Page 48 of Knocked Up in Alaska

“Yeah. I must be a real brat.” She turned on her heel and started walking toward the baggage carousels, wheeling her bag behind her. “No wonder nobody loves me anymore.”

The sympathy came flooding back, along with the deep-seated uncertainty. Nothing like going from zero to a million miles per hour on the parenting rollercoaster. “No,” he said, easily keeping up with her. “They don’t love each other anymore. They still love you very much.”

“That’s nice of you to say.” She sent him a sad smile without slowing down. “But you don’t know that. You can’t, because you don’t really know them well, and you don’t know me at all.”

I’d like to know you. The words flew to the tip of his tongue. He had to lock his teeth to keep them back.

Her heartbreakingly bitter laugh filled the silence. “Heck, I don’t even know me.” She stopped at the only carousel with travelers surrounding it and stared hard at the unmoving conveyor. “I thought I knew who I was and where I came from, but it turns out I was wrong.” Hazel eyes flicked to him. “I came from you.”

The baggage carousel beeped to life, visibly startling her and viscerally reminding him that no matter how self-aware, stubborn, and articulate the person in front of him was, she was also fragilely young and reaching what had to be an anti-climactic conclusion to this adventure of discovery she’d set out on. He needed to keep it simple and stay on message. Turning to face the chute where luggage had started to emerge, he said, “We’ll get your bags first, then you’ll call your mom.”

“Ford?”

He turned to find those gray-brown eyes watching him coolly. “Yes?”

“I’m not calling my mom.” She leaned over before he realized her intent and hauled an oversize, wheeled bag off the conveyor. “I’m not calling my dad. I’m not calling anyone,” she said and reached for another bag, but he intercepted and retrieved it for her. She straightened, crossed her arms, and tipped her head to the side. “And you can’t make me.”

A nanosecond before his head exploded, he heard Mad cough to cover a laugh—a motherfucking laugh—and then saw him extend a hand. “Hi, Mia. I’m Maddox. A friend of Ford’s. Everybody calls me Mad. Nice to meet you.”

Mia took his hand, shook it. “Nice to meet you, too.”

Mad was touching his daughter. Shaking her hand. He hadn’t even touched her yet, and she was his flesh and blood.

“Are you hungry?” Mad went on. “Maybe we should sit down in that restaurant over there, take a load off, you know, and get something to eat?” Ford found himself on the receiving end of what amounted to a blue-eyed cattle prod. “I’m sure we could all use a moment to get our bearings.”

“Are you hungry?” Ford asked her, feeling like the most negligent parent in the history of humanity. He ran a bar and grill, for God’s sake. He fed people for a living.

She shrugged. “Sure. Whatever.”

He couldn’t eat. A tangle of knots occupied the place in his gut where his stomach should be. Mad, however, suffered no such troubles. He smiled wide, grabbed a bag, extended the handle, and led the way to Grizzly Pizza and Wings. Once they were seated in the nearly empty dining area, Mia excused herself to use the restroom.

“You lost round one,” Mad observed when they were alone.

“What are you talking about?”

“Parenting 101. Don’t demand what you can’t enforce.”

“Since when are you a parent?”

He leaned back in his chair and smiled his pretty-boy smile. “I have parents. Good ones. And I understand the female mind. You say, ‘Call your mom.’ She says, ‘You can’t make me.’ Game over, man, ’cause she’s right. You can’t make her.”

“Watch me.”

Mad shook his head. “Don’t re-fight a battle you’ve already lost. All you do is reinforce the fact that you’re on opposing sides, right before you lose again. Your goal isn’t to get her to do what you want, anyway. It’s to reassure the mother that her kid made it to you in one piece. Just text her right now and get that done. Goal accomplished, and you can let the point of conflict die a graceful death.”

It made sense. It felt wrong, allowing a teenager to dictate what she would and wouldn’t do, but it made sense. The higher priority for him wasn’t re-opening the lines of communication between Mia and Jen. It was notifying Jen that Mia was safe. So he whipped off the text and put his phone away.

“Also,” Mad added, “kids that age can’t be sent to their rooms. With few exceptions, they can’t be sent anywhere they don’t want to go.”

“What are you trying to tell me?”

“You have to find a way to make her want what you want,” came the cryptic answer. “Find leverage.”

Mia returned before he could ask for clarification. She sat and then shrugged out of her jacket at the same time a baby-faced waiter came over to drop off menus and take drink orders, and—Jesus Christ—eye-fuck his fourteen-year-old daughter. He opened his mouth to tell Mia to put some clothes on and the pervert to back off and send the manager over when Mad caught his eye and very subtly shook his head.

What the fuck? He was three seconds from losing his shit completely when Mad turned to Mia and shot her an easy smile. “I like your jacket.”

She returned his smile and lifted the jacket from the back of her chair. “Thanks. It’s vintage.”

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