Runaway Girl (Girl 2)

“Cute? Jesus.” I ruffle her hair one more time and step back. “I better do something manly for the sake of balance.”

Naomi is still beaming at Birdie when I throw her over my shoulder and head for the exit. “How’s this?”

The gorgeous blonde draped over my shoulder makes a sound of protest, but I can tell her heart isn’t really in it. Especially when she pinches my ass. Hard.

For the second time this afternoon I yelp and we walk home laughing, Birdie performing dance steps on the sidewalk, Naomi’s hand tucking into mine when I finally set her back down. I want to stop a million times to kiss her, but I know I need to focus on what’s ahead. Funny enough, my little sister getting that final turn right has given me that final boost to ask Naomi to be with me. Permanently. Always. There will be a lot of compromises and obstacles to jump over if she says yes, but there’s nothing more worthy of an effort than this woman.

I just have to hope and pray she believes the same is true about me.

We round the corner into the driveway, still debating what to make for dinner when I feel Naomi’s hand turn to an icicle in mine. And when she tugs it away, the action tears the breath out of me. My attention flies to her face and finds her pale, staring at something in the driveway. An older man. A rich man—not a distinction I would normally feel compelled to make, except this man is pocket-square, winking-cufflinks, shiny-black-Mercedes-parked-along-the-sidewalk rich. There’s no way around it.

One of my most vivid memories of battle is kicking to the surface after completing a mission to plant explosives on the border of ally and enemy territory. Looking up through the dark glass and seeing the telltale flares of a firefight in progress. Knowing my waning oxygen gives me no choice but to breach the surface and enter the fray immediately. That early morning of my memories is all I can compare this moment to. It feels like I’m about to come out of the calm into a fight and there’s nothing I can do about it. No way to control the outcome. And somehow, I already know I’m at a distinct disadvantage.

“Daddy?” Naomi whispers. “What are you doing here?”

Naomi’s father. Here, at my home. I’ve barely wrapped my head around asking Naomi to stay and what that would entail. Meeting her parents isn’t something I’ve even allowed myself to imagine. But I’m damn certain this isn’t what I’d want. Naomi being caught off-guard. Me in an old-ass T-shirt and faded jeans. No preparation. No clear plans on how I’ll keep his daughter and make her happy for the rest of her life.

The man’s sharp gaze zips to me, down to the hand he clearly saw his daughter holding. She didn’t want him to see her holding it, did she?

Christ. Have I lost already?

“I have a better question, Naomi,” he returns, culture rolling off him like expensive fog. “What are you doing here?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

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Username: BlueHairedBirdie

She’s in Florida working as a pageant coach.

Username: IGotAnswerz9

Worst theory I’ve heard yet.

Naomi

I feel like a child being sent to their room. What is it about fathers that can reduce their daughters to infancy in a matter of seconds? I can argue with my mother until I’m blue in the face, but the second my father chimes in to disagree with me, it’s like being slapped, hot humiliation burning behind my eyes. I’ve only been disciplined a handful of times throughout my life by my father, but they are easily more memorable than any of my mother’s punishments.

As we turn from the stilted introductions my Southern manners compelled me to make between Jason, Birdie and my father, I think back to the last time my father expressed his disappointment in me. It was after yet another debate between my parents that escalated into an argument about The Affair while having after-dinner drinks on the back patio. I was sixteen and—looking back—in the midst of a hormonal know-it-all phase. Having listened to my mother use the indiscretion against him countless times since I was a child, I’d lost my composure and suggested she have an affair to even the odds.

I can still remember the regret of those words leaving my mouth, the sick, heavy feeling that invaded my stomach at their horrified expressions. After spinning from the patio and hiding in my room, I’d waited for the eventual footsteps, thinking it would be my mother who came to deliver my sentence. No cell phone for a week. No parties. No shopping.

Instead, my father had knocked and entered, without waiting for permission. He’d sat ramrod straight at the very corner of my bed, not looking at me.

Naomi, he’d said. Don’t behave like trash.