“Yeah, we had a fight about you. She said she didn’t want anything to do with you, and I told her she should give you a chance and get to know you before making that decision. And now look where she is. I’ll come get her.” Tenille sounded drained, exhausted. She probably was. Between a husband with a gambling addiction, thousands of dollars disappearing from her bank account, a husband she thought dead turning back up, and a daughter going missing, I guessed she was running on emotional fumes right about now.
Opening the cupboard above where I stood, I grabbed the bottle of whisky from it and splashed some into my coffee. Fuck knew I was gonna need it today. As I stored it back in the cupboard, I said, “How about she stays here for a couple of days while she blows off steam, and then you come and get her?”
Silence again. And then—“I’m not sure about that, Aiden. She doesn’t know you. And you have no experience dealing with teens. I should probably just come today and take her home. By the time I get there, she’ll have calmed down enough to talk to me.”
“Tee, stay put. I’ve dealt with worse than teens in my life. I can handle Charlie. You need a break.”
She barked out a laugh. “And what do you propose I do with myself while taking a break?”
I frowned as I downed some coffee and waited for the whisky to hit my bloodstream. “I don’t know. Whatever the fuck mothers do when they get some alone time.”
“You really do have a lot to learn about parenting,” she muttered. “Fine, I’ll call Charlie and tell her I’ll be there in a few days. She’s all yours. Don’t kill each other, okay?”
Jesus, how fucking bad was this going to be? “I’ll keep you updated.”
We ended the call, and I reached for the bottle of whisky again. Filling my cup, I took a long gulp, closing my eyes briefly as the alcohol began to take the edge off.
How hard could this be? I could put up with a bit of teenage attitude for a few days. Anything to keep Charlie with me.
Three hours passed without a word from Charlie. Not a sound. Nothing. Those three hours felt like three fucking days to me. I fought an inner battle between leaving her alone and going in there to make her come out and spend time with me. In the end, I left her alone and went outside to the gym I’d built in my garage.
I’d just finished with the weights when she wandered into the garage. Wiping the sweat from my face, I watched her silently, waiting for her to speak.
Her gaze travelled around the gym before coming back to me. “You’ve got a good setup here. Would you mind if I did a workout later?”
“You box?”
“Yeah.”
“How about you do that workout now?”
Her eyes widened a fraction. “With you?”
I nodded.
She hesitated for a moment before shaking her head. “Nah, I prefer to work out on my own.”
“Fair enough. I’ll be finished in about half an hour. The gym’s all yours then.”
“Thanks.” With that, she turned and left.
As I watched her go, I wondered if she’d inherited my preference to be alone most of the time. She certainly seemed to have inherited my desire to avoid needless conversation. And I wasn’t sure yet, but perhaps my moodiness as well.
My phone rang, and I quickly swiped it off the bench. I’d been expecting a call from King all morning. Nitro and I had paid some visits around town last night looking for anyone who knew anything about Jacko’s murder. Sydney wasn’t talking, though, and we’d almost called it a night when we finally found someone who knew something. He’d given us a guy’s name, said the guy could probably help us. King had been adamant he wanted to be present if we found someone who might squeal, so we’d called it in to him and he’d told me to be ready today to drag information out of the asshole. I was more than fucking ready to do that.
King wasted no time on small talk. “I’m gonna text you an address. Meet me there in half an hour.” And then he was gone. A moment later, an address came through, and I headed inside to get dressed.
“Charlie,” I called out as I walked the length of the hallway. When she didn’t answer me, I knocked on her closed bedroom door. “I’ve gotta go out for a while. You okay here on your own?” I figured she would be. I just wasn’t sure I would be. My protective instincts were kicking into high gear, and leaving her was the last thing I wanted to do.
She still didn’t answer me, so I knocked loudly a few more times, and when no answer came still, I opened the door without waiting any longer.
I found her lying on her bed, earphones in, eyes closed. Fuck, this was frustrating. She couldn’t fucking hear me and still had no clue I was in the room.
Pulling one of her earphones out, I said, “These things are a pain in my ass. I’ve been calling out to you, trying to get your attention.”
She scrambled into a sitting position as she shot me a filthy look. “I could have been naked! You can’t just barge into my bedroom.”
I ignored the way she referred to this room as her bedroom, and how much I liked that, to instead address what she’d said. “I can barge in if I’ve been trying to get your attention for a while with no response. You stop with the earphones and I’ll stop with the barging in.”
“No one listens to music without earphones. That’s a dumb idea.”
“Suit yourself, but expect me to enter your room if I need you and you don’t hear me.”
Scowling, she muttered, “Screw you.”
I raised a brow. “You care to alter that?”
Eyes steady on mine, she refused to budge. “No.”
She was my daughter all right. The way she held her ground and refused to back down was exactly how I would have handled this situation. But that didn’t mean I would encourage it.
“Charlie, we need to get something straight here. I want you to stay with me, and I want to get to know you and have a relationship with you, but no way am I putting up with you disrespecting me. You wanna tell me to go screw myself, you do that when I can’t hear you.”
Her turn to lift a brow. “Oh, so now you wanna get to know me? Now you wanna be my father?” She moved off the bed and stepped close to me. Her shoulders tensed as she spat out, “You talk about me disrespecting you. Well, how about we talk about the way you disrespected me for the last fourteen years by ignoring me? That kinda felt like a big screw you from you to me.”
And there was the anger I’d been waiting for. It hit me like a tidal wave, causing my chest to constrict with all the guilt I’d been trying to shove away for years, and then some. I deserved everything she said.
“Yeah, I guess it did. The only excuse I have is that I was trying to keep you safe.” Fuck, I wasn’t prepared for this. I should have been. I’d had fourteen fucking years to prepare for it, and yet there I fucking was fumbling for words that would never ease her hurt or adequately tell her how sorry I was.
Her eyes searched mine furiously, looking for what, I wasn’t sure. Short, harsh breaths pumped from her as she worked herself up with more anger. “That’s all you have to say? Really?” She shook her head at me, but she had the kind of look on her face that told me she wasn’t hearing anything she hadn’t expected. “Fuck, I’ve got a father anyway. I didn’t need you.”