“You’re getting them everywhere,” I say just as stubbornly. We’ve been arguing over this for a good half hour. What she doesn’t seem to understand is I have no intention ofnotinstalling these cameras everywhere I can put them.
Her lips flatten as she crosses her arms. “Oh my God, you are the most frustrating man alive! Does Mum know about this?”
“Of course your mother knows about this.” I reach for my drill.
“And she thinks it’s perfectly reasonable for you to install cameras everywhere, invading our privacy?”
“It’s not invading your privacy, Aurora. It’s ensuring your safety.”
She glares at me before eyeing Nash who’s helping me. “Can you please talk some sense into him? This is beyond ridiculous.”
Nash’s lips twitch. “Darlin’, I agree with your father about this. And do you really think I’d have any chance of talking him around if I didn’t?”
Aurora drags in a long breath and then exhales it loudly, arms still crossed as she gives me her attention again. “There’s no way you would have stood for this from your father when you were my age.”
“I didn’t need security, sweetheart. I could take care of myself.”
“Oh, so boys don’t need to be watched twenty-four-seven, but girls do? Tell me, when Keaton moves out, will you shove cameras all over his place too?”
“If I think there’s a threat he can’t handle, it’ll be the first thing I’ll do.”
She rolls her eyes. “We both know that you’d never think he couldn’t handle a threat.”
While I don’t think there’s any threat Keaton couldn’t handle, I wouldn’t hesitate to do the same for him that I’m doing for Aurora if I felt it necessary. There’s not one fucking thing I wouldn’t do for my kids, including forcing my way into their homes with whatever security is required to keep them safe. And if that includes sending my entire fucking club to watch over them, so be it. Aurora wouldn’t have a hope in hell of stopping me.
Aurora looks like she’s settling in to keep arguing with me, but one of her flatmates steps in and says, “I don’t know, Rory, I’m okay with this. I like knowing we’ll have security.”
Nash grins at the girl and then at Aurora. “Listen to your friend here.” With that, he grabs his toolkit and looks at me. “Let’s get started, brother. Velvet needs me home by one this afternoon.”
He strides past me into the lounge room towards the boxes containing the furniture we have to build.
I eye my daughter who is still not happy about any of this. “I’m not doing this to check up on you. I just need to know you’re safe. If anything happened to you, and I hadn’t done everything I could to avoid it, I would never fuckin’ forgive myself.”
Something I say causes her to uncross her arms and soften her glare. With one last release of breath, she says, “I know, Dad, but honestly, you’re too much sometimes. None of my friends’ fathers go to these extremes.”
“Installing security cameras is not going to extremes.”
She arches her brows at me. “Yeah, but we’re not actually just talking about the installation of some cameras here, are we? I think we both know that when you say that’s what you’re doing, what youreallymean is you’re installing cameras today, sending your boys over if required tomorrow, and starting a war anytime it’s needed. This is just the beginning of what I should expect, right?”
Aurora is her mother’s daughter. She tries her damnedest to challenge me at times. And just like I do with her mother, I sometimes allow the challenge. On this, though, she’s got no chance of winning any argument. “What you should expect is for me to ensure you make it to old age. And if anyone threatens you, they’ll wish they fuckin’ hadn’t.”
She watches me silently for a moment before finally saying, “I love you. Thank you. But we’ve got some work to do on your overprotective tendencies.”
With that, she turns and walks out of the kitchen where we’ve been arguing.
Not for the first time in her eighteen years do I wonder how the hell I survived those years. Both my kids are as headstrong as me, but some days I think Aurora has Keaton beat in this department. My daughter can be inflexible at times, and when she’s determined, not much will get in her way.
Today, I’m thankful she’s finally seen sense. She and I have been known to get into some fuckers of arguments and I’m glad we avoided one of those.
Nash and I spend three and a half hours building a bookshelf, a television cabinet, and a dining room table, along with installing the cameras and alarm. I inspect every window and door to make sure they’re secure. I also take a look up and down her street cataloguing every building and car I can see. It’s not necessary to do this because Griff’s already got all this information stored digitally, but it’s something I’ll do often. There’s no fucking way anyone’s doing anything in this street without me knowing about it.
As I’m finishing up, Aurora joins me again holding up her phone. “I was just texting with Mum and Lisa. She’s going to be in town next weekend and we’re thinking of having a spa day on Saturday, but Mum said that you’re planning to take her awayfor the weekend. Can you change that to another weekend so we can do the spa day?”
Finding a weekend that works for both Harlow and me to go away has been difficult. Between Keaton’s sporting commitments, Harlow’s art classes she attends most Saturdays, and other social commitments we’ve got, we either go away next weekend or we wait another few months. Fuck if I want to wait that long to get my wife to myself, but Lisa doesn’t come home to Brisbane often, and I know Harlow has been missing her like crazy since she moved to Sydney for work a year ago.
“Yeah,” I agree. “In exchange, I want you at dinner every Sunday night.”
Aurora frowns. “EverySunday?”
