit?”
He was joking.
Mostly.
Lev didn’t think this teenager was in any way capable of taking care of a baby when she barely managed to make it day to day in her own circumstance. And yet,