Where Lightning Strikes (Bleeding Stars #3)(101)

He threw a warning glance at her, before he was back on me, hostility increasing with every second that passed.

He pointed at me. “Stay away from my daughter.”

I rubbed my fingers across my mouth, dropped my focus to my feet like they held an answer. Slowly I looked back at him, trying to keep any animosity from my tone. “That’s gonna be a problem.”

“A problem?” he seethed, stepping forward and jutting out his chest. “You are the problem, and I promise you, the next time you even look at my daughter, the police are getting involved.”

Didn’t mean to scoff, but it was there. “You and I both know nothing will come of that. You really think they care about a girl who’s gonna turn eighteen in a few months and a guy who’s twenty? No disrespect, but your daughter isn’t a little girl anymore.”

“Yeah? Well, she’s my little girl. A girl who used to be a straight-A student. One I could trust not to tell me lies. And since she’s been hanging out with the likes of you, that’s all I get. A bunch of lies. Calls about her skipping school. Grades falling through the floor.”

Like he’d just been struck with the thought to do it, his attention drifted into the living room. It left me wishing I’d done a quick sweep. So no, there was nothing concrete laying out, but the remnants were damned near incriminating enough.

It was blatant.

The intense pain that slammed him, gripping him whole like he’d had the sudden onslaught of a heart attack.

He seemed to have trouble standing. “You really want to drag her into your mess? Ruin her life? Look at you,” he wheezed. It was something between an insult and him pleading with me to see reason.

Guilt spun through me again.

Winding me tight.

She was too good for this life.

“If you care about her at all, stay away from my daughter.” The command was hard, lined with steel, sustained by his love for her.

And it f*cking hurt. Standing there like a punk.

Knowing he was right.

Wanting to fight back, all the same.

Guess we both heard her crying softly at the same time, because the two of us cringed in response, before we tightened again.

The words were spoken barely above a breath. “Daddy…I love him.”

I love him.

She’d never said those words before. And they terrified me, filled me up and left me flat.

What had I done?

He didn’t respond to her, resentment still aimed at me. “Stay away from her.”

He took her by the arm and dragged her out to the car waiting at the curb.

Kenzie pleaded with me from over her shoulder.

Do something.

And I wanted to. To change something. Just had no idea what that was.

Three weeks passed in a desolate confusion, me missing her like mad and filling my veins full of anything that might soothe it. So f*cking high. So f*cking low. Needing more and more and more. Of course, no one in the house noticed because they were all just as f*cked up.

Sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll, baby.

Never really knew what that meant until then. It was an endless cycle that gobbled you up before you even knew what was happening.

Just a bunch of heedless rats jumping on the rodent wheel.

Spin.

Spin.

Spin.

Of course, I was missing out on the sex part because no matter how many girls walked through the door, I was only waiting for her.

I texted her too many times and kept calling the same number that had been disconnected. Over and over again, like a fool expecting a different result.

They say that’s the definition of insanity.

Wasn’t going to argue the logic of that. I felt it. My brain slowly coming unhinged as my body gave.

In the bathroom, I regarded the red-eyed reflection staring back at me, splashed some cold water on my face as if it might clear the daze. Knocking my forehead into the bathroom mirror, I groaned.

God, I had to get myself together.

Scratching my head, I shuffled out, crossed the hall, and opened my bedroom door. I faltered to a stop and the breath punched from my lungs.

Sitting on the floor, leaning up against the far wall under the window, was Kenzie. She was a mess, cheeks stained with tears, hair matted in chunks where it clung to her soaked skin.

I shot across the room and dropped to my knees. Praying she wasn’t some sort of hallucination. I took her by the face. “Kenz…baby…you’re here.”

I was wiping away her tears with my thumbs, knowing it was stupid I was simultaneously smiling like a fool when she looked this way, but I couldn’t help it.

She was here.

She sniffled and shuddered, breaking my hold as she brought her arm up to wipe away the tears with the sleeve of her shirt.

I ran my fingers through her hair. “What’s wrong, baby, you don’t look happy to see me.” I tried to tease, hating the way she flinched when I said it. A slow dread laced with the relief I’d felt at finding her there.

She looked down, and I hooked my finger under her chin, forcing her to look at me. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

Her face pinched. “I’m pregnant.”

I stumbled back. Knocked on my ass. “What? How?”

Incredulous, she laughed like I might be a little dense, the words oozing out like an accusation. “In the four months we’ve been sleeping together, did you ever use a condom? Did you ever take me to get pills?”