Page 31 of Single Dad Christmas

“Yeah, what is it, honey?”

“I—,” she sniffled. “Can you come get me?”

His gut rolled. Where was she? What was going on? “From Melanie’s?” he asked, careful to keep any note of judgement from his voice.

“No. Somewhere else. It’s—can you come?”

His gut dropped to his toes. Something was wrong with his daughter; of course, he’d go to her. He snatched up the keys and ran downstairs, into the garage and thrummed the engine. His own life and plans and hopes were all forgotten—Taylor was the beginning and end of his world; she always would be.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“IT WAS JUST MEANT to be a few people,” Melanie, in the backseat of the car, was explaining, her voice slurred by alcohol. Beside him, Taylor barely looked like herself. She looked…like her mother. She was wearing makeup, a mini dress, and heels, and she’d done something to her hair so it was all voluminous and curled. “To celebrate Christmas. You know how Tay loves Christmas.”

He wanted to tell Melanie—as sweet as she was—to shut up. Taylor had barely said two words since he’d pulled up out the front of a Rose Bay address and the girls had jumped into the car. Her slim legs were pressed together, her hands fidgeting in her lap. His gut was twisted with worry.

“I told your parents I was dropping you off,” Noah said, glancing in the rear-vision mirror so he had the satisfaction of seeing Melanie’s face pale.

Taylor whipped her face towards him, but for once she didn’t say anything. She might have been annoyed that he’d tattled on her friend but given the fact he’d just had to collect her from a clearly adult party, and she had obviously been drinking, shesomehow had the judgement to know it wasn’t the time to grind his gears.

“Oh, okay,” Melanie slumped back in her seat. Silence throbbed in the car and Noah, who’d already felt as though his nerves were stretched tight, turned up the volume of the stereo. Metallica pumped out, the loud, bassy tones perfect for his mood.

When he pulled up at Melanie’s house, her parents were waiting out the front. “They said they were going to Alice’s,” they said in unison.

“Yeah, I got the same story.” He addressed Taylor then, “Was Alice at the party?”

She shook her head, without making eye contact with him.

“Melanie?” Melanie’s mother grilled the other girl, anger in her tone.

“No, mum. It was just us.”

“Well, come inside and wash that makeup off. God, you’re hardly dressed,” the mother bemoaned. “Thank you for bringing her home, Noah.”

He nodded once. “See you soon,” he said, and because he didn’t want to alienate Taylor’s friend, who was already annoyed at him, “Take care, Melanie.”

He got back into the car and turned to look at his daughter properly. She’d turned down the music, so it was just a low, background hum now. “What happened?”

“Can you just drive, please?”

He thought about that. He tried to separate his instincts as a dad from his instincts as a human in the world, who knew what sorts of things happened at parties like that. He wanted to pretend that everything was fine, but he couldn’t put his head in the sand. She’d sounded distraught.

“Tay, I’m going to take you home.” He reached for her hand, and she flinched. His gut tumbled. “And I’m not mad at you. It’svery normal to want to try new things at your age, that’s okay. I’d rather you talk to me about it, so I know and can put some guardrails in place, but I promise, this isn’t coming from a place of anger.”

She glanced across at him, surprised. Which was kind of offensive, given how tightly he kept a grip on his temper with her, for the most part, no matter what she said or did.

But worry for her had brought an eerie sort of calm over him.

“Did someone touch you tonight?” It physically hurt him to ask that question. To even contemplate what might have happened. Her eyes widened and her face paled and for a second, he feared the very worst answer he might receive.

Please, please let no one have hurt his baby girl.

“No, Dad. No. It’s not that. It wasn’t?—,”

He stared at her long and hard. He felt like she was telling the truth, but was that just wishful thinking?

“It was just too much,” she said, dropping her gaze to the console between them, then shifting in her seat, so she was all slumped over and tiny. “Everyone was older and really drunk, and the smell…it was…” tears rolled down her cheeks. He ached for her. He didn’t know what to do. He felt so alone. And in that moment, he wished, with everything in his heart, for Louisa. She’d know what to say, what to do. She’d be such a great mother one day.

Different feelings pummeled him then, feelings he didn’t want to contemplate. Feelings like a lightness, when he imagined how different it would have been to have a baby with someone like Louisa, to have done things a different way around. To have been on the same page as your co-parent from the beginning.

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