seeing as I just silently lay there and just never disputed her.
“Why don’t you like your father?” she asks.
“What makes you think I don’t?”
“You’re not very open with him. You rarely talk about him or to him. You’re always trying to avoid him or subjects about him.”
I turn to her. “He just works a lot. It’s more like I feel like we grew apart as we got older.”
“Makes sense,” she says but she’s looking at me like she’s not sure she believes me.
We talk a little more before she drifts off to sleep, leaving me to lie there and think about what I told her and what I didn’t.
She falls asleep before I do, but I follow her soon after.
I’m not sure what wakes me, but when I do, I reach over and notice that Rose is gone. When I check my phone, I see that it’s only 12:26, telling me we’d only been asleep half an hour or so.
I lie there for a few minutes, wondering if she’d gone to the bathroom, but there’s a bathroom attached to my room and it doesn’t appear like the light is on.
My mind flashes back to the sound the woman made when she fell down the stairs, and I push my blankets back and jump up to my feet. It’s stupid. It happened years ago and while my father is still cheating on my mother, nothing like it has happened since.
I rush into the hallway and quickly move down the stairs to the first floor because maybe she just got a drink of water.
When I hit the first floor, I listen carefully and hear voices. Slowly, I walk toward the kitchen only to find the light on. Rose is talking to someone, but it takes me a moment to realize it’s my father.
“It has to be scary doing your job, doesn’t it?” she asks.
“Nah, I’m behind the scene more often than not since I’m pretty high up the totem pole.”
“Oh yeah, that makes sense. Your job is pretty important, then.”
“Of course. I didn’t know you were so interested in law enforcement,” Father says.
“I’m considering a degree in it. Sometimes, it’s so hard deciding what’s best. I feel like I have my whole life ahead of me, but I also need to decide what I want to do for my whole life. What do you think I should do, Mr. Oliver?”
She is? She never told me any of this.
“Call me William.”
She giggles. “William it is, then. I kind of liked calling you mister, though. I liked the way it rolled off the tongue.”
“You can call me whatever you’d like,” he says as I hear him set something down. “Where’s Killian?”
“He’s asleep. I was having trouble sleeping and I heard you down here, so I thought maybe you could help pass the time.”
“Is that so?” he asks. “How about just a little something to drink?”
Is she flirting with him? Why in the fuck would she flirt with my father? Does she want something from him? What the hell is wrong with her?
I step into the kitchen and they both look over at me.
“Speak of the devil,” Father says.
Rose giggles. Literally giggles, and I can’t help the look I give her. What is wrong with her?
“What are you doing?” I ask, not sure who I’m directing the question toward. Hell, maybe both of them.
“Oh, I just went to get a drink of water and ran into your dad,” Rose says.
I go over to the cupboard, since she’s not holding a cup, and get her some water. “Drink it upstairs.”
She takes the cup from me and heads toward the door. “Are you coming?”
“I’ll be there in a minute,” I say as she shrugs and heads off.
Father and I stare at each other in silence until I hear her ascend the steps.
“Stay away from her,” I growl.
“I’m just trying to protect her from you, Killian. We don’t want what happened last time to happen again. What happens when you kill her too?”
Rage ignites inside of me as I rush up to him. “You fucking heard me.”
He doesn’t back off or even step into me for that matter. Instead, he gives me a cruel smile. Quick as that, he grabs my throat in his hand as he pulls me in closer until I can feel his breath on my face. “You have a lot to learn, kiddo. Now go play with your girlfriend. Just don’t play too hard,” he says as he pushes me toward the door.