Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Chance
P arents who joked about locking their daughter in a dungeon until she was thirty had a valid idea.
Was it a mistake or was it fortunate that I’d checked Sam’s location on my phone between the second and third games of ping-pong and discovered she was at the beach? In the dark? In late January? Temperature in the low thirties?
Her safety was paramount, so I supposed it was a lucky catch, but as I left Kemp, my table tennis partner, hanging with one game left, I was just about ready to throw my hands up and tell her to do whatever the hell she wanted since she clearly had no intention of following my rules.
“I’m sorry, man,” I said to Kemp after breaking the news to him.
He brushed it off with a shake of his head and a wave. “Dude, don’t think twice about it. Go get your daughter.”
“You really think it’s illegal to lock them in their room?”
He laughed. “Get out of here. Good luck.”
A shit ton of luck was what I’d need to get my daughter through her teen years unscathed. Doing it without her hating me would be nothing short of a miracle.
I walked out of the community center into the cold evening, biting down on the urge to punch walls on the way.
Sam had always been a daddy’s girl, even before her mother had died. When she’d turned eleven, everything had changed, almost overnight. She growled at me, was embarrassed by me, shut down on me, yet still sometimes hugged me and told me she loved me. Puberty was like that, or so all the parenting websites and books said, but what they couldn’t tell me was how the hell to navigate it. I’d been over my head for three years and counting. Or really more like fourteen.
I got into my SUV and headed the few blocks to the town’s private beach. As I turned onto Honeysuckle Road, my adrenaline started pumping. I had no idea what I’d find. I was a thousand percent sure I wouldn’t like it though.
There wasn’t a parking lot for the beach, so I pulled up parallel to it, my headlights catching a group of seven or eight kids huddled near the restrooms. As I stopped, I killed the lights, squinting through the darkness for a sign that one of them was my daughter.
Before I could decide my next move, my question was answered. Sam’s snow-white knitted cap gave her away as she hurried across the moonlit sand toward me.
Relief that she was okay warred with anger and lingering fear for her safety. With the engine still running, I lowered the window, watching her every step.
When she was a few feet away, she whisper-demanded, “What are you doing here?”
“Get in the car, Samantha.”
Her eyes narrowed as she stomped around the front to the passenger door.
“Thanks for ruining my life,” she muttered as she got in.
“Follow the rules and I won’t ruin your life.” Clenching my jaw, I peered across the way at the group, but they’d drifted out of my line of sight, undoubtedly on purpose, and were likely on the other side of the restrooms.
Those kids weren’t my problem.
Hell, that wasn’t entirely true. “Do they have alcohol?” I asked Sam.
When she didn’t answer, my tension crawