She blinked. This time I managed to cause her a few more moments of hesitation. And then she simply shrugged and said, “Fine.” With that, she pushed her way past me and entered my home without another word. I stood in silence and watched with a full chest as the child I loved more than anyone in this world finally merged her world with mine.
Nope, I definitely hadn’t nailed this moment in my imagination. I hadn’t realised the depth of emotion I’d feel. My chest filled to overflowing, and feelings I wasn’t sure I’d ever experienced roared through me.
She’s here.
Charlie’s home.
With me.
I closed the front door and followed her into the kitchen where she dumped her backpack on the counter before opening the fridge.
“You got any juice in here?”
I pushed against the refrigerator door and closed it. “No. And how about we start again? Does your mother know you’re here?”
“No. And she doesn’t need to know.”
I reached for my phone. “Yeah, she does.”
When I started hitting numbers on my phone to dial Tenille, she blurted, “We had a huge fight. I just need somewhere to crash for a bit, okay?”
I stopped what I was doing and stared at her. “You plan on staying with me?”
“You’re my father, right?”
Fuck, I was so out of my depth here. I knew how to deal with assholes and motherfuckers, but a teenager? No fucking clue. I placed my phone back down on the kitchen counter. “Yes, I’m your father.”
“Good. So I’m staying.”
“How did you get here if your mother didn’t bring you?” I hoped like fuck she didn’t say she hitchhiked.
“By bus.”
It was clear she didn’t want to discuss that, so I let it go for now. “What did your mother tell you about me?”
“Everything.” She didn’t volunteer any further information until she grew tired of waiting for me to speak again, which I didn’t do because I figured whoever spoke first lost in this situation. And I needed to get the upper hand here if I was going to have any hope of controlling this. “Fine, she told me you didn’t really die in that fire, that you faked your death and left town because of shit that was going down at your work.”
Her tone was indifferent, like she was detached from the whole thing. I wasn’t a man too interested in feelings, but I had to know how she felt about this. “Does that piss you off?” Fuck, this was the strangest fucking conversation. Asking my daughter if me faking my death and walking away from her pissed her off. Based on the way my father abandoning me as a child made me feel, I could only assume Charlie was angry and hurt.
Her shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Yeah, but I don’t blame you for wanting to get away from Gibson. He’s an asshole.”
That threw me. After Tenille had defended him, I hadn’t expected Charlie to dislike him. But that wasn’t what I needed to focus on. For now, I needed to work on my relationship with my daughter. “Did she tell you anything else?”
She blew out a long breath, looking more pissed off about this conversation than any emotion I detected in her voice. “Look, I’m not into discussing how I feel, okay? It’s not what I do. I just want somewhere to crash until I get over this shit with Mum. You think we could do that?”
I recalled something Tenille had said about teenage girls slapping on a mask to hide their vulnerabilities, so I decided to let both this conversation and her attitude go for the moment. It was going to take us some time to work our way towards each other, and in the meantime, I was just going to have to ease into my role as her father. Unfortunately, patience wasn’t my strong suit, so fuck knew how this would go.
I picked up her bag. “Follow me.” I led her to one of the spare bedrooms. “You can stay here as long as you want, but I’m calling your mother now to let her know where you are.”
“She’s not going to come get me if that’s what you’re hoping for. All she cares about at the moment is getting drunk and avoiding her problems.”
I knew she was close to the mark with the getting drunk bit, but she was way off base if she thought Tenille didn’t care about her. In the small amount of time I’d spent with Tenille, the love she had for Charlie had been evident. However, I figured that getting into a discussion about that now wouldn’t get me anywhere.
I lifted my chin at her. “You want some breakfast?”
She stared at me like I had two heads. As if having breakfast with me was the last thing on her agenda. Moving to the bed, she sat on it and pulled her bag into her lap. “No, thanks.”
“I’ll be in the kitchen if you change your mind.”