by Emilia Finn
“Um…” I clear my throat. “After a couple years, I put my foot down, because there isn’t a single person on this planet that knows her the way I do, and no one that loves her as fiercely as I do. So what I say goes, and to hell with the rest of them.”
“Is that why you moved here? You came alone, just the stuff in your car, you and your girl.”
I nod. “Partially, I guess. Bobby Kincaid made an offer I couldn’t refuse. A home, a salary, hours that meant I didn’t have to rely on babysitters just so I could make the rent. So we packed up, came here, brought no one with us, and now I get to parent without fuckwits sticking their noses into every single decision we make.”
Brooke tucks her hair back and giggles. “You swear a lot when Lyss isn’t within earshot.”
“Does cussing bother you? I’m sorry. I guess I just like to get it out when I have the chance. I’m a seriously frustrated man, so when I have the chance…”
Again, she laughs. “Fuck no. I was raised in the school of cussing. My family is fluent. We’re good. I was only making an observation.” She looks to me and grins. “You seem so put-together, like the model dad. I have no clue how anyone in your old town felt they could insert themselves, because from where I sit, you seem so good at it.” She shrugs. “It’s almost intimidating. But then I get you alone for a second, and the fucks fly like confetti. It humanizes you. Makes me a little more comfortable to know you’re not perfect like the catalogue dads.”
“I’m not perfect. I screw up a lot, but I try my hardest. No one will ever be able to say I didn’t try.” I tap her shoulder with mine when she comes a little too close. “And who are you to talk about intimidation? I literally fangirl every time you’re near. You’re Bobby Kincaid’s daughter. Like, shit! Bobby effing Kincaid’s daughter.”
She laughs. “Bobby Kincaid is…” She considers, though the nostalgic grin gives her away. “He’s a good dad. The best. But I sure as hell don’t fangirl for him.”
“It would be weird if you did.”
“It really would.” She tugs her hand from her pocket and peeks at her watch. Glancing up, she watches as the lake spreads out ahead of us, the moonlight playing on the water’s surface. “Here it is, and we made it in record time.”
“Lyss,” I call out as she races from road to grass and heads straight for the water. “Don’t you dare get wet, baby.”
“I won’t, Daddy. I’m just looking. Oh look, there are ducks!”
“We’ll have to bring bread next time,” Brooke murmurs. “Bribe them into loving us.”
“Bread is like junk food to ducks. And too tempting for Lyss to take a bite. One for them, one for her. Maybe we’ll bring duck food instead.”
“What do ducks eat?” Brooke’s voice turns a little awed, the way Lyss’ does when she’s learning something new. “I’ve literally never thought about it before.”
I chuckle and slow my walk as we approach the water’s edge. Lyss is staying back far enough that I don’t have to panic, but I’m close enough to jump in if she falls. “Corn, I think? Oats and rice, too, maybe. I’ve never owned a duck.”
“Me neither. Though I’ve had a peacock my whole life.”
“What?” I spin on her with wide eyes. “You have a pet peacock? Where the hell do you keep it? I’ve been in your house and yard almost every single day for weeks.”
Laughing so hard she has to press a hand to her stomach, she shakes her head and casts her gaze over the water. “It was a joke, sorta. Family joke. Our peacock mostly eats pizza.”
“I mean… You need to explain the joke. Don’t leave me hanging.”
“My dad,” she snickers. “That legend you fangirl for; everyone calls him the peacock, because he likes to show off, especially in the octagon or when my mom is watching. His best friend, my Uncle Jon; well, if Daddy is the peacock, then Uncle Jon is our lion. Protective, quiet, strong. He started calling Daddy a peacock way back in kindergarten, I think. And it was as true then as it is now.”
“You should tell Lyss that story someday. She’d go nuts thinking of Bobby as a peacock.”
“I just might. Someday. Wanna head back?”
I nod. Raising my voice a little, I say, “Come on, Lyss. Let’s walk back this way.”
“Okay!” She scares a family of ducks with her shout and dash. “Coming, Daddy!”
