Page 14 of Gifts

“Yes,” she agrees. “My kids will be getting off the bus in an hour.”

I lift my head, and as much as I want to touch her again, it’s a line I can’t flirt with.

Not yet anyway.

“Enjoy your Friday, Keelie.”

“You, too, Asa.”

I give her another smile before I get to my truck and see she’s typing away on her phone. The second I pull out onto the main road, I call Carson and give him all the information I have on the so-called Ritchie. It’s not much, I know, but I hope the tag will give me a lead.

I pull back into the drive of my new house. I haven’t had a house since Danielle and I split. I’ve always kept a condo in DC, but when I had the kids for more than a few days, I took them on vacations.

I groan as I think about having to make dinner and head in to wait for my kids.

Chapter 4

Shave Your Fucking Legs

Asa

“Dad. I’m out.”

Levi is standing near the garage door with his workout bag in one hand and the keys to his Jeep in the other as I come up from the basement wiping my face with a towel after working out. I have always used Crew’s gym, but I want to be with the kids more, so I set up weights and a rowing machine here.

“What’re your plans?” I ask. He graduates in two and a half months and will turn eighteen before that. He’s got his head screwed on straight, but he’s still a kid.

“Headed to the gym with the guys and then some of us are getting together at Jack’s.”

“Where does Jack live?”

He looks put-out, but tells me.

“Will Carissa be there?” I ask. He’s had a girl now for a couple months. He doesn’t bring her here often, but from what I can tell, it’s steady. I talk to him about respect, and each time he rolls his eyes like he’s heard it before, which he probably has from his mother, but I still shoot straight.

“Yeah, she’ll be there.”

“You need money?” I go on.

“I just got paid. I’m good.”

Maybe it’s the guilt in me for not being around enough when they were young, but I’ve never been stingy with my kids. They want it, I get it for them. I have the means to do it, so it’s easy. But, they’ve never taken advantage either. With spring around the corner, Levi has started back up at the golf course where he’s worked for the last year. He’ll take money if he needs it, but for the most part, he’s independent even though I still move money into his account every month.

I nod. “Home by midnight, bud.”

“I know. See ya.”

I move up the stairs to take a shower, but stop in front of Emma’s room. A room she hides out in for hours every day.

When she started this quiet shit, I let her be—gave her the space she wanted. When I started questioning her, she got defensive. Her defensiveness turned into teenage petulance, which then morphed into withdrawn, sullen behavior. When I get right down to it, I’ll take defensive and complaining all day long over this reclusive shit.

This scares the hell out of me.

I lean into the wall next to her door.

Exhaling, I decide to go with my gut. I’m over it. It’s time to get her shit figured out and that’s not going to happen by letting her lay around in her room all day.

I knock and wait. When I hear her small voice, I open the door. She’s bundled up in her bed watching something on her MacBook and doesn’t even look up to me.

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