The stranger nodded. “Good. Wouldn’t want you to sue the building.”
“Leo, this is the new tenant for 5C. Morgan Cantrell. We’re about to go sign the lease. Morgan, this is the super, Leo DeLuca.”
“You’re renting that one-bedroom?” A dark slash of brows twisted above those incredible blue eyes.
“Yes. Why? Is there a problem with it? And I’d hardly call it a one-bedroom.”
A dimple came and went in the hollow of Leo’s cheek with his brief smile. “Nah. You don’t look the type who lives here, is all.”
“No?” Morgan bristled. Just what he didn’t need. Some homophobic asshole getting on his case. “What type is that?”
Leo the super shrugged. “Guys in suits and ties don’t live here. It’s a working-class area.”
Relieved, Morgan felt his anger melt away, and he lifted his chin. “Well, I’m a teacher. And a regular guy. I’ll be fine.”
“Yeah. A regular guy.” Leo picked up the ladder Morgan hadn’t noticed until then. “See ya, 5C,” he threw over his shoulder and walked away.
“Ready, Morgan? I’d like to get to the office and send in all the paperwork.”
“Yeah, sure.” They walked to Mike’s car, and he slid into the passenger seat.
“Don’t let Leo get to you. He’s a little prickly but a good super. Keeps to himself, but if you need anything, he’s always around.”
“I’m sure I won’t.”
Morgan had no intention of drawing attention to himself. Once he moved in, Leo the super would never even know Morgan Cantrell was alive.
* * *
TWO
* * *
“Leo, is that you?” Fretful, his mother plucked at her cardigan sweater. “I wasn’t sure you were coming.”
“Yeah, Mom, I’m here.” He had no idea why he kept coming to see a woman who never gave a damn about him, yet every Sunday he trekked to her house on the other side of Brooklyn. That afternoon she sat out on the back deck, beneath a shaded umbrella. “Where’s Natalia? Have you been doing the exercises your physical therapist suggested?”
His mother’s live-in aide had the unenviable job of taking care of her, and Leo knew she was nothing less than a saint to deal with a woman like Theresa. Even before her strokes and heart attack, dealing with his mother had been no picnic. Now? Natalia deserved a medal.
“She went to the store for a few minutes. And I’m too tired. Why’re you pushing me?” Her querulous voice rose. “You know I’m doing the best I can.”
Which meant doing nothing at all. For as long as Leo could remember, his mother had been a vain, spoiled, selfish woman who expected everyone, husband and child included, to wait on her. His father had died in a freak construction accident, working overtime to give her everything she wanted, but nothing was ever good enough. Nothing and nobody, especially Leo.
“I’m only asking. The doctors want you to keep moving.”
After her first stroke, his mother had been lucky and regained almost full mobility, which led her to ignore their warnings to stop smoking and drinking and start a low-sodium diet and exercise. The second stroke had hit her harder, and coupled with a concurrent heart attack, left her in a weakened state. Her doctors confided in Leo that after the last stroke and with the damage to her heart, if she didn’t listen to them and try and help herself, there wasn’t much they could do for her. Another stroke could prove to be deadly.
Her bad attitude hadn’t been affected, and she’d continued to hurl her abuse upon anyone within range.
“The doctors don’t know shit. So you can all fuck off and leave me alone.”
Such a charmer, his mother.
“Mom, no one knows. But it makes sense to listen to the doctors. If you had the first time, you might not’ve had the second stroke. The third time you might not be so lucky.”
“It’s not fair. Why did this happen to me? It should’ve happened to Robert, that bastard. He’s the one who cheated and left me. That piece of shit.”
And while Leo wouldn’t have minded if all sorts of horrible things happened to his stepfather, in his eyes, his stepfather wasn’t the only guilty party in that marriage.
When Theresa Ryan had married Joseph DeLuca, she’d expected to be taken care of like the princess she was raised to be. Spoiled by her parents, Theresa knew that Joey, a contractor of luxury homes on Long Island, would give her the life she’d dreamed of. Unfortunately for her, Joey died, leaving her with an eight-year-old boy to take care of and loans on the business. A month after his father’s death, she’d leave Leo with a babysitter each night to husband-hunt, and barely a year later, she married Robert O’Toole, a lawyer she met at a singles’ night, whom she dazzled with her smile. He paid off her debt and moved them into a big house in Mill Basin, where Theresa entertained every weekend. They bought a boat and a beach house in the Hamptons, where she’d spend every summer perfecting her tan and drinking iced white wine. Leo was sent to sleepaway camp, despite his pleas to stay home.
His mother, having no patience to deal with a sad little boy who missed his father, left it up to Robert, who was more than happy to bend Leo to his ways. Robert had never wanted children and didn’t care that Leo was lonely. He didn’t want to watch ball games or play catch in the backyard. He wanted Leo to go away.
Crack. The hand across his face snapped Leo’s head back, but he refused to cry, and that drove Robert to even greater fury. He slapped Leo again. And again.
“Stop being a pain in the ass. No one wants you around. Go to camp like every other normal kid, and shut your mouth with all your whining.”
So Leo had shut up and gone to camp. He’d shut up when Robert would beat his ass for not getting good grades or for anything else that pissed him off about Leo. Which was almost everything. The only thing Leo had excelled at was sports, but Robert didn’t give a damn about that. And Theresa never gave a damn about anything Leo did either. She’d floated through life in designer clothes, smoking cigarettes, gossiping endlessly, and drinking her white wine. When he grew older, Leo suspected she and her friends traded husbands as easily as they did each other’s secrets.
Then Theresa had her first stroke and a second within the year, and Robert had no use for a wife who couldn’t keep up with his lifestyle. He walked out, leaving her with the house, a nice settlement, and a boatload of resentment. Robert moved to the city and remarried six months after the divorce was finalized. He and Theresa had been married for over twenty-five years, and he was gone as if he’d never existed.
“Mom, is there anything I can do for you right now? I don’t see the point of complaining about Robert again. It’s been three years since you got divorced.”
“I know, and the bastard is living it up with that bitch of a girlfriend. I saw a picture of them—she looks like me twenty years ago. After I gave him the best of myself.” His mother had moved on to the maudlin part of the program now and began to cry. “He couldn’t wait to pay me off and leave. Nobody loves me. I’m going to die alone in this house. You only come to visit me because you’re my son and you’re forced to. But you don’t love me. I gave you a wonderful life. You had everything you could’ve wanted, and what do I get? Nothing but a face filled with resentment. I see. Don’t try to hide it from me.”