Page 79 of Falling for Them

“Yep,” one of them says.“He’s been staying later and later.”

Aw, fuck.My vice was drink.King’s has been—and probably always will be—work.It’s what he throws himself into when shit gets hard.

Sure enough, he’s sitting behind his desk in his office, his scowl in place as he types something on his computer.

“King,” I say, knocking on the doorjamb.

He looks up and scowls harder.“What?”

“Dude, you’re falling into old habits.Snap out of it.”

He jabs a few buttons on his keyboard and pushes back from the desk.“Yeah, well, it’s not like I have anything better to do.”

“We should come up with a plan to find her,” I say.“It’s time.”

Glancing at his phone, he says, “She hasn’t called me.I don’t think she wants to.”

“I think she does want to, but she can’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“Her phone’s out of service.”

“You have her fucking number?”

I wince.I forgot to tell him about that.“I got it when we went to the karaoke place,” I say.“Sorry I didn’t mention it.”

He grumbles something unintelligible, but I don’t have to be a genius to figure out he’s pissed.

Clearing my throat, I say, “Tonight, I thought that we’d waited long enough for her to come to us, and I tried to call her.It’s disconnected.”

“So you’re saying her phone doesn’t work.”He strides to one of the small sofas and throws himself into it.“What’s your plan, then?Hire a detective?No good private investigator is going to want to work for two men looking for a woman half their age.Unless we tell them she’s our daughter.”

“Well, we are her daddies,” I say, holding back a smile.

He just shakes his head.

“Look, I know which building she lives in,” I say.

He raises his eyebrows at me.

“I gave her a ride back to it both times we went to the karaoke place.If we go…”

“Stalk her?”he says, looking like the idea is both distasteful and tempting.

“Well, when you put it like that, it doesn’t sound good,” I say.

He shrugs.“Maybe that’s what it fucking takes to get her to see some goddamn sense.”

“You don’t really think that.”

“No,” he says, “I don’t.I mean, a part of me does, but I don’t want to scare her.Her phone not working, though—that worries me a little.”

“Tomorrow,” I say.“We’ll go first thing.If you can, you know, take a couple hours off of work, since you’ve been slacking so much lately.”

“Shut up, smartass,” he says.“It’s a plan.”

I turn to go, but before I reach the door, I remember.“Do you want to hear her sing?”