Page 42 of The Woman with the Wallet

“She was younger,” Max insisted, straightening, ready to defend her friend.

“Seems softer too,” I agreed.

“Good.”

So, I’d been right about their dynamic. While not related, Max took on the mantle of big sister. And protector. She’d shielded Megs from the uglier parts of the world, trying to ensure that Megs didn’t become cold and jaded. By letting herself become enough of those things for the two of them.

It was sweet and sad in equal measure.

“How old were you when you got permanently off the street?”

“It was a slow process,” Max said as she fiddled with the heated seat button. “For a long time, we alternated sleeping on the street and staying in the shelters, depending on how much room there was. As I got more jobs, we tried to rent rooms by the night, when possible.

“But it wasn’t until I really found my niche with picking pockets that there was enough of an influx of money for put down on first, last, and security. Been busting my ass ever since to make sure neither of us ever end up in a tight spot again.”

“But Megs works, right?” I asked. I understood the urge to protect and provide. I was especially guilty of spoiling my sisters. But it was important to make sure they could take care of themselves too. Especially given my lifestyle. God forbid something happened to me, I wanted to know they all could stand on their own. That was why I was so hard on Nero and would be on my other brothers as they joined the Family in an official way.

“Of course she works. But she doesn’t make a ton of money. Nicole is the same. They could probably pinch together enough to make it work, but it wouldn’t be as comfortable as it is now.”

“But you expect the boyfriend to move in eventually to make things easier on them.”

“Yeah.”

“Then you’ll be alone.”

“I’ll be fine.”

Survivors like her always would. But that didn’t mean she would do well. It seemed like a lot of her identity was wrapped up in taking care of Megs. If that was off the plate, what would she have left?

The answer came as quickly as the question formed. Work. She would have work. As a fellow workaholic, I understood that. But my motivation for working so hard was to get into a position where I no longer had to. I would have a whole crew to do a lot of the work. It would give me the freedom then to focus on what was important. Family. Both the family I already had and the one I wanted to make with the right woman.

As we drove along, Max fiddled with the radio, always managing to land on songs I loved, pointing out all the random wildlife we passed with the enthusiasm of a little kid. Or, more accurately, an adult raised in the city who’d only ever been exposed to pigeons, rats, and the occasional dog or cat.

“Ever have any pets?” I asked when we’d stopped to fuel up the car and she tried to befriend an extremely feral cat on that cusp of kitten and adolescence that kept hissing at her when she tried to just talk to it, not even get close.

“I used to feed the pigeons bread I got out of dumpsters that was too stale for me or Megs to eat. People hate on them, but they’re actually kind of sweet. Megs tells me that pigeons were pets we used during wartime, and then we, in typical awful human fashion, just let them all loose. That’s why they’re kind of dependent on humans still for their food supply. They don’t have the skills of wild birds.”

“I always liked the pigeons too. Come in some cool-ass colors.”

“Do you think there’s any meat in there I can get for her?”

I figured it was maybe a little telling that she immediately imagined the feral street cat who hissed at everyone who got near was a female but chose not to speak on it.

“I’ll find something,” I assured her, deciding that I would walk my ass across the highway with cars flying by to get to the fast food place to get her some meat to feed that damn kitten if I needed to.

It didn’t come to that, though. The rest stop included a typical convenience store that had some likely two-day-old hot dogs and a soggy sandwich that I could pull the turkey off of.

“I wish you would let someone take you in,” she said to the cat as she tossed ripped pieces of turkey in its direction. “The kind of people willing to wait for you to warm up might actually be worth it.”

Funny, I was thinking the same damn thing about her as I watched.

We were half an hour behind schedule, but I couldn’t bring myself to tear her away from the kitten until some asshole who worked at the rest stop came by to shoo it away. Helooked like he was about to scold Max for feeding it until she took a threatening step toward him and started to throw some impressively foul language at him for ‘possibly scaring a little kitten into traffic.’

“He looked ready to wet himself,” I said, smiling at her as we both climbed back into the car.

“He was a dick. I hate people who are assholes to helpless creatures just because they can be.”

Again, there was some projection there, and my heart fucking hurt at the idea of the shit she must have gone through as a homeless teen.

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