Page 268 of Property of Whiskey

“With Daddy.”

“Didn’t punch him.”

“Exactly.”

“Bar’s low.”

“Still proud.”

“Take it back.”

“No.”

I look down at her. “You done here?”

“Photos.”

“Right.”

“You can wait.”

“Planning to.”

She starts toward the main room. I follow. Three steps later, she looks back over her shoulder. “You staring at my ass?”

I nod. And as I watch her walk back toward a room full of people chanting Twister like she hung the fucking moon, I finally understand why nobody who loves this woman should ever ask her to make herself smaller.

She ain’t too much. Never was. She’s exactly enough to ruin a man. And I’m starting to think I’d let her.

Chapter Nineteen

Twila

I call Daddy at eleven seventeen that night because I promised I would. I almost hang up before it rings. Not because I’m scared of him, but because I know what’s waiting on the other end. Questions. Anger. Fear dressed up like authority. A lifetime of Amos Dix believing the safest place for his daughter is wherever he can see her, and me spending half that lifetime proving I can stand somewhere else.

Whiskey sits on the edge of my couch while I pace the living room with the phone pressed to my ear. He doesn’t tell me what to say, ask me to put it on speaker, or even pretend not to watch me.

Daddy answers on the first ring. “Twila.”

Just my name. No hello. No Deputy.

My grip tightens around the phone. “Hey, Daddy.”

“Where are you?”

I glance at Whiskey. His eyebrows lift.

“My house.”

Silence.

Then, “Alone?”

Whiskey’s mouth starts to curve.

I point at him before he says anything. “No.”

Daddy breathes out hard. “He there?”