Page 56 of Broken Daddy
He snorted. “That’s true. And you’ve gotten yourself into a lot of trouble that I usually had to get you out of.”
The trouble wasn’t usually her fault, though.
“Devi, what’s wrong? Are you in trouble?” Rohan asked.
“What? No. I’m not in trouble.”
“Devi. Don’t lie to me. What is it?”
“Our father,” she blurted out. Drat. She hadn’t meant to say anything. There was nothing Rohan could do in prison except worry about her. “He’s out on another bender.”
Rohan grimaced. “Christ, I had hoped he’d get his act together. Is it bad living with him?”
“I can handle Derick.”
“Are you sure?”
No, she wasn’t.
“I know what I’m doing when it comes to dear old dad,” she said confidently.
In reality she had no clue.
“You seem bigger,” she told him.
He raised his eyebrows. “Is that your way of telling me that I’m getting fat?”
“Uh, no. Of course not! Sheesh. I would never say that!”
“Because it seems like you’re getting too skinny.”
“Rohan!”
“Yes?” he drawled.
“You can’t comment on a woman’s weight.”
“But you’re not a woman. You’re my sister.”
“I’m still a woman,” she told him.
“You’re still gonna be the girl that I had to give the birds and the bees talk to. And help her with her first period.”
She grimaced. “God. Can we not talk about that? Although I’m still amazed you got that period book for me.”
“I stole it from the library.”
“You didn’t!”
He shrugged. “Well, I didn’t have money to buy one.”
“But . . . but a library is free! You could have signed up and borrowed it.”
“Um, yeah, I was seventeen and thought I was so cool. No way was I going to sign up to the library and then borrow a book about periods.”
“Hmm,” she said. “I see your point.” No seventeen-year-old boy wanted to be seen with a book on periods.
“What’s going on, Devi,” he murmured. “You look tired, you’ve lost weight. Is it all about the old man?”
