Page 22 of Minor Trouble
He wasn’t the only one who had realized that.
“She has a lot of good suggestions.” I paused. “Can I let you in on a secret?”
He turned to me. “What?”
“I need help to be a better dad to you, Noah. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
He gave me a small smile. “You’re doing okay. Wanna watchSouth Park?”
Encouraged by his admission, I nodded. “Why not?”
Ten
Ainsley
On the drive home, all I could think about was the feel of Seth Hudson’s skin against mine. How my body had sparked into life when our fingers brushed. How a rush of need pooled in my core. Howwrongit would be if anything were to happen between us.
The last thought lingered front and center of my mind, despite all my efforts to push it away.
When I pulled into the tiny parking lot outside my apartment block, I spotted Marlena tending to her plants. She waved as I parked and grabbed my laptop bag and purse from the passenger seat. I got out, locked the door, and went over to her.
“Well, there’s a ray of sunshine in my driveway.” She laughed, gesturing to my bright orange Fiat. “I’ll always know when you’re home. How come you didn’t have it when you moved in?”
“Riley’s Garage had it for over a week. There was a warning light and an oil problem,” I explained.
“Maddox Riley’s a good boy, I won’t have anything said against him.” Marlena straightened up and put down her watering can. “He’s worked hard to keep that place going.”
“I wasn’t dealing with Maddox. It was one of his employees, Seth Hudson, do you know him?”
“I do indeed.” She pursed her lips. “Have you got time for a cup of tea?”
Wondering what Marlena knew, I put my plans for a TV dinner and some trashy television to one side and took her up on the offer. I followed her into her apartment, which was pretty much a mirror image of mine. However, where I’d taken the pared down, clean look, Marlena’s place was stuffed to the gills with cheap-looking knickknacks, cushions, and the odd stuffed toy animal. With all her personal belongings scattered around, it seemed half the size of mine. I perched on the edge of the sofa, while she bustled about boiling a kettle and finding some cups.
“Here you go, let me know if you need more milk or sugar.” Marlena handed me a mug with pictures of dogs on it.
“Thank you.” I took a tentative sip, but it was too hot to taste properly, and I didn’t want to burn my lips. “It’s lovely.”
She settled down on the armchair to the left of the sofa. “Seth went to school with one of my kids. When he actually went to school, that was. Once he got to high school, everything seemed to go wrong for him. He was in trouble a lot, spent a lot of time in the counselor’s office.”
That would go some way to explaining how he acted around me, probably getting flashbacks to his misspent youth. I sipped my tea, waiting for Marlena to continue.
“He fell in with the wrong crowd, a bunch of older kids. When he was a junior, there were rumors he’d got a girl pregnant, one of the cheerleading squad, a couple of years older than him. Her family whisked her away, and she was never seen again. Just like one of the soap operas you see on TV.” She shook her head, as if reminiscing about the scandal to hit Cali Cross.
Noah was evidence that those rumors were very much true. I hadn’t expected Cali Cross to be so uptight in response to events like that. Seth hadn’t really struck me as a bad boy, and accidental pregnancies did happen, even at that age.
“You know his son is living with him now?”
Marlena’s eyebrows shot up so high they almost hit her hairline. For someone who tended to be a bit of a gossip, I mentally punched the air when I knew something she didn’t. “When did that happen?”
“He’s been at school a little over a week, but I think he’s been in town for longer.” I didn’t want to tell Marlena anything I shouldn’t; student confidentiality was important to me, but those were facts for everyone to see.
My landlord shook her head, gulping down her tea and digesting the news. “Seth was different after Hannah left. Much quieter. Brad didn’t see a lot of him. He almost disappeared off the face of the earth. Seth wasn’t in school, and I think he got his GED. But he didn’t go to college, he always liked working on cars.”
“And Maddox’s dad gave him a job?” I asked. It heartened me to think the Rileys had seen Seth’s potential at such a young age and invested time in him.
Marlena sucked in a breath. “Not exactly. Remember how I said Seth fell in with a bad crowd? They were involved in drugs, nothing too serious, a bit of cannabis, but he was the one who got caught. He went to jail for a while.”
My jaw fell. “For what?”
