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“Can we go?”
He motions toward the doors. “Yeah. You’re free to go.”
“Home, that is,” Willa corrects, her phone pressed to her ear. She motions to Carl and then us with a careless flick of her wrist. “Take them home. I’m dealing with getting the bikes and Roan’s truck out of impound.”
I don’t pay much attention to what happens next. I’m too busy trying to interrogate Carl as to the decision his daughter might or might not have made. “Did she marry him?”
“I have no idea.” He chuckles, clicking the remote to the SUV parked in front of the police station. “I had to leave on account of, well, you.”
“Fair enough, but do you think she went through with it?”
“Who fuckin’ cares?” Tiller groans, running his hand through his hair. “You’re acting like a pussy. Carl, my man, swing by food truck alley. We’re starving. I wanna see if BatterFish is still open.”
“Go slow.” Camden buckles up in the back seat. “I want to avoid my dad as long as possible.”
Smiling in the rearview mirror, Carl nods and merges into traffic. When I think he’s not going to answer me, he leans into the center console and closer to me in the passenger seat. “Knowing my daughter, she might have to spite you.”
He’s right. She might have. Fuck. What if she did? Maybe the backflip was too much? My shoulder would agree because I jammed it on the landing. I don’t have my phone. Willa stole it so I can’t call her, and I can’t even enjoy the best fish and chips in Santa Monica because all I’m thinking about is if I lost Ophelia for good.
BACK AT THE house, Willa lays into us for not coming back right away. She’s slightly more forgiving when she realizes we brought her back fish and chips, but Camden’s dad, not so much. Not only was he pulled off a case and forced to make a flight home to deal with his kid, he tells Camden he won’t be racing in round three of the SoCal MX Series at Glen Helen.
That sets him over the edge. “That’s complete bullshit!” he screams at his dad.
Bold move. Jerad Rivera—Camden’s dad—he’s a criminal lawyer and about as friendly as a honey badger on a good day. He scowls at his son. “Keep it up, Camden, and you’ll never step foot on their property again. You’ll be Facetiming them from boarding school in another country.”
He shuts up immediately, hanging his head and walking out the door.
Willa slaps my shoulder, the hurt one, as if I’m supposed to step in. “It wasn’t his idea, Jerad,” I tell him, trying to reason with an unreasonable man.
Turning toward me in the foyer of my house, he regards the waterfall, and then me. He glances up at Camden now in the driveway standing next to his dad’s blacked-out Mercedes. “I know you care for him, but he needs to realize he’s still a child. You boys need to realize that too.”
I can understand that. Growing up, Ricky let us get away with way more shit than we should have. Tiller’s a perfect example. Had Ricky been harder on him, maybe he wouldn’t be so psychotic all the time.
Camden and his dad leave me alone with Carl.
“Have you heard from her?”
He smiles. “Why didn’t you say something earlier?”
I attempt to dissect his words. Does that mean she’s married? Carl’s not the easiest person to get information out of. Which is what makes him such a good bodyguard. “I did.” I pour myself a drink. Okay, I’m drinking from the bottle. “A few times. And all she kept saying was—” I pause and try to think of her excuses as to why she had to marry him. Nothing comes to mind. “I don’t remember.” With one quick move, I attempt to snatch his phone from his hands. I fail.
He holds it away from me, grinning. “She’s never been good at making a decision.”
He’s right. She isn’t. Never take her to a restaurant. She’ll take an hour to decide between chicken or steak and decide at the last minute to go with fish. So why’d she say yes to him so quickly?
Because I lied to her and she was using it to get away from me. And it all started with the man in front of me. One might ask, given everything that’s happened now, would I make the same decision and take the blame?
Yes, I would. But I would have cut Tiller’s dick off before he had the chance to fuck her. Believe me, I’d be doing a lot of people a favor.
Willa returns to the kitchen, takes the bottle of alcohol from me and hands me my phone back. “Next time, think before you involve a minor in your dumbass plans. He could have gotten in a lot of trouble if it hadn’t been for Carl and me.”
“Thank you,” I tell her, reaching for my phone. Immediately, I swipe my finger across the screen. Fuck me.
No calls.
No texts.
Maybe I’ve lost her for good.