“That’s the old folks’ home.” Brooke lifts her chin toward a large building on the opposite side of the lake. “It’s nice there. The gardens are pretty.”
I dig my hands into my pockets and frown. “And you’re telling me because… you think I’m old?”
“No!” Laughing, she turns when Lyss races past us and falls into step. “I’m giving you a walking tour of the only town I’ve ever lived in. I know you know the way from home to the gym, and probably Main Street too, but have you ventured over this way?”
“Well… no.”
“Exactly. Stop picking at me. That square building up there.” She points ahead of us, toward a building we walked past to get here. “That’s the Checkmate building. You know Soph, the dancer? She helps set up the streaming services and stuff for Stacked Deck.”
I nod. “Brunette, leggy, beautiful.”
“If that’s your type, I suppose.” She sniffs, huffs, and continues walking. “Checkmate are our friends. Sorta. If you ever need security, you can go in there and ask for help. They’ll already know who you are; they make a point of knowing everything about everyone.”
“Okay…”
“Just part of my tour,” she shakes off her petulance and snickers. “The dance studio is over here too; that’s where you’ll bring Lyss for classes, if you decide to sign her up. Hospital is over that way,” she points into the distance. “For when Lyss decides she wants to try her hand at fighting too.”
I press a hand to my heart and grunt. “Don’t put that juju on me. No hospitals, no fighting. No fucking way.”
“Do you teach her?” She looks up at me through thick, black lashes. “To fight?”
“Of course. If my girl is being picked on at school, she knows how to lay a prick out. No way am I hoarding that knowledge and sending her into the big wide world with her hands tied behind her back.”
“Ya know, I’m not sure there’s a single Kincaid or Hart—” she pauses, adds, “Hart is my Uncle Jon’s surname. So the twin boys, they’re who I’m talking about when I say Hart. There’s not a single Kincaid or Hart that didn’t get in trouble at school for fighting. It was almost always in defense of someone else, but still…”
“Almost always?”
“Mm. The twins tend to fight each other,” she laughs. “They’re like rabid raccoons, knocking over trash cans and whaling on each other, like they think there’s some grand prize for whoever is the most obnoxious. But it’s all in fun.” She shrugs. “Mostly. They can’t whale on other kids without thinking about charges and cops. So they go at each other, and take the school suspensions like they’re candy.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Mm?” She kicks a rock ahead of us and keeps her eyes plastered to Lyss’ back.
“You said every single Kincaid and Hart… That includes you, then? I thought you don’t fight.”
She grins. “I don’t fight competitively. Doesn’t mean I don’t know how. Just like you and Lyss, there was no way my dad or uncles were sending me into the wild without knowing how to defend myself. I’m not interested in swinging my fists around, flexing my muscles, and sliding around in someone else’s sweat, all for the sake of a trophy. It all seems so…” She considers. “Tripe.”
I burst out with barking laughter that brings Lyss spinning back to watch. “That’s one way to backhandedly slap at my sport. I like those trophies, and I especially like flexing my muscles for a crowd.”
“And sliding around in someone else’s sweat?” She lifts a brow. “If I’m gonna be chest to chest, sweat to sweat, then I’d prefer it was with a man, and mutually pleasurable.”
Fuck. My cock thickens in my jeans, and my heart comes to a complete standstill for a beat. She’s twenty, I remind myself. She’s only twenty. She’s Bobby Kincaid’s daughter. She’s just a baby herself, trying to figure out the direction she wants to take her life.
And she’s talking about sweaty sex.
Kill me now.
My breath shudders through my chest, only to escape on my words. “If you’re twenty now, that means you were only fourteen when Lyss was conceived.” Yeah, that’ll do it, Miles. Remind her how young she is.
“I know. Crazy, right? Fourteen and seventeen… both so young.” She slows her steps as we approach Main Street again. “Lyss’ mom?”
“Karla…”
She nods and tests the word. “Karla. How old was she?”
“Sixteen. We were way too young to be doing the things we were doing. And because of that, we were slapped with grownup consequences. The universe clapped back, hard.”
