No Damaged Goods

Ah. There it is. Didn’t take long.

The real reason she’s pissy, and tonight of all nights, I don’t blame her.

For four years, my little girl’s been mad at Abby for being the one to leave, and at me for being the one to stay.

I think she’d be the same way with Abigail, maybe, if I’d been the one Andrea found dead on the floor. Mad at me for going, and at her ma for staying. Who knows.

What she really wants is her whole family back in one piece, even if we’d been quietly broken way before Abby’s accident.

“Hey,” I try quietly. An olive branch or something. “You wanna stop by Brody’s? They got the milkshake machine fixed so they can do the extra-thick ones again and—”

“I already ate with Haley,” she snaps back. “And I don’t have time. I have homework.”

“It is kinda late,” I concede. “Sorry I was slow picking you up. Had an emergency call.”

“Yeah, I heard.” She sniffs, almost offended. “It was on the radio.”

I wince. She doesn’t like my show, but goddammit I need something to do with myself. It was Warren’s idea, way back, something to take my mind off things.

I didn’t expect I’d start having fun with it.

Half the time people call in to prank me, ’cause that’s how we roll here in Heart’s Edge.

Everybody knows everybody, and we like to mess around.

Keeps people entertained.

Keeps me busy, answering questions about relationships or the latest Bigfoot sighting since the Legend of Nine ain’t a thing anymore.

And every now and then, I get to really help people. Can’t say I mind that one bit. Even if it embarrasses the hell out of my kid.

I wait several seconds for the simmer between us to die down a little, then try, “If you need help with your homework—”

“I’m fine.” She doesn’t even let me get it all out. “I’ve got straight As. It’s all baby stuff. I don’t need anything. And I don’t need you to pull this stupid shit.”

“Hey, watch your damn language.”

“Oh, that’s great. Curse at me while you tell me to stop cursing.” She throws a sharp, hard look at me, crackling like wildfire. She’s got her mother’s light-brown eyes, and they’re like sparks when she’s this mad, amber-bright. “I know what you’re trying to do. Okay? I know. It’s the day. That day. And you’re trying to make up for Mom being dead when you can’t, and I hate it when you try. So just stop. Leave me alone, Dad. If I need somebody to cuddle me, I’ve got Mr. fucking Hissyfit.”

I can’t even get on her for that F-bomb.

Not when her words hit me like a ton of bricks, stinging more than the throb still in my thigh.

I’d close my eyes against the pain, if I didn’t have to keep them on the road.

Goddamn, my daughter knows how to throw a punch.

I don’t know what hurts more.

That she can see through me with so much contempt…or that she’d rather get squeezed half to death by her pet albino boa constrictor, rather than take a hug and a little comfort from her old man.

I don’t know what to say.

So all I say is, “Okay, Andrea. Fine.”

Sometimes, all you can do is let people burn themselves out. Especially when they’re sixteen and their emotions run so hot.

I want to fix this for her. I want to fix everything.

But she’s right about one thing—I can’t.

So I’ll respect her wanting to grieve in her way.

Meanwhile, I try to wrestle up some way to work through this crap on my own.

* * *

We don’t say a word to each other for the rest of the drive home.

Whatever. I’ve got other things on my mind besides my firecracker daughter and my burning leg when I pull into the driveway. My headlights sweep over the car sitting off to one side.

It’s nice. A Benz, looks like, brand new, glossy black.

I don’t have a clue who it belongs to.

But I get my answer a second later when my headlights pick out a familiar figure standing on the porch, cold smoke huffing out of his mouth with every breath.

Someone I haven’t seen in years, lounging there like Lucifer himself come to pay back a grudge.

Holt.

Fuck my life.

I don’t need this tonight.

Without even waiting for Andrea, I park the Jeep and throw the door open. I can’t even feel the pain as I get out, standing and stalking toward the front steps.

“No,” I bite off before my brother can even say a single word. “Whatever it is you want, the answer’s always no.”

I’ve already got one snake inside the house.

Now I’ve got another one on my fucking porch.

Holt even moves like a serpent. The Biblical kind. We’re about the same height, only a couple years apart, but that’s where the resemblance ends.

Half-brothers, technically, and he takes after the good-for-nothing fuck who swept through town one night and left our single mama pregnant. His hair’s dark as sin, contrasting with those sharp, feral features just made for the lazy, carnivorous, smug smile he turns on me now.