Page 18 of Unconditional

“Of course,” I assured him, my stomach dropping.The boy was so used to everyone giving up on him.I wouldn’t be one of them.

As soon as he left the frame, I went off.

“I cannot believe you would look at his file and think, for even a millisecond, that it would be appropriate to send him with a new family without my prior approval.Benji should have stayed with one of our counselors last night.We have protocols in place.”

The woman rolled her eyes, infuriating me further.“You are being unreasonable.Kat and Richard Lewis are a perfectly acceptable family, and Benjamin cannot be expected to be a good judge of their character after only twelve hours.”

“Unreasonable?”I was hanging onto my patience by a thread.I was used to being accused of being difficult or unreasonable when it came to my standards of care for the children I oversaw.And truthfully it only served to impassion me further.Other social workers usually attested my flare for ‘drastic measures’ to my age, but let them doubt me.No child under my care would leave the system thinking I was part of the problem.

Talon sat across the room, a book in his hand but his eyes on me as though he were waiting for me to erupt.I ignored him.

“I am being far from unreasonable.DCFS deferred Benji’s case tome.He is my responsibility.I am not making any suggestions here today, Barbara.I amtellingyou that this case must be handled with extreme care.This is a boy who has been through incredible traumas while under the watchful eyes ofyourorganization, and as such suffers from extreme trust issues.

“If you do not heed my warnings now, do not be surprised when he runs away or becomes even more combative.Have you had the chance to review the list of families I sent you last night?”

We went around and around like this for two hours, carefully reviewing each family to make the right selection for Benji’s needs.The entire time, I felt Talon’s eyes on me, watching me with a silent fascination.Even as he packed up our belongings and took them out to the car, he watched and listened.At one point he even brought me a bottle of water and blueberry muffin from my stash, but never interrupted the meeting.Just placed them on the table beside me, careful to keep himself out of the webcam’s frame.

By the time our conversation rounded out to an end, it was nearly one in the afternoon and my stomach was growling.We’d settled on the Fredricks family, who’d I’d worked with before and had a good success rate with troubled kids, and a warning to Barbara that she be hyper-vigilant on Benji’s progress with them.He’d be checking in with me every other day over the phone, and when I returned to Chicago from my ‘trip,’ we’d schedule an in-home visit.

It was the best I could do from a cheap motel in Nebraska, and despite my aching wish that I could be navigating Benji through it in person, I was satisfied with the end result.

I shut my laptop and heaved out a relieved sigh, leaning back in my chair.My back ached from sitting for so long, making me dread even more the no doubt long commute we were about to endure.

“All taken care of?”Talon’s gruff voice behind me made me jump.He’d just stepped out of the bathroom, and I was still so lost in thoughts of Benji and my other cases that I had not even heard him.

I nodded, reaching up to pinch the bridge of my nose.“As taken care of as it can be from here.”

He grunted in response, and I knew without him saying anything that it was time to get moving.Standing, I stretched my aching muscles, groaning with satisfaction when several places in my back cracked.

When I turned to meet Talon’s gaze, he seemed so uncomfortable where he stood that I almost laughed.His thumbs were hooked into the belt loops of black jeans, his lips pinched tightly.“All right,” he breathed, clapping his hands together.“We better head out then.We’re already pretty behind.”

It wasn’t very long after our first rest stop of the day that the car began to make a strange noise.Even to me, someone who admittedly knows very little about vehicle maintenance, it was obvious that something was wrong.We’d stopped for gas an hour and a half before, and when Talon restarted the car, the squeal that escaped from beneath the hood made my eyes go wide.He’d paused, knuckles tightening around the steering wheel before pulling out of the parking lot and resuming on our route.

He’d allowed me a brief, supervised phone call with Birdie to assure her that all was well (AKA—he wanted to make sure I kept up pretenses) before taking my phone back.Right after I hung up with her, my eyes stinging with tears yet again, the engine misfired.A barrage of curse words flew from Talon’s lips, but the car started back up and he kept us moving.Until the ticking noise came.

With one final “fuck!”under his breath, the very angry man resigned himself to pulling into what appeared to be a lone building on a long stretch of road, a beat up pickup truck parked in front of it.I blinked, craning my neck to peer around the wide parking lot, looking for any sign of life.This did not seem to deter Talon, who wordlessly popped the hood, jumped out and rounded it.

Climbing out of the passenger side, I had just come around the front to witness Talon’s fist assaulting the front of car, a slew of curse words falling angrily from his lips.Cautiously, I asked, “Care to tell me what’s going on?”

“The fucking timing belt.”

My head fell to the side in question.“What about it?”

Those furious eyes snapped up to me.“It’s two miles away from fucking snapping.”

“Seems likesomeoneis already there,” I muttered under my breath, feeling my cheeks blaze under the heat of his glare.

“Okay,” I continued, louder now, preparing to try to defuse him.“Well that sounds simple enough.We just need a belt, right?How hard could it be to replace a belt?”

His eyes narrowed, and for the first time when he looked at me, I really felt like he believed I might be stupid.“Well,Blondie, it’s easier done when you have an extra belt on hand.Do you happen to have one?Maybe in one of your six thousand fucking bags.”

“Hey!If you want to get pissed off at anyone, get pissed off at yourself.It’s not my fault your car is a piece of shit.I didn’t want to go on this stupid road trip to begin with, if you recall.”

“How could I forget?You remind me every five goddamn minutes!”

He’d stepped closer, making me cross my arms and straighten my shoulders defensively.“Good!I hope it eats you up every time I do!”

“The only thing that eats me up is having to hear your grating fucking voice whining every opportunity you get!”

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