Sucking on his teeth, he swallows hard and then pins me with a look. “Can’t blame me for trying.”
“No, sir, ’cause I would do the same for my daughter who got knocked up by some rookie,” I say with a grin and he smiles. “I respect you, Mr. Haverbrooke, I do. But I love that girl, and I’m not letting her go.”
He eyes me. “It’s not easy to love her—”
“It is for me.”
“It is for me too,” he says slowly. “But I messed up somewhere. I put her brothers before her, and she holds a certain kind of animosity toward me for that. Not that I don’t deserve it.”
“You do.”
He nods sadly. “Yeah. I know you think I don’t like you, and it isn’t that. It’s that I don’t think anyone is good enough for her. I fully expected to walk into a shitshow, but you’re different.”
“Thank you,” I say, my eyes locked in his gaze. “I love her. All of her.”
“So you know the whole deal, her past?”
“Yes, sir, everything.”
“It doesn’t scare you?”
“Not even a little bit.”
He nods. “Scares the shit out of me. Want to know why?”
“Sure.”
“Because I’m pretty sure I could have prevented it, and I didn’t.”
The remorse, the pain is apparent on his face, and I feel for the guy. I don’t like that he hurt Avery, wasn’t there for her. But he regrets that and hopefully he’ll make it better. Leaning back, I nod. “I really think you should give her a chance to tell you the whole story.”
His face twists in confusion as he holds my gaze. “The whole story?”
“Yeah, the whole thing, because I’m sure it’s more than what you know. And I feel you need to know.”
Before he can say anything else, Avery slides in beside me and shoots me a grin before glancing at her dad. Looking back at me, she asks, “He try to talk you into leaving?”
I laugh as I nod. “Yeah, but it’s cool. I would do it for my daughter too.”
She smiles. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. But don’t worry, I told him no.” I add in a wink and she feigns relief.
“Oh, thank God!” she gasps before leaning into me, her hand pressed to her forehead. “I was nervous for a second there,” she jokes and I laugh.
“Sure, you were.”
“Eh, maybe not. I would have chased you down.”
“I wouldn’t get far,” I say with another wink, and when I glance at her parents, they are smiling too.
“He’s great, really,” Avery says and I kiss her temple as her mom nods.
“We are seeing that,” her dad admits.
“Yeah, maybe I was wrong,” Thea says.
Looking up at me, Avery widens her eyes as she hooks a thumb at her mother. “My mom just admitted she might be wrong for thinking you’re a rookie punk.”