Chapter 6 The Knoxes
Lydia swiped at her eyes, heart stuttering and clenching in guilt and anxiety at the thought of her older brother. Guilt that hadn’t let her rest since his sentencing hadn’t humored her slowing down. She had to get him out of that prison before it destroyed him completely.
Out for good. Out on parole. Just out.
She signed in and took a seat, sipping her coffee and running through what needed to happen next.
“Baker?”
She looked up as the woman at the reception desk, then over to the man leaning out of the office. He smiled lightly, but it didn’t reach his eyes. Lydia braced herself and stood to follow him.
“O—“
“Call me Lydia.”
He looked relieved.
Asshole. It was on her paperwork if he’d looked at the “preferred name” field. Hell, he could have just called her ‘Ms. Baker,’ the way the Art Chair did, but she supposed that would be asking too much.
Lydia closed the door behind her. He sighed and sank into his seat, nodding.
“Lydia, then… you said something about a job? It’s a little late for you to be looking for an on-campus job for the summer. We’re already two weeks from the end of the second mini-mester.”
“I know. I was actually looking for something for the rest of the summer. I had to go home for a family emergency at the top of the summer; otherwise, I would have been here before.”
And she would have left the Bar then. It had been a very expensive two weeks, but she wouldn’t have done anything different. Someone had to be around for grandpa while he was recovering, and her mom made enough money as a nursing aid while going to school to be a nurse practitioner to make it a sensible choice. Between the University’s offer of aid to fly her home and back at a deep discount, and the money she’d saved up, it had just been Lydia’s livelihood that had suffered.
Skipping meals wasn’t new for her.
The counselor looked at his screen, frowning. “Ah, sorry for…”
He didn’t finish, and she didn’t expect him to. No one at Aegis actually gave a damn, and they were the same hollow condolences that had followed her for years since Quillan was unjustly incarcerated.
Her grandfather had been a janitor for over fifty years for the Chicago Public School District. He had a modest pension, Medicaid, and Medicare, so he would be mostly comfortable, but compared to the policy makers and empires of business Aegis churned out, he was no one.
But he was her dad in all the ways that mattered. Her mom was still struggling her way out of being young, Black, undereducated, and having kids with the wrong man. That man had left them when Lydia was a kid, threatening to withhold what little child support he did send to get her mom to keep quiet about who he was to Lydia and Quillan.
Lydia and Quillan had forgone the names he’d given them and had started going by their middle names, gifts from their mother’s grandparents.
After the last heart scare, the doctors had, very delicately, suggested that they should start thinking about making arrangements for her grandpa and getting his affairs in order. The thought that Quillan wouldn’t be able to come to his funeral, or that he would be gone before Quillan got out was the unstoppable force dragging Lydia forward through sleepless nights.
Guilt filled every paint stroke, and the dread every time a Chicago number flashed across her screen had drained these past few weeks of any color.
“I don’t think I’ll need to change my courses. I’m just looking for something to hold me over until the school year starts.”
Her financial aid was enough to cover her life through the end of the semester, so all of the money she’d make then would go right to Quillan’s lawyer fund.
“Sorry, but that’s not going to be possible. On campus jobs go quickly over the summer.”
Lydia clenched her fists. “Could you look? Please?”
He pursed his lips, but turned back to the screen. For all of his disgruntlement, it was twice as frustrating for her. If she had access to other scholarship students, she probably wouldn’t need to be here, but she’d been roomed with non-scholarship students and given a wealthy mentor who, while nice, didn’t have any answers for what Lydia needed. She was her tie to the Japanese community on campus, but that’s it.
“Well… you must be very lucky.”
Lydia’s head shot up.
“A TA position just opened, part of the mini-mester that leads into the school year.” He hummed. “He’s requested a TA in the art program who could use skill development credit, so you’d be getting that out of the way and TA’ing for his other section.”
“That’s perfect!”
Dorian sauntered into the restaurant, sunglasses on to block out the stinging in his eyes, held together by coffee and the fading high of his last orgasm. He’d sent the woman off with no intention to see her again. The bob was more his speed, the way she whimpered and begged was like a shot of starlight in his veins.
“What are you wearing, Dorian?” Heather’s uptight hiss cut through the air.
He turned slowly to see her at the Knoxes’ usual table: Vincent, in the same suit he’d worn a thousand times, and Heather, his wife, in a new, pastel yellow dress, and two empty seats.
Becca wasn’t here. Good.
Heather’s face looked tighter than it had in a while. She must have gone back to fillers. It followed. Vincent’s forehead had that same weird smoothness, and his hairline looked a little thinner. Was Dorian stressing him out, or was it his precious company keeping him up at night?
Hard to be a family company when there was no family left to take it over, he guessed. Familiar pleading whispered from the back of his mind and died under the bite of his resentment.
Fuck him. It’s his fault.
“And what sort of time—“
“Not humoring a lecture,” Dorian said, pulling a chair out and dropping into the seat. “Another cup of coffee though…” He smirked. “The guys and I had a wild night, and we plan to have a few more.”
“Don’t get cocky,” Vincent hissed. “You missed three shots in that last game. You nearly lost. No wonder you weren’t even considered for center.”
“Three more shots than you’ve ever attempted.”
He flushed and bared his teeth. A waiter drifted close, wearing a neat nude dress that fluttered when she moved and a polite smile that didn’t reach her blue eyes. She lifted the fancy, insulated pot in her hands and poured into his lifted tumbler.
The scent of it jolted him awake, pushing at the fog at the edges of his mind.
“Would you like to place an order?”
“No. Cream.”
“I’ll bring some more. White or brown sugar?”
“Both.”
She turned away. He brought the tumbler to his nose, wishing he could snort caffeine.
Heather pursed her lips and looked like she wanted to scold him, but fuck her, too.