Page 52 of Protected By the Grumpy Single Dad
“Are you going to let me in?” she asks, voice steadying for the first time, green eyes locked on mine like a lifeline.
Chapter sixteen
Jasmine
For some reason, I don’t remember Asher’s living room being this wide. The last time I was here I was too busy counting bruises and trying not to panic to notice…well, any of it. Now the space opens around me like a calm breath: a walnut mid-century credenza under the TV; a framed Art Deco print of a pastel Miami lifeguard stand; a rattan accent chair draped with a coral knit throw; a jute rug with a faded indigo border that looks like it remembers salt air. On the glass coffee table sits a shallow driftwood bowl filled with sea glass and a couple of old hotel keys stamped MIAMI BEACH.
“All of this on an officer’s salary? Damn. How much is the station paying you?” The joke falls out of me before I can stop it. I can already feel my pulse settling just from being near him. Which is ridiculous. But also—true.
“I brought most of it over from Miami,” he says, shutting the door gently behind me.
I brush my fingers over the sea glass. “You’ve got taste.”
“Most of it belonged to Rebecca,” he says.
I glance up. He doesn’t flinch when he says her name, but the room tilts a little anyway: the chrome-and-cane bar cart holding a tiny stovetop Cafecito pot and two espresso cups; a set of Cuban-tile coasters; a sun-bleached longboard leaned in the corner like a retired sentinel. Oh.
“It’s a nice set,” I manage, softer. “She had great taste.”
“What are you doing here, Jasmine?” he asks, voice even but edged. Not unkind—just braced.
“Hey, Brick,” I say instead, turning toward the floor. He’s sprawled on his stomach by the coffee table, pencil clenched in a death grip over a worksheet, eyes snapping between fractions and a cartoon on mute. He glances up at me and gives a small, shy wave. I wave back.
“It’s almost ten,” I whisper to Asher. “You let him stay up this late?”
He pinches the bridge of his nose and heads for the kitchen, somehow both patient and exasperated. “Are you here to audit my parenting, or do you have something important to tell me?”
“The latter.” My voice is steady now in that fake, floaty way it gets when I’m two seconds from spinning out.
“Uh-huh.” He lifts his chin toward the hallway. “Brick, bed.”
“But they’re about to startDog Rangers,” Brick protests without looking up.
“You’ll catch the rerun on Sunday. Teeth, then bed.”
Cue epic sigh. He thumps toward the stairs and disappears in a grumpy cloud of eleven-year-old doom.
“Kids,” I say.
“I know.” He pulls a bottle of wine from the chrome bar cart—of course he has one—sets out two stemless glasses, and nods toward the couch. “Sit.”
I sit. He pours.
“It’s Harold,” I say, and the name drags the whole awful evening back up my throat.
“What happened?” He hands me a glass and chooses the other couch—the slightly less comfortable one like he’s giving me space. I want to ask him to sit beside me. I don’t.
“I got off work, drove home. On my street I passed three parked motorcycles—same kind of blacked-out helmets from the diner thing. Odd, but I didn’t think they were about me. I should have.” I take a gulp big enough to make my eyes water. “My spare key wasn’t where I leave it. And before you say anything, Riley drops in a lot, so yes, I keep one under the planter. She keeps losing the copies I give her.”
His mouth opens, then closes. Good boy.
“I go in and he’s there, Asher.In my house.Harold, plus three of his muscle. I couldn’t get to my phone without giving one of them a reason to slap it out of my hand, or my face along with it. He acted like he was…taking inventory. Of me.”
“What did he say?”
“That the offer still stands. Tripled it again, even—” I shake my head, anger buzzing under my skin. “Then he listed people I love like bullet points. My mom. Riley. Eloise and Heather. He never said the wordhurtbut the way he rolled their names in his mouth…” I swallow. “He left after five minutes. All polite. Like a gentleman who’d stopped by to borrow sugar. I don’t think he will be polite next time.”
Asher sets his glass down with care. “This is about the buy offer.”
