I nodded, but it didn’t ease my concerns. Anxiety gripped me to the core.

“Now I’ve got fifty two hundred put aside for the baby already,” he continued. “I’m going to have to use it. I’ve got a fight this Friday. That could easily be another five grand in the bag. Which means from now until then we have to come up with another five, and I can’t see anything around this apartment that’ll sell for that kind of money.”

“So what are we going to do to make it up?”

“I might have to ask around.” He sighed slowly. “Not a lot of people are cashed up around here, but it’s worth a shot.”

I didn’t say anything. My brain was running on worse case scenarios. What would they do if we didn’t come up with the full fifteen grand? Where were going to get the remainder of the fifty from if they gave us another absurdly short deadline?

“I’m going to head out and start asking around,” he then said, standing up.

“You need to rest first,” I replied. “You look like you haven’t slept a wink –”

“I don’t have time to rest. I gotta get on top of this.”

I didn’t argue with him, though I wanted to. His movements were slow and unbalanced. He looked unwell and hardly able to concentrate as he went around the apartment, changing into a fresh pair of clothes but still smelling wretched.

He went out and I could do nothing but go to class. I had no one to turn to for money, except… well, my mother, but she wasn’t picking up any of my calls. Even when I was calling from a phone booth, she was dodging foreign numbers with a passion.

After morning classes, I returned home and neglected my homework. I couldn’t think of anything but this goddamn debt. I rummaged through my belongings, searching for anything that might sell. I found a pair of gold earrings Ryker gave me on my eighteenth birthday, and upon going through his stuff, I pulled out several watches that he’d spoiled himself over the months before his arrest.

I headed back out and took a bus to the nearest pawn shop. Tired myself, I pushed through, walking a few blocks in the heat to get there. My stomach ached, and I had to stop several times to rub my bump and gulp some water down. When I finally made it, I discovered my earrings weren’t real gold and were virtually worthless, and Ryker’s watches combined totalled to three hundred dollars. Not caring that he loved them, I handed them over. He could live without them – after all, this was his damn debt.

On my way back, I stopped by several shops and filled out some resumes. I tried to hide my bump, which wasn’t that difficult when I was wearing a baggy shirt and still looked tiny. If I got something soon, I might be able to rub some coin together before the baby was born.

Baby.

Jesus. At this rate, I wasn’t sure I could take care of another soul.

My life was a mess.

Heath wasn’t home when I got back. I made myself something to eat before collapsing into his bed. I couldn’t sleep in Ryker’s room after Heath had obliterated it. I threw the cash on the dresser and pulled the covers over top of me. My stomach ached, my body felt weak, and my feet were swelling badly.

Sleep won over eventually, especially when the scent of Heath clung heavily in the sheets around me.

*

I woke up to a hot body against my back and his thick arm around my waist. The first thing I thought was he smelled good, like he’d taken a shower. The room was dark, and judging by the darkness outside, I knew it was well into the night.

“Heath,” I whispered, “are you awake?”

“Yeah,” he immediately responded, sounding more awake than ever. “I am.”

“Any luck?”

“Jorge loaned me five hundred dollars.”

“That’s good.” Better than nothing. “I pawned Ryker’s watches. Three hundred dollars.”

“When did you do that?”

“In the afternoon. It was the nearby shop a few blocks down.”

He sighed unhappily. “I don’t like you walking around these streets. I don’t like you tiring yourself out either.”

I shrugged. “Do you expect me to do nothing about this?”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

Doing nothing was out of the question. To throw this kind of burden on Heath’s shoulders solely was absurd.

“I wish there was more I could do,” I said, feeling let down by how little I could contribute.

“Three hundred dollars is great, Allie.”

Despite everything, my body warmed from his words. He was speaking to me like normal, showing no signs of the angry Heath from this morning. This was the part of him I needed the most. I didn’t want what we did to curse our relationship. I would take this side of him happily if it was the best I could get.

“I’m sorry for everything,” I suddenly said with remorse, “I didn’t mean to ruin things with you.”

“You ruined nothing,” he replied, kissing the back of my head before nuzzling his nose into my hair. “You’re perfect, and I regret nothing when it comes to being with you.”

“But you said –”

“I panicked. I lost my shit and I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry for running out. I shouldn’t have. The last thing I want is for you to get treated like shit by another Lawson boy. I don’t want you to hate me.”

I shook my head. “You’ve never treated me badly, and the last thing I could ever do is hate you, Heath.”

He squeezed me tighter against him. We said nothing else, but our bodies entwined in a way that was far from neutral. I tried to understand what this meant. I didn’t know if this was his way of pushing us back into what we were before that night, or if the paradigm had shifted and this was the beginning of something else.

Regardless, I wouldn’t beg for his touch, even though it was constantly at the tip of my tongue. I left the fate of us in his hands.

Fourteen

Heath

I couldn’t sleep.

The days flew by, but the nights went by achingly slow. I was a fucking mess.

Sixty two hundred dollars.

That’s what we had by Friday morning. I was losing my shit. I needed to win tonight’s fight. Needed a cool five or six grand to add to that amount. At most, I could squeeze a few hundred dollars from the rent, but that meant being hounded by the landlord next week. That stingy bastard was at your door if you were an hour overdue.