Page 29 of Apparently, I’m Trouble

“I’m going to meet Miles. He wants to run lines.”

My stomach dropped. “Uh, no. That’s not happening.”

She blew a breath out through her nose and said, “Dad, I have to. It’s for the play.”

“Yeah, and I guess the two of you need to practice kissing for the play too.”

She raised a brow at me. “I don’t think of Miles like that. He’s nice, but I’m not.” She winced, as if the thought of locking lips with her co-star was as appealing as sucking a lemon. “Miss Walker said I don’t have to kiss him.”

I folded my arms. “Yeah, well. Miss Walker says a lot of things, doesn’t she?”

She mirrored my stance, crossing her arms tight against her chest as she glared at me. “And so do you.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you yell at her every chance you get, and I’m lucky she hasn’t kicked me out of the program yet.”

“Kira, I overreacted, I know that. I apologized.”

She raised a brow. “To her?”

Well, if I didn’t have the strongest, most bullheaded women in my life, I didn’t know what I had. Kira looked exactly like Tash as she stared me down, and my gut twisted at the reminder of her mother. It caught me off guard, and I dropped my arms.

Kira’s expression shifted from annoyed to confused. “What?”

My throat felt scratchy and tight, but I managed, “Nothing. I’ll call and apologize tomorrow.”

She searched my face, then asked, “If I leave, you’re not going to freak out over Miles, right?”

Frustration buried my grief in an instant. My gut told me to dig my heels in and tell her she couldn’t meet some boy I barely knew. But I was already on her shit list.

“I didn’t say I was okay with you meeting him–”

“But Dad–”

“–But I trust you. Are you going somewhere public?”

She relaxed and nodded. “He booked a room at the library.”

“What’ll you do if he tries anything?”

“Dad.”

“He’s twice your size, Kira. What will you do?”

She shrugged. “Scream, kick him where it hurts, and run.”

“And you’ll call me, right?

She nodded. “I’ll text you when I get there.”

“Good. Now come here.”

Despite everything I’d done to upset her, Kira let me pull her into a hug anyway. I held her so tight it would’ve squeezed the life out of her if she were smaller. I walked her to the waiting area and watched her leave, deciding I’d better wrap up for the night, when a black-and-gray book cover caught my eye.

Lying on the reception desk was a copy of the book I’d bought for Kira weeks ago. Misplaced. I picked it up, flicking through pages and pages of annotations and scribbled crying faces before shutting it.

Mia told me she’d give Kira a new book to study. So what the fuck was she doing reading this?