Gavin sighs and takes the seat across from my desk.
“I just want you to be smart. I don’t want you to get your heart broken.”
I grin and he groans.
“Don’t even fucking start. You know what I mean. You saw what I went through with Layla’s mother. I don’t want that for you.”
“I also don’t have a baby at home to whom someday I’ll have to explain why her mom left.”
“Fuck you for reminding me of one of the hardest days of my life.”
“Sorry, but look at you two now. I would kill to have the kind of relationship with my dad that Layla has with you.”
“Dad’s not all that bad,” Gavin defends him, but even I can hear the weakness in his voice. “He just has a different way of showing it.”
Yeah, by being an asshole.
“I just worry about you,” he adds, and the defeated look on his face gets me.
“Well, don’t. This thing with Brooke isn’t going away.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I confirm.
“So, how does her dad feel?”
I all but growl.
Don’t even get me started on him. I could tell by the way Brooke handled this morning that her dad hadn’t reached out. If he had, she'd have told me we needed to go to the station first on his orders. Then when we did get there, he wasn’t even around.
Her father’s opinion of this means nothing. What Brooke wants is all that matters to me.
“I don’t know,” is the answer I go with instead.
Because he’s still her father, I’d never speak ill of him, but let me be clear: that man is on my shit list.
“Well, just think before you act, okay? How is Brooke today?”
“She’s okay.” I need to change the subject before I’m repeating myself for what feels like the tenth time today. “Butwhat I’d like to know is why the temperature in this building is perfect right now.”
Gavin sighs. “I added the keypad as you suggested and then handed out different codes to different areas.”
“Henry got his own?”
He nods.
“Does he know he has his own?”
Gavin shakes his head.
“Keep it that way. Does anyone know that you can track it?”
“Nope.”
“Good.”
Gavin rubs his chin. “I’m not saying you were right in it being Dad, but it’s clear someone was doing it, because ever since the keypad was installed, nothing has been broken.”
