Chapter 3
Ryan followed Taylor into the kitchen as she walked to the stove. He wrapped his arms around her from behind and began kissing her neck.
"Ryan, I'm cooking, this chicken is almost ready." Taylor pleaded. "Aren't you hungry?"
"Oh, I'm hungry all right," he said slyly biting her neck. "But I can wait for the food."
Taylor blushed. "Why, Mr. Atwood, what's put you in such a frisky mood?" She turned around to kiss him, but before she could, Ryan's cell phone rang.
Ryan kissed her forehead and said. "I'm sorry, I have to get that." Taylor hung her head disappointed and turned around to check on the chicken again. It seemed to be a common occurrence lately, either Ryan was too tired or some emergency or other was interrupting their 'alone' time. It almost felt like they were in a marriage rut instead of in a lead up to their wedding.
Ryan walked out of the kitchen and pulled his phone out of his pocket. Unknown caller. He hated those, but he answered anyway. "Ryan Atwood"
"Hey, um, Mr. Atwood?" Ryan recognized the voice immediately.
"Nate, you decided to call. Are you ok?" Ryan could tell by the sound of Nate's voice that something was very wrong.
"Um, no, I'm not, I didn't know what to do this time. I can't get a hold of Ms. Hooper, and I can't get in, and she really scared me this time." Nate sounded desperate.
"Whoa, whoa, slow down buddy. Where are you?" Nate told Ryan he was on the wall where they had met earlier.
"I'm on my way out the door. Don't move. I'm going to hang up now, but call me back in about fifteen minutes, OK?" Nate agreed, and Ryan hung up. He walked back into the kitchen where Taylor was just serving the coq au vin.
"Who was that?" she asked as he walked up to her.
"I'll explain later, but I've gotta go back into the city. I shouldn't be more than an hour or so" he said vaguely. "I'm sorry about dinner, babe" He kissed her quickly on the cheek and was gone.
"It's ….fine, but when…." she got out before the front door closed.
Ryan got in the car and barely had the door closed before he had the engine started and was moving in reverse. He put his phone in the hands-free cradle again. There was another call he wanted to make quickly before Nate called him back.
"Hey Ryan! How are you?" said the voice on the other end. "Seth and Summer are here and we were just talking about your wedding." Call display left nothing to the imagination any more.
"I'm great Sandy, thanks. The wedding, ah, cool, coming up soon, yep. Is Summer looking after my future niece or nephew?" Sandy looked at the 6 months pregnant Summer gently stroking her belly as she talked to Kirsten.
"She sure is." Sandy smiled "So what's up?"
"I may need your help" Ryan started
"Is everything ok?" asked Sandy. "Anything for you, you know that"
Ryan explained to Sandy quickly what he knew about Nate, which was not much. He asked Sandy if he could be available to help if it was a legal problem and Sandy agreed quickly.
"Ryan, be careful. Not all teenage boys in bad situations are like you. Find out what you're getting into before you commit to anything. Call me if you need me."
"Thanks Sandy, I will"
No sooner had he hung up from Sandy than Ryan's phone rang again.
"Ryan Atwood"
"Mr. Atwood?" There was that scared voice again.
"Call me Ryan, Nate"
"Ok, are you almost here?" Nate sounded like he was on the verge of tears.
"I'm just coming off the freeway, I'll be there in five, but I'm gonna stay on the line and talk to you 'til I get there" Ryan wanted to make Nate feel safe until he got there. "Why don't you tell me what made you call me."
Nate began a lengthy explanation of his family situation which lasted until Ryan pulled up beside the payphone Nate was standing at the payphone near the wall they had sat on earlier.
Nathaniel Davies, it turned out, was a 14 year old boy who lived with his mother when she let him in the apartment. His father was unknown and had never been in the picture. All that was in the picture were an endless stream of men that Nate knew paid his mother to sleep with them. She locked him out of the apartment whenever she had a john in there. He spent many nights sat outside the apartment door or at a friend's house waiting to be let back in.
He'd been under the watchful eye of a social worker from Child Services for the past three years, but they had never found the hard proof to have him put into care. Nate didn't want to get his mom in trouble, so he lied about how often he was locked out and his bruises were always attributed to a bike or skateboard accident of some sort.
Ryan had listened to this story through the last part of his journey to Nate on the phone and now they were sitting on the wall together again.
"So what was it this time that made you call me?" Ryan asked.
"Well," Nate stumbled. "I went home after I spent the ten bucks you gave me and the door was unlocked so I walked in. Only I guess the door shouldn't have been unlocked 'cos there was some guy coming out of my mom's bedroom and she followed him out. She saw me and flipped out. She screamed about how she couldn't keep worrying about whether or not I was gonna be there, and couldn't afford to keep me anyway and started pushing me out the door. I begged her to let me get some stuff, but she kept shoving until I was back out in the hall and she locked the door. I banged a few times, but she wouldn't open up." Nate was shaking and trying hard to hold back the tears as he finished explaining to Ryan.
"I went to the payphone to call my social worker, Ms. Hooper, 'cos she said I could if things got really bad, but I couldn't get hold of her and I was scared. Mom's different this time. I don't wanna go back and I didn't know what else to do."
"You did the right thing, Nate. I'm going to take you to the apartment so you can pick up some things. I'll come in with you, don't worry."
"Thanks Mr….um Ryan, but it's not a place you really wanna go with your nice clothes and fancy car."
Ryan smiled and went to back of his SUV. He pulled out a gym bag and removed some items. One pair of well worn Doc Martin boots, one grey hoodie, and a faded pair of jeans.
"You can take the kid out of Chino, but you can't take Chino out of the kid" Ryan chuckled as he changed at the back of his car. Nate looked puzzled.
"Let's go get your stuff" said Ryan as he got in the driver's seat. Nate got in the passenger side and stared at Ryan.
"I still don't get it" he said "Why me?" as they drove to Nate's apartment complex.