“Hi, Daddy.”
Daddy. Call him a sucker, but that warmed him. Not so much when she was trying to persuade him to buy something for her, but when it popped out for no reason, yeah.
“Hey, honey. How are you? You settled into school?”
She’d had to change schools, too, which wasn’t fair, but her mother couldn’t afford an apartment in Beverly Hills where Davis lived. The guy was rich enough to have made it possible if he’d wanted, but why would he? The kids weren’t his. At least the break hadn’t happened mid-school year.
Brianna was fourteen, and a freshman in high school now. Only a year behind Trevor’s apparent girlfriend, Caitlyn Callahan. Had that occurred to Trev?
“It’s okay,” Bree said, tone telling him it really wasn’t. “At least I still talk to Lark.”
His daughter might be a near stranger to him, but Richard did know that Lark was her most recent BFF. Lark’s daddy was with one of the big Hollywood talent agencies. Brianna had been moving in slightly scary circles. He’d wondered without ever asking her if she told anyone that her father was an electrician.
“That’s good,” he said cautiously. “Gotten to know some new kids?”
“Oh, kinda. The classes are way behind the ones I was in last year.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” He felt helpless, as he often did when talking to her. He couldn’t have offered her what Davis Noonan had. He’d had painfully mixed feelings about the advantages this man he’d never even met had given his children. His feelings about them losing those advantages were even murkier. “I’m betting you’ll rise to the top wherever you are,” he said in the hearty tone any self-respecting kid would see through.
“Oh, Dad.” Rolled eyes. He knew it. He’d been demoted to “Dad,” too.
“Trev is having a tough time,” he said abruptly.
“Yeah, he doesn’t say much.”
Unhelpful. “I was hoping he did to you.”
“Nuh-uh. I think he’s mad at Mom and you, too, but I don’t know why.” She paused. “Is that why you wanted to talk to me?”
“Partly,” he admitted, shamed. He tugged at his hair hard enough to hurt. “I always want to talk to you. You know that.”
“I kind of wish I’d come for the summer.”
He squeezed his eyes shut. “I wish you had, too, honey. I miss you. It’s been too long.”
Bree hadn’t spent this past summer with Richard, either. She’d seemed reluctant with her brother not coming, and Richard hadn’t pushed it. He was sorry now.
“Maybe I can come for Christmas,” she added. “Except then Mom would be alone, so maybe not. Plus I wouldn’t know anyone there.”
“You know me and your brother.”
She made a noncommittal noise. He tried to coax some more information from her about new friends, teachers, anything, but got nuggets like “not really” and “they’re fine.” Finally he gave up and they signed off.
In frustration he thought, This is as good as it’s going to get. I’ll watch her graduate from high school and probably college, help pay for a wedding, walk her down the aisle if stepfather number four or five doesn’t get the nod, and I’ll never really know her. My own daughter.
He’d actually had doubts about whether she really was, although he rarely let them surface. He hadn’t guessed when Bree was born that Alexa was sleeping around, but later… He’d wondered, that’s all. Unlike Trevor, she had her mother’s coloring and enough of her mother’s looks there was no being sure. It didn’t make any difference, though. He’d loved his little girl from the first time he held her, and never stopped. It didn’t really matter if biologically she was his or not. It was only that she was more like her mother. Girlie.
He sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. Brooding was getting him nowhere.
What he had to ask himself was whether Alexa had lied to him just now. He had a hard time imagining that she really had no idea what had turned their all-star son into a wannabe juvenile delinquent.
And—hell—what about Brianna? Was she lying, too? Was there something none of them wanted him to know? He grunted with near humor. If I were trying to keep a secret, would I confide it to my powder keg of a son? My mall-mad daughter?
No, for God’s sake, that was idiocy. Sooner or later, Trevor would blow up and all would be revealed. Had to happen.
Whether Richard could fix what was wrong, though, that was another story.
Sitting there alone in the quiet house, he admitted to himself that he could use help. None of his friends who were married had teenagers, though; they hadn’t started families as young as he had. Counseling would be useless without Trevor’s cooperation. And Richard would be damned if he’d ask for help from Molly Callahan, who cared so much she had only suspended Trev instead of expelling him. Big of her.