Knight In Black Leather by Gail Dayton (ebook reader ink .txt) 📕

Slug came slowly toward the bed, ready to back off at the first hint of rejection. "So pick one. I don't care."

"What's your name?"

His shoulders lifted and fell. "Slug."

She wanted to smack something. Preferably whoever taught this boy to answer to Slug. "Okay, fine. I'll just call you 'Hey you.'"

"Look, if you want me to have a fu--a name, then give me one. Give me a name."

Marilyn stared at him, finally realizing that this was about more than a name. It was about starting over. "Steven," she said. "You look like a Steve to me."

"Stevie." Pete punched the older boy in the arm.

Steve put Pete in a headlock and gave him a quick noogie, but the grin on his face showed his pleasure.

"Is it all right with you?" she asked Eli. "If Stevie stays with us?"

Eli shrugged. "It's your house. Do what you want." He let go of her hand, retreating to a corner across the room while she visited with Joey and the boys.

Marilyn got to go home that afternoon. Fortunately, Joey came too and ran interference for her when Mom and the sisters called. The carjacking and search had been all over the news. Mom was nearly hysterical, blaming it all on Eli. Marilyn hung up when the hysteria turned to abuse.

Detective Jackson came out and sat everyone down at the dining table with legal pads to write down their story. The social worker who came out to check on Pete's living conditions agreed to certify them as emergency foster parents for Stevie. He refused to give the social worker any name but Steven, claiming he didn't have any other. They wound up enrolling him at school as Steven Court for lack of anything better.

The first few nights after their ordeal, Eli held Marilyn while she slept. They didn't make love, but she was pretty sure that was simply because he was so cautious about hurting her head. But then, after she got her stitches out, when she mentioned that her head was feeling just fine, he slept downstairs on the couch. That night and every night following. She wanted to ask why, but couldn't, afraid she already knew the answer. Afraid he was feeling the need to move on.

She needed to release him from his promise, tell him she didn't need him to stay. That wouldn't be a lie. She wanted him to stay, but she didn't need him, she wasn't in love with him. He obviously wasn't in love with her, given the way he had one foot out the door. But she said nothing. Marilyn might not need Eli--she didn't--but those boys did.

Pete had idolized Eli for years. Now, knowing Eli was his father, Pete's adoration knew no bounds. The little boy had blossomed, living in this house. He had become the noisy, grubby, happy boy he always should have been. Uprooting him from this security would do him no good. Even worse if, as Marilyn was beginning to suspect, Eli left Pete with her while he headed out on his journeys again.

Stevie needed Eli even more, in ways Marilyn couldn't begin to understand. The older boy worried Marilyn. He was too quiet, too good. It was more than just an orphan child trying to make himself useful so he'd be wanted. It was almost as if Stevie were trying to erase some terrible sin. As if he thought he needed to do all these things in order to deserve living.

She had hoped Eli would be able to help Stevie come to terms with things, but either Stevie wasn't listening or Eli wasn't saying what he needed to hear.

Several weeks after their ordeal, she'd gone upstairs to make sure Pete had actually turned out the light and found Stevie bent over homework at the desk in Julie's room. He kept his clothes in with Pete's, but slept in the pink-painted room because he stayed up later.

"Getting through it okay?" Marilyn set a hand on his shoulder.

He shrugged, moving away from her touch. "I guess."

"Maybe you should think about doing your homework earlier, when you're not so tired. At the shop after school, maybe."

"Yeah, maybe." Stevie looked up at her, eyes shadowed with something she couldn't read. "If that's what you want."

"I do." She nodded, unable to resist ruffling up his hair, cut short now like Eli's and Pete's, lighter than theirs. "Your job is school. Everything else comes after that." That was the rule Kevin and Julie had lived under.

"Okay." Again he ducked away from her hand.

She would think he simply didn't like to be touched if she hadn't seen him watching her steal hugs and kisses from Pete. The look in his eyes at those moments nearly broke her heart.

"Don't stay up too late." She let her hand rest briefly on his head again before turning toward the door.

"I'm done." Stevie slammed the book shut and stood up.

"Are you? Do you understand it?"

"Sure. Just some English junk." He stood there, as if waiting for something. For her to leave? For...what? His eyes flicked toward her and he fidgeted with his backpack zipper.

"Well, then..." How could she know what he needed, if he wouldn't talk to her? She was groping blind. On impulse, she hooked her hand around the back of his neck and kissed the top of his head. "Sweet dreams."

"Don't." He broke away from her and backed across the room. "Don't be nice to me. I'm not-- I-- I shouldn't be here."

Now, what should she do? She didn't know how to deal with traumatized boys, hadn't been able to deal with her own trauma. Hoping she wasn't making things worse, she walked toward him. "I can't help being nice to you, Stevie. You're a nice boy. I'm glad you're here. You belong here. Not anywhere else."

Marilyn wrapped him in her arms and held him. He stood stiff in her embrace, trembling, refusing to let her in.

"What happened to you wasn't