She grins and drops her gaze when we turn onto Main and the lights help keep Lyss safe from tripping in a ditch. “Like I said, you look pretty damn perfect with her. And now you’re here, with that dream job, the dream house, the dream hours. Which means the universe stepped up, but you clapped back twice as hard. You shouldn’t get so bogged down in the perceived failures that you forget to celebrate the wins. They’re just as important. Maybe even more so, during the dark days when everything feels so hard.”
“That was… Wow.” I exhale. “Super zen of you. Very mature.”
She chuckles. “Twenty is the new thirty, didn’t you know? Like Lyss, I’ve always been older than my years. It happens.” She shrugs. “You judging the fact that I’m twenty is like those jerks judging your parenting because you were seventeen.”
“Touché. Jesus.” I run a hand through my hair. “Two in one night.”
“Women are the superior species, after all.” She walks with a little celebratory wiggle. “It would be best if you come to understand that now, to avoid embarrassing yourself.”
I could remark on how Karla is a woman, about how she skipped out, and wasn’t superior about a damn thing. But Brooke is playing, and my unresolved baby momma issues aren’t a great topic of discussion between barely-there friends who just spent what I consider a great half an hour together. So I swallow it down and plan to take it out on the hanging bags tomorrow.
“We’re back,” she says gently.
I glance up and find my car parked right outside the still lit ice cream parlor. Our table has been cleaned, the floors mopped. My eyes stop on the llama, and my mind flips to the statue being stored in my spare bedroom. It’s six feet tall, shaped like an ice cream cone – soft serve – with a smiling face, and a big thumbs-up.
“Oh, I meant to ask you guys… Maybe I should ask Bobby, but what the actual fuck is with the statue in my spare bedroom?”
“Oh shit.” Brooke practically dives on me, slapping a hand over my mouth so hard that I feel the sting. “Shh…” Her eyes are wide, her breath heavy as her hand remains on my face, and Lyss watches us in shock. “Cone of silence,” she whispers. “We do not speak those words here.”
“Wm—” My word is muffled beneath her hand.
“Ask me again tomorrow,” she murmurs, her face so close to mine that I see the freckles on her cheeks, the flecks of gold in her eyes. “Ask me at the estate, and I’ll explain it all. But if you snitch, you die. In our family, snitching doesn’t end well.” Slowly, quietly, she removes her hand, and with a goofy smile, wipes her palm on her shorts.
“I mean… ohhhhkay, crazy. Should I pack my daughter into the car tonight and make tracks? Are we in danger?”
She shakes her head with a kind of gravity that makes my stomach jump, and not just because her hand was on my face. On my lips. “So long as you don’t snitch, you’re safe. You’ll like the story once I tell you.”
“He’s creepy.” I glance at the llama, then back to Lyss, before bringing my eyes back to Brooke’s laughing gaze. “I walked in on the first day, and nearly wet my pants. Then I forgot about it, took a load of stuff in there for storage, and nearly wet myself again. I’ve set up a security buzzer on the door, so it’ll sound if the door is opened. I’m genuinely scared it’s gonna come to life and hack me up while we sleep.”
“It won’t,” she laughs. “But remember, cone of silence. This is your one and only warning. After that, you’d best update your will, and find a suitable guardian for Lyss, because if you snitch, you end up in the lake with cement shoes.”
“Harsh.”
“Necessary.” She turns to Lyss with a grin. “Come find me tomorrow. It’s Saturday, so maybe we can go for a swim. I have a story to tell you about a peacock.”
“Really?” She dashes away from our car and into mine and Brooke’s space. “I have a book with a peacock in it! It’s so funny.”
“No way. Vincent Van Gogh and peacocks? We have so much in common today.”
Brooke
Daddies are daddies, no matter how old their daughters get
The moment Miles buckles Alyssa into her seat and closes the door, I slide into my car and pretend that everything is fine. Everything is totally okay and normal. The world is still revolving and all that.
But nothing is okay.
Winding my window down, I smile when Miles stops on his side of his car and rests his elbows on the faded roof.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I tell him.
“I’ll follow you in, if you’re going home now.”
“I am.” I push a key into the ignition, check my mirror, and sigh at how wide my eyes are, how bright, despite the darkness outside.
