Author: Kristan Higgins

Maybe she was texting the nice boy. Or listening to music, so she didn’t hear either the landline or her cell, which was usually glued to her hands. Or she was in the shower. Or being held at gunpoint. Or lying in the trunk of a Buick, wrists and ankles wrapped in duct tape, about to be tossed in the river, wondering why, oh, why her dad hadn’t charged to her rescue, as fathers were supposed to.

He left the garage at a run, waving to a few people as he dodged down the brick sidewalks. Past the bakery with the biker-chick owners, past the head shop, past the Italian restaurant that always smelled so good. Down the little alley, onto Court Street. It was 1.7 miles from the garage, which was the last business in the downtown section of Bellsford, to home. The sweat that plastered Liam’s shirt to his back had less to do with the fact that he was running and much more with the fact that he was…yes, it was certain now…freaking out. The rational part of his brain knew his worst fears had very slim odds of being realized. He was freaking out nonetheless. The sound of his footsteps on the pavement counted out the seconds till he could be sure Nicole was safe.

When Emma had died, it had been awful, of course. Eight months from diagnosis to death, eight months to try to prepare their child for heartbreak. The shock of grief is perhaps the worst part, that stunning realization that your time with this person is simply up. No arguing, no bargaining, no maybe tomorrows. Over.

But he and Nicole had done okay, so long as “okay” was a relative term. They’d gone for some grief counseling; she’d joined a group made up of kids who’d lost a parent, and he’d joined something similar for spouses. Life didn’t change so much as shrink. It had been awful…but also manageable. Were there times when Nicole had sobbed in his arms, inconsolable? Of course. Nights when Liam had sat at the kitchen table with a glass of whiskey, unable to set foot in their bedroom? Yep. But there were other times when Nic had come home from school and giggled over her math teacher’s polyester shirt. Nights when Liam had gone to bed and fallen right asleep.

His main focus had been Nicole, getting her through the worst parts, being father and mother both, adjusting to the fact that no one would spell him, no one would ease the crushing responsibility of raising a child, no one else would love Nicole as much as he did. It was brutal. But he was getting through it.

Until the accident. Then everything got messed up somehow. And Nicole, who didn’t even know there’d been an accident, was starting to sense weakness, and when a kid senses weakness, and that kid is fifteen years old, and way too beautiful and completely unaware of just how filthy were the thoughts of men, and when she wanted some freedom and some space…well…things weren’t so manageable anymore.

There. The apartment building was just ahead. Liam sprinted the last block and burst into the foyer, then, because the elevator gave him some major agita lately, bolted up the stairs. One flight…two…three…shit, he was getting old, this was taking forever, his legs felt like lead… What if he had a heart attack right here on the landing…four…and Nicole found his dead body…five.

Liam burst into the small hallway that separated the apartments and dug in his pocket for the key.

“Liam? Is that you?” A small gray head peeked out from underneath the security chain on 5B.

“Hi, Mrs. Antonelli, can’t talk now.”

“Well, I saw you running all the way down the street! Look at you! Is everything all right?”

“Everything’s fine. Just a little late, that’s all.” He flashed her a smile and went in. “Nicole? Nic? You around, hon?”

No answer.

He ran down the hall to her room. “Nicole?” Shoved the door open.

“Dad! Could you, like, knock? Don’t I get some privacy around here?”

There she was, his baby. Earbuds in, eating popcorn, lying on her bed and looking at a magazine, not in the trunk of some car, not duct-taped, not at the bottom of a river.

“I called you.” He was panting, sounding, yeah, like he might drop dead any second.

“Oh. Guess I didn’t hear.”

“Nicole, you have to answer the phone if I call!” he barked.

“Dad, I said I was sorry!”

“No, you didn’t!”

“I’m sorry.” She finally looked up. “You okay?” Her face creased in a frown. “Daddy, you’re all sweaty.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re a whack job,” she said, returning her attention to the magazine. “What, did you think there’d been, like, a break-in?”

“No,” Liam said, still panting like a dying racehorse. “Nope, just felt like running. Exercise. Stay healthy. You know. But I was glad to see you locked the door. Good girl. Don’t ever forget that.”

“Whatever.”

“No, not whatever, Nicole. You always lock the door. The dead bolt and the doorknob lock and the safety chain.”

“Okay, Dad. I will lock the door against the alien hordes, I swear to God.” She gave him an ironic smile, looking so much like Emma that it made his chest ache even more.

“So, I thought you were coming today, Nic.”

“Coming to what?” She flipped the page and cooed over an outfit.

“Nicole, today was the opening of the garage. It would’ve been nice if you’d been there.”

His daughter frowned. “I thought it was on the twenty-first.”

“No. It was today. The twelfth.”

She heaved herself off the bed and went to the kitchen, where the calendar of their daily events hung in the pantry closet. “Look, Dad. Right here, your handwriting, the twenty-first.” She gave him a fond smile. “You messed up, Captain Dyslexia.”

Liam stared at the calendar. She was right.

“Sorry I missed it, Daddy.”

“That’s why I called you. A lot.”

