Page 82 of Hot Damn
“Yes.”
“Fuck!” I’m a dick. I’m moving before I think. “I’ll be back. I need to talk to Whit.”
Taking the stairs two at a time I’m in front of my daughter’s closed bedroom door before I stop dead in my tracks and stare at the barrier Whit has put between us.
It’s rare for Whit to close her bedroom door. I don’t think there’s more than a dozen times I’ve seen it. When she was little, she liked me to leave the light on in the hallway and her door cracked a couple of inches.
She’s never slammed it in a fit of rage because she doesn’t have a temper like that. And the only reason I know slamming doors are a teenage girl thing is from TV.
From everything I know, Whit has never been the average teenager.
Faced with a shut door I’m unsure how to proceed. Normally I’d rap my knuckles on the doorframe and poke my head inside. But this? This requires a knock and patience.
I have to tap my knuckles on the wood and wait to see if I’m allowed in.
What if she’s locked it?
Dropping my gaze to the door handle, I stare at it.
Does it even have a lock?
Sound behind me has me turning to find Cami coming up the stairs, her movements stiff and slow. I’m torn between going to help her and knocking on the door in front of me.
“Don’t use me as an excuse to chicken out.”
Cami’s quiet voice makes me jolt. I wasn’t prepared for her to speak. I definitely wasn’t prepared to be called out.
With a deep breath, and a stretch of my neck, I turn back to Whit’s door and knock.
It takes so long for a response that Cami has time to disappear into my room and I’m on the verge of knocking again. But then the door swings open and Whit stands before me, her face devoid of emotion.
I can’t remember ever seeing my daughter with a blank face. She’s usually animated; even sick, she’s gushing with emotion. This straight-faced girl has me taking a step back.
“Um, hey, can I come in?”
Her gaze moves behind me but I don’t turn to see what she’s looking at. I keep my eyes locked on Whit’s face in hope of seeing something other than this unemotional version of her.
When her gaze lands on me again, she stares for so long my muscles spasm with the urge to move. With half an eye roll and a gust of air, she says, “Sure. Come in.”
Turning, she walks to her bed and climbs on, slipping under the covers in spite of still being in her clothes.
“Can we talk?” I pull the chair from her desk over beside the bed and take a seat. When she doesn’t answer me but continues to look at me with those emotionless eyes I had no idea she’d mastered, I blow out a breath and lean forward, my forearms on my thighs, hands loose even though I want to clench them. “I’m sorry.”
My words don’t get me so much as a twitch.
“I wasn’t angry at you. I was angry at the situation and my lack of control over it. Before, when it was just us and the world didn’t know about you, I didn’t have to worry about this kind ofthing. We both flew under the radar and I liked that. I had control of that.”
Swallowing, I keep my eyes on hers and hope she can see, as well as hear, the truth of what I’m saying.
“I love you more than anything in this world, Whitbee, and if anything happened to you. If someone hurt you because of me…” I hang my head for a second before meeting her gaze, my eyes wet with the emotion the thoughts in my head evoke. “It would destroy me.”
She’s quiet, but I can see she’s thinking about what I’ve said. And that’s all I can ask. As long as she hears me, as long as I’m truthful with my own thoughts and feelings, she has to understand that all I want is for her to be safe.
“I didn’t keep it from you on purpose and I thought the detectives would tell you anyway.”
“They didn’t.”
“I get that. Now.”
