Page 42 of Rock Chick Bonus Tracks

Oh yeah.

He knew it.

“Yeah,” Luke said low.

Another threat.

So much of one, Lee murmured, “Luke.”

“I got it,” Luke replied to Lee without taking his eyes off Adrian.

“You don’t understand what it was like in that house,” Adrian shared tersely.

He understood. He understood it even before he saw Adrian for the first time in a decade and a half, looking younger than his years, fit and untroubled. Being in that house with Christine, Marilyn and Sofia had taken a physical toll on him as well as a mental one. That had been obvious. Leaving them changed his life for the better. That was obvious too.

And Luke knew all of it, the man’s whole story, so he knew Adrian left the bad and found himself a whole load of good.

Still.

“I don’t give a fuck what it was like.”

“Luke—”

“Adrian,” he leaned toward the man, “she needed you.” He got a lock on it and leaned back. “Not just like every girl needs her father. Ava…needed…you. They shredded her after you left. Tore her to pieces.”

Another flinch.

Fuck this guy.

“Is she okay?” Adrian asked after he recovered.

“She’s off limits to you, that’s what she is.”

It took some effort, but the man straightened his shoulders and declared, “She’s my daughter.”

“Yeah, but she’smywoman.”

The man’s mouth dropped open.

Then, like he couldn’t stop it, a smile bloomed on his face and a light lit in his eyes before he mumbled to himself, “I knew it. I knew you two would get together. She just had to get a little older. She loved you like crazy, and you felt the same. But big brother love turns, I see, when the flower fully blooms.”

“I’m not reminiscing with you, Adrian. I’m tellin’ you to go back where you came from and leave this alone.”

The hard came back to his face. “That’s not your decision to make.”

“No. It isn’t. But a coupla months ago, when I asked her if she wanted me to find you for her, she said no. So there you go.”

The man blanched and some of his vim and vigor leaked out. “She said no?”

“She said no,” Luke confirmed.

“Maybe, if she knows—” Adrian tried.

Luke cut him off. “Maybe if she knows you were here, talkin’ to me, she’d change her mind. Maybe if she knows, after half of her lifetime you finally came lookin’ for her, she might have it in her heart to hear what you have to say. And I’ll tell her that, Adrian. She deserves to know. And when I tell her, I’ll also tell her you’ve been in Castle Rock the last fourteen years. Thirty fuckin’ miles away and nothing. Not a dollar to help her pay for college. Not a birthday card so she knows she’s on your mind. Not…dick. And you were thirty…miles…away.”

His shit was degenerating, he knew it, Lee knew it, and that was why Lee said, “Luke, brother, maybe you need to take a walk.”

Luke gave his head one curt shake. “Not until he promises he’ll crawl back to his rock and wait. Wait until I talk with Ava. Wait until she makes her decision.” He said this to Lee, but again his eyes didn’t leave Adrian. He said his next to Adrian. “You don’t hear from her, you know she’s excised you and that’s it. You don’t try to find her. You don’t try to talk to her. You also don’t go after Marilyn or Sofia. Ava calls this shot for all three. She deserves that privilege after you left her to them, and they’ve done dick to earn it back since you’ve been gone. But I suspect this isn’t about Marilyn and Sofia. I suspect this is all about Ava.”

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