“I know,” I said. “Come on, let’s go down here and talk.”
She nodded, and closed his door a little, before she followed me to the bedroom. Lani took a seat on the edge of the bed and looked down at her hands.
“Go on, tell me what a disappointment it was to see me there…I can handle it.”
“What?” I shot back. “I’m not fucking disappointed, Lani. I’m scared. Worried. Angry. Where were your friends?”
Lani’s eyes shot up, a furrow in her brow, confused. “Really?”
“Lani…where were your friends?”
She sighed. “I went with them, but they have boyfriends and I only really like this one guy. I thought he’d be there but he wasn’t, and then they said that they had a guy who really liked me, thought I was hot, so they introduced me to him. I lost track of time, and before I knew it, I couldn’t see my friends anymore.”
“They left you alone?” I almost roared, but I put my anger aside for a minute before I scared her. “They aren’t friends, Lani. That’s seriously fucked up.”
She nodded, fresh tears appearing. “I know. I’m really mad at them.”
“You’re safe, that’s all that matters,” I said, pulling her into my arms again. “Don’t go to The Pit again, okay? Just study and graduate from school.”
“Okay.”
“Why would you think I was disappointed?”
She sighed. “Because Parker says it to me when I do something stupid. He doesn’t yell, he just says he’s disappointed in my choices. Then he grounds me.”
“Parker has raised you kids for years. Maybe he doesn’t know how to show that he’s worried about you.”
Lani shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe. I don’t know, he’s not around as much anymore, and when he is, I know Mum doesn’t like it. She doesn’t say anything but I think…I don’t think they’re in love anymore.”
That was news to me.
“I’ll talk to your mum tomorrow,” I told her. “I promise. It’ll be okay. Parker doesn’t need to know shit. This is between me and your mum.”
Lani smiled through her watery eyes. “Thanks, Dad.”
“Stay here tonight,” I told her. “Me and Tavi will crash on the couch.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Yeah, baby girl, you can. Get some sleep, yeah?”
She ran to hug me again, and I held her tighter than I probably needed to, but I needed it, before she went back to the bed and laid down on it. I closed the door to the bedroom and headed down the hall to where I saw Tavi waiting for me at the kitchen table, two mugs of coffee in front of her.
Tavi
After hearing what went down at The Pit, I felt for Maverick. He was struggling with this whole fatherhood thing. He may have been a father all these years, but he’d never had to be a Dad.
“I just don’t understand why she would hang out with bitches like that?”
“We don’t always know our friends aren’t truly our friends,” I told him. “Trust me. I had afriendwhen I was younger and you know what they did? They ran and told my daddy everything so they could get paid, or worse, so they could bounce on his dick for a few minutes.”
“That’s–”
“Repulsive? Yeah, welcome to my world, Dane.”
“Fuck me…I just…I’m fucking all this up. I wasn’t there. I stayed away thinking I was doing the right thing but I fucked it up.”
“No, you weren’t there, and that’s something you’ll have to live with for a long time, maybe for a lifetime,” she said, as she put her hand on mine and squeezed. “But you know what, Dane, you’re here now. There’s no such thing as too late, you’re here, and she knows that. She asked to come here, because she feels safe here, with you. That’s something. So don’t regret the past, make amends now, and give her a future with a Dad she’s always wanted to know.”