I look like my mom, the blonde hair, the blue eyes, and the Reilly family dimple, but those Kincaid genes are strong. They flow through my blood, and make things more complicated than they need to be.
When Miles says nothing more, I nod, switch my ignition on, and wait a moment for him to slide behind the wheel of his car. When his lights flick on and blind the poor girl inside the ice cream parlor, I move my car into reverse and back out of my spot.
Ellie Goulding’s “Love Me Like You Do” plays through my speakers, a softer, acoustic version that moves on the gentle breeze outside as summer finally relents to fall. My throat feels tight, the way it does when I talk about Alyssa and her allergies. My hand tingles, because I touched Miles tonight, twice, and now the leftover electricity still flows and joins with my Kincaid blood.
It’s heady, potent, and dizzying.
It takes only minutes to drive from Main Street to home, and since my family has upgraded their security systems over the years, I now use a microchipped card at the security box instead of a passcode.
I tap my card to the sensor, drive through slowly, and swallow when Miles’ headlights flash against my rearview mirror, and my lights bounce off of the windows at the front of my mom and dad’s house.
I’m twenty years old, almost twenty-one, but I haven’t moved out because… well, because I don’t have to. The house is big, my mom and dad are always at the gym, Bry is always out doing whatever he does with his time. And I tend to stay in and do my thing. My youngest sister still goes to school, so once nine a.m. hits, the house is empty, and I have the opportunity to work in the quiet.
Five of us live in one house, but at this point, I see Miles and Alyssa more than I see my own family. Even if I don’t always speak to them.
I pull into my driveway behind my dad’s car, simply because that means he’ll come to me in the morning and ask me to move it – and I love when he comes to me in the mornings. I pull on the handbrake, switch off the engine, and ignore the way the lights behind me swing away as Miles pulls into his.
Climbing out of my car, I pocket my keys, and pat my still tingling hand against my thigh as I head toward the steps.
“Hey, Daddy.”
Bobby Kincaid – the fighter, the legend – sits on the top step, a sentinel waiting for his baby to come home, and accepts my kiss when I lean in an
d drop it on his cheek. I turn in the dark, sit down close enough that our legs touch from hip to ankle, and because he’s right there, I wrap my arm around his, lay my cheek on his shoulder, and sigh.
“Missed you tonight.” His voice is a low rumble that makes me smile.
He’s always been my constant, my strength. I don’t recall a single time in my life when he let me down. Sure, we’ve argued over the years, but that’s what happens when he’s overprotective but creates a daughter that looks, speaks, and acts just like his wife.
My dad is very much in love with my mom, but that doesn’t mean her stubbornness doesn’t make him want to slam his head against a brick wall on a daily basis. I got that trait from her, and he learned it somewhere around my second birthday, when I flipped from cherubic baby to toddler with a mean streak and an iron will.
Bryan Kincaid – Daddy’s daddy – was the original stubborn Kincaid. Intensity, willpower, strength, and resolve; all personality traits that flow through his descendants like it’s compulsory. Daddy wasn’t watering down those genes when he decided he wanted my mom.
“You get ice cream?” Like a goofball, he sniffs the air, brings his nose closer to my face, and sucks in a deep breath. “Chocolate.”
“Weirdo.”
He chuckles. “You’re a creature of habit. You like ice cream at night, you like chocolate. I didn’t need to sniff your breath to know where you were.”
He nods toward the Walkers as they climb out of their car. Miles is being quiet, shushing Lyss, but still, she chatters about peacocks and sorbet, about how it’s the weekend, and she hopes to paint her nails tomorrow. “Coincidence that they drove in at the same time?”
I shrug. “Sort of. Coincidence that I saw them in town. But then I said I was heading home, he said he’d follow me in. He’s protective, I think.”
Daddy grunts. A single grunt that makes his chest bounce and mine fill with silent laughter.
“He’s nice, Daddy.”
He nods. Slowly, thoughtfully, as Alyssa stomps up their porch steps, and Miles unsuccessfully tries to quieten her. “He is nice. Except when he’s not.”