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King pulled his phone out. “I’ve got something I’ve gotta do for the next couple of hours and then I want you, me, Nitro and Devil on this. I want to find that motherfucker and end this shit now.”
An hour later, I entered my house after leaving King and grabbing some food on the way home. I hadn’t restocked after being away in Melbourne, and I figured Charlie would be hungry.
The house I’d left a couple of hours earlier and the house I walked into were like two completely different places. I stood in silence at the living room entry when I found Charlie in there. I was silent, the room was not. She had rap music blaring from the speakers and was sitting on the floor in the middle of the room smoking and drinking what I was pretty fucking sure was whisky from my cupboard.
“What the fuck?” I barked loud enough that she heard me over the music. Any attempt at keeping my outrage in check would have been futile so I skipped that. The sight of my sixteen-year-old daughter smoking and drinking slapped me in the face with a level of shock I found confusing. I didn’t give a shit if people did those things—teens even—but not my fucking kid.
Her head whipped around so she faced me. After she had taken a swig of her drink, she said, “What?”
I stalked into the room and turned the music down. “You don’t smoke or drink. Not in this house. Not fucking ever.”
Her brows lifted and it appeared she was settling in for a fight by the way her shoulders squared and her back straightened. “Yeah, I do.”
Shaking my head, I snapped, “No, you don’t.” I motioned for the glass. “Give me that.”
She held her drink close. “No. And you can’t tell me what to do.”
“Oh yes I can. This is my house and you are my kid. I make the rules here. Not you.”
Pushing up and onto her feet, she threw back, “If this is how it’s gonna be around here, I’m out. I can get this at home from Mum. I don’t need it from you too.”
I reached for her arm as she turned to exit the room, halting her. “You’re fucking sixteen, Charlie. Don’t fuck your life up this early by drinking and smoking. I can promise you that’s the last thing you’ll be happy about when you look back on your life as you get older.”
“So that’s why you’ve got a kitchen full of booze then? You are so full of shit.”
“No, I’m full of honesty. I want so much better for you than I have in life. I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I did.”
She rolled her eyes as she shrugged out of my grip. “You and Mum must have taken parenting lessons from the same manual. That’s exactly what she says.”
I raked my fingers through my hair. I wasn’t sure if I was fucking shit up here or not, but no way would I stand back and watch her do what she was doing. “Do you know why we both say the same shit? Because we both came from families who didn’t give a fuck about us. They let us do whatever the hell we wanted and couldn’t care less what the consequences were for us. My mother was a drug addict from the age of fifteen and she died from a drug overdose when she was thirty-eight. She was a selfish woman whose only desire in life was to make herself feel good. Taking time for me wasn’t in those plans. And she sure as shit never worried about whether I was taking drugs or drinking. I’m not that kind of parent, Charlie. I will always care about what you’re doing with your life.”
Something I said hit a nerve with her because she took the time to process my words and think about them. “Your mum did drugs?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Coke mainly, but she didn’t discriminate when she was desperate.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Did you ever do drugs?”
“Yes.”
“What? When?”
“After I left you and your mum, I started on the coke. I did it for about a year, and it almost killed me.”
“As in you almost overdosed on it?”
“No. I was taking so much of the shit that it brought out my violent side. I was getting into fights almost every night, taking on anyone who pissed me off. If I hadn’t kicked my habit, I would have ended up killing myself in a fight.”
“So, what, now you just drink? No drugs anymore?”
“Yeah. I haven’t touched anything besides alcohol since then.”
She was quiet for a beat before blurting out, “I’ve smoked pot, but I haven’t tried anything else.”
Fucking hell. I was definitely not ready for this conversation. But, I had to be. And I had to keep my fucking cool or else I knew she’d walk. At least she wasn’t arguing with me anymore. “You still smoking it?”
“My boyfriend smokes, so sometimes I do it with him. But I don’t really love it. Usually it just makes me feel sick. I’d rather drink.”
I inhaled sharply. “Your boyfriend?” I should have been prepared for that. Charlie was a beautiful girl, so I really should have expected a boyfriend to be kicking around. The fact she’d chosen a fucking stoner didn’t impress me, though.
