bad at their age?" he elbows me.
I laugh low. "Fucking worse, dude."
"Would you guys do me a favor?" I turn to the boys and walk across the yard, meeting them where they stand in the street. "You have cells?"
"Yeah, man." Their swagger grows bolder the longer we talk.
"I'm the daughter's boyfriend"—their eyes widen, and the smaller of the two withdraws a step— "Hey, no worries, I agree with you guys, she is fine." And now I am a hero in their horny teenage eyes, the dude slick enough to land the hot neighbor chick—score one for me.
"Look, if I give you my number, would you text me if you see him come around? His daughter is looking for him."
I rattle off my number and knock some fist bumps before walking around the house and using Jess's key to enter.
Any hope I have that he'll return dwindles when I push inside the kitchen. The place is destroyed. Cabinet doors dangle from hinges, appliances are missing, the sheetrock has a foot-shaped hole.
"He left her?" Finn asks, his tone gruff.
I scrub my palms over my face and turn to the door where they stand with astonished expressions. "I think he did."
Owen's gaze falls to the floor as his face scrunches.
"Fuck." My foot bumps a soup can, and I watch it roll across the cracked tile floor. "Fuck!" The pantry door meets my fist, then my shoe as my shouts grow. The fury I released on my heavy bag unleashes within Jess's house.
"Coward!" I pick a throw pillow off the floor and throw it across the otherwise vacant living room. "How could he? He fucking hits his daughter, terrifies her, then he abandons her? Who the hell are these people?"
Finn and Frey are mirror images, arms crossed, faces drawn, shoulders resting against the wall as my rage spills. My chest burns, my breaths coming fast, and I sink to a squat and suck air. "Dammit." I lift my head, imploring my best friends. "How do they live with themselves for the shit they've put her through?" I ask like they have the answers I don't.
My fucking throat constricts. I have to go home and look at that beautiful, black and blue face, and tell her what he's done.
"Coop?" Owen calls from down the hallway.
Finn shoves his hand in front of my face, hauling me to my feet when I accept it. "Let's check the other rooms, yeah?"
I nod.
The portraits with Jess, the ones her father didn't break that first night I was here, still hang on the wall. Left behind, like his daughter. Finn and Frey continue toward the master while I stop at Jess's open door. Owen stands in the middle of her intact bedroom. Untouched. My rage lessens at the sight of her unmade bed, high school memorabilia, and stray clothes in the closet.
"Did he do that?" Owen jerks his chin to my left.
Her white door is defaced with sole scuffs along the bottom and splintered in the middle where his fist broke through. I swallow to wet my dry throat. "Trying to get to her the other night, yeah." When I was here Friday, I wore blinders. My focus was on locating Jess and removing her from harm. I press my palm to the door. "A few more minutes and he might have broken in. What the fuck would have happened then?"
Owen doesn't answer. He doesn't have to. What matters is she's okay.
"He didn't touch her stuff. What do you think that's about?" Owen asks once I'm composed.
The echo of Finn and Frey shifting things around in the rear of the house reaches us. He clears out the entire house, not that there was much left between his wife's abandonment and his ripping apart the living room a month ago, but Jess's stuff remains?
"He loves her." It wrecks me to admit, but it's clear. "She shared stories about him—the times when he wasn't a drunk, or when he handled it. I remember him from high school, O. He showed up to every game to watch his daughter cheer. You know how many guys couldn't get their dads to watch them play, and that man went for her cheering."
"Hey, the rest of the place is tore up and empty." Frey raps his knuckles on the door frame and glances around the room. "I'll gather the boxes."
"'Ole codger took a knife to his bed," Finn says.
Owen cups my shoulder and flashes a tense smile before leaving me in the bedroom alone.
He did love