I smiled.
My father was… awesome.
But he was also brash, opinionated, set in his ways, and loved his girls more than he did his boys.
He loved my brothers, sure, but he wasn’t nearly as overprotective with them as he was with us girls.
Me especially.
I was so much like him, according to both my mom and my dad, that at times they wondered if my soul had just been siphoned from him when I was born.
It’s a big joke between them, that the moment that I was born, my father lost what was left of his sound judgment when it came to reacting correctly.
“Belle wouldn’t share something like this with Nico.” Delanie paused, seeing my face. “Would you?”
I shrugged. “I mean, if I wanted a male’s opinion, yes. I’d also share it with my brothers as well if I felt like it would get me anything. Their opinions don’t matter to me as much as my dad’s, though. But that’s neither here nor there. If I felt like it was something that I needed to share, then yes.”
“She’s told you that she took him to her first gynecology appointment, right?” my mother asked, dishing up a taco and plating it before reaching for some of the queso.
Delanie gasped. “You didn’t.”
I shrugged. What was the big deal?
“Sure I did.” I delayed. “Is that a bad thing?”
“No.” Dillan paused. “Not if you are weird.”
I grinned. “We’ve already established that we are weird.”
My phone rang in my purse, and I was frowning at it in surprise when my mom said, “Aren’t you going to get that?”
I looked at her while it kept ringing then stopped.
It started up again seconds later.
“The only people that would call me are here. And everyone else would call you first. Since you haven’t gotten a call, I’m assuming that whoever is at the other end of the line isn’t someone that I want to talk to,” I admitted. “I’ve been getting a lot of telemarketer calls lately.”
The weird thing was, I hadn’t.
I never got any phone calls period.
And, to top it off, I never, not ever, put my phone ringer on loud.
Not only was a ringing phone annoying, but I tended to go places where it was rude to have a phone blaring out in the middle of peace and quiet.
My mother stood up and went for my phone, pulling it out of my purse and glancing at the screen.
“It says Bruno,” she whispered, holding it out for me.
A memory of Bruno taking my phone and inputting his phone number, then calling his own with mine, flashed through me.
We’d been walking out to the parking garage, him at my side, when he’d said, “If you need help with that next time, or anything else, call.”
I took it before I’d even told myself I was going to.
Placing it to my ear I said, “Hello?”
“Ahhh.” A stranger’s voice filled the line. “This is Burnett County EMS. This man’s phone was found, open and unlocked, with your phone number as the only number in his incoming call log.”