She pulled her phone from her jacket, which hung over the back of a kitchen chair, no matter how many times he’d told her to hang it up properly. “Oh. Wow. Eleven times. That’s really neurotic.” Another tolerant smile.

“Nicole, it’s not funny. You really have to answer the phone. I was worried.”

“Dad. Please. I’m almost sixteen.”

“Exactly.” Liam went to the sink and washed his hands—fifty-five seconds—and then splashed water on his face.

“So,” Nicole said. “I have that party tonight at the Graftons’, remember? And I’m sleeping over?”

Liam exhaled slowly and tossed the paper towels in the trash. “Right. Except we need to rethink that.”

Nicole’s tolerant mood evaporated instantly. Her hands went to her hips, and her chin jutted out, just as it had when she was three. “Dad, you told me last week I could go! You said! You promised!”

“I didn’t promise. I said yes, but it was conditional.”

“No! It wasn’t!”

“Look,” he said carefully. “I don’t really know the Graftons—”

“Mrs. Grafton called you! Twice! You met her at the band concert!”

“Right, but what do I know about her really? And this party… Are there guns in the house? Dogs that bite? Alcohol?”

“No, no, and yes. No guns. A cockapoo puppy, so I don’t think anyone’s going to get, like, mauled. And yes, they have alcohol, Dad, the parents are allowed to drink, but it’s not like they’re going to serve us martinis, okay?”

Liam sighed and looked at the ceiling. “Something’s come up. The Osterhagens are having a party tonight at the restaurant, and they want us both to come. They like you.” It was true. Liam had taken Nicole to Guten Tag for dinner last week, and both Osterhagens had fussed over her. Him, too, which had been kind of nice.

“Of course they like me,” Nicole said. “I’m adorable. And they’re really nice and stuff, but I’m not coming. I’m going to Alexa’s party, and I’m sleeping over. You gave me permission, I’ve been an angel all week, so you can’t ground me, I got an A on my physics test—”

“You did? Good girl.”

“And Alexa is my first new friend, and I’m going. And that’s all she wrote, Dad.”

It was one of Emma’s sayings. She used to slap down the lid of her laptop and say just that.

“You’ll call me every fifteen minutes,” Liam said.

“No, Dad. I won’t. But I’ll call you once, okay?”

“Every half hour. Text or call. It’s reasonable.”

“It’s insane. I’ll text you twice and call you once. And I’ll call you before ten tomorrow morning and let you know when I’m coming home.”

“You’ll text me four times and call me four times.”

“Three texts, two calls. That’s my final offer. Otherwise, I may lose this cell phone.”

Liam grinned and kissed his daughter’s head. “You lose that cell phone, and I’ll have the police at the Graftons’ house so fast you won’t know what hit you.”

“That’d be funny, except it’s so tragically true.” She smiled up at him. “So I can go, right?”

“Yeah. If you want your old man to go off to a party all by himself and have no one to talk to, you can go.”

Nicole opened the fridge and took out an apple. “You won’t be going alone. Mrs. Antonelli’s going, too. I told her you’d take her.”

“Wow. Thanks. She’s definitely my type. Some people think the over-eighty crowd is past their prime, but not me.”

“Dad, gross, okay?” She took a bite of her apple and gave him a critical scan. Time was, she used to come running to meet him, jump into his arms and want to do nothing more than snuggle against his shoulder. He reached out now, touched a strand of her pretty hair. She gave him a distracted smile, then tucked the strand behind her ear.

“Is the cute boy going to the party?” Liam asked, bracing for the answer.

Nicole shrugged, but her cheeks turned pink. “He was invited.”

“And does he have a name?”

“Tanner. Tanner Talcott.” What a stupid name. A pretty-boy name, a boy-band name, the name of a boy who knew how to get a girl to do things that would give her father cardiac arrest. “Tanner Talcott. Well, listen, sweetheart. Boys only want one thing, of course, and guess what that means for you? Heartbreak. Pregnancy. Chlamydia, herpes, syphilis, crabs.”

“That’s beautiful, Dad. You should set it to music.”

“I was a teenage boy once,” he said. “One thing. Sex.”

“Again. So gross.”

“No drinking. No smoking. No drugs. No sex.”

Nicole repeated the phrase, rap-style.

Liam sighed. “Yeah, okay, honey, but if you have any problem—any—you call me, okay? Your dear old dad will always come rescue you.”

She smiled. “I know.” Her phone chimed. “Oh! They’re here!” She ran down the hall and returned with her overnight bag, already packed, and her Cookie Monster stuffed animal, which she slid into a side pocket. She’d slept with Cookie Monster since birth. Good. How much trouble could a girl get into with Cookie watching?

“Don’t obsess, okay, and try to get a life, Dad. Have fun at the party. Talk to people. Smile.” She kissed him on the cheek. “And take a shower. You smell like a locker room.”

Liam walked his daughter down, waved to the Graftons—Bill was a police officer, Leah was an E.R. nurse, so how bad could it get? Then again, George Tate had been a congressman, Louise Tate a gynecologist, and he’d managed to do all sorts of things with their daughter.

Shit.

Banging his head gently against the wall, Liam wondered, not for the first time and most definitely not for the last, just how the hell he was going to survive his daughter’s adolescence.