Never figured out what to do with my heart, so all that pain gets roped up in my body.
I don’t know how long I stay here at the fire station. Kinda lost track of time when that call came in, with that pretty redhead with her purple-tipped hair and those green eyes that make her look pure vixen.
Peace.
Peace fuckin’ Broccoli—oh, sorry. Rabe.
Who the hell names their daughter Peace?
Probably the same kind of person who’d raise a chick who’d go mountain-trucking in a van that looks a whole lot older than she is, covered in hand-painted flowers in bright, bursting colors all over the finish.
That chick looks like she couldn’t have been born any earlier than 1990, but she’s got the look, all right.
Looks like she’d groove around naked covered in henna in a witch’s communion circle or something, flowers in her hair and wreaths around her wrists and ankles…
…and I should not be thinking about a stranger naked.
Make that a damned curvy, cute, smart-mouthed stranger with a petite body and a pert, pretty, impish face.
No excuses.
Even if it’s been a long-ass time.
I’m lucky when my phone yanks me out of my thoughts, buzzing in my pocket. I dig it out and swipe the new text—then wince.
GDI Dad u were here and u just left me?
Aw, hell.
I’d forgotten Andrea was at the Charming Inn with Haley, taking art lessons. I was supposed to pick her up.
I check the time.
Shit.
Like, twenty minutes ago.
Yeah, my leg’s being nasty, but she doesn’t need to know it. Nobody does, and that goes double for my little girl.
She’s sixteen.
I don’t need her worrying herself silly over me when I’m the parent here, and she’s got enough on her plate.
My leg’s not being too big a dick, at least, when I haul myself up. Hurts like a motherfucker, but at least it holds me up as I swagger off to my old military Jeep.
The top’s all covered in snow. I sweep it off before hauling myself behind the wheel, flicking the headlights on and heading out into the night to pick up my daughter.
It’s barely a mile’s drive past the outskirts of town and back to the Charming Inn.
I tell myself I ain’t looking as I drive past the field full of cabins.
I swear, I ain’t paying attention to that light still on in one set of windows.
Not at all.
When I pull up around the front of the big house, Andrea’s waiting outside with Haley and Ms. Wilma. She’s bright, animated, talking to Haley with her sketchbook clutched to her chest, while Ms. Wilma watches with her wizened face set in an expression of kindly amusement.
Andrea swings herself around like a pinwheel, throwing up her hands between laughs.
I’ve seen so many little girls raised to make themselves small. To not take up too much space.
I love my daughter because she takes up space.
She isn’t afraid to make her presence known, isn’t afraid to be herself, from that punk mouth on her to the wild crop of half-shaved hair that’s mostly pink at the tips, but still the vivid, wild purple underneath that makes her my Little Violet.
One brave flower, standing bright.
As she looks up and sees me pulling in, her brightness vanishes into a sullen scowl.
I sigh, dragging a hand over my face.
Look, I love my daughter, but she’s a sixteen-year-old girl who thinks her dad is the biggest cringe embarrassment on the planet. I already know I’m in the shit from that mouth before she even gets in the car.
I ain’t wrong.
She comes clomping down the steps in those big combat boots she wears—still don’t know where she got ’em, huge and clunky things and she never fucking laces ‘em and she’s gonna kill herself like that—and slings herself into the car.
Then immediately tucks herself into the corner, glaring out the window.
Okay.
No mouth, then.
Silent treatment tonight.
I try to wait her out, lifting a hand in a friendly wave for Hay and Ms. Wilma, before jacking the Jeep into gear and reversing out of the drive to head back into town.
The silence is a knife over my skin.
I’d wonder what the hell I did wrong this time, but frankly I’m not sure I ever stop.
As we pull back into town with the light of the Brody’s sign flickering like a second moon over the main street, I glance at her. She’s got on thick black wool tights under her ripped, frayed denim skirt, but they’re all busted out at the knees.
Another sigh spills out. “Andrea, you either gotta sew those up or let me buy you new ones. It’s winter.”
She scowls, just a hint of her face twisted up in profile. “I like them like this.”
“You like freezing your kneecaps off?”
“I don’t get cold, okay?” she snaps. “I’m fine. You’re not Mom, so stop trying to mother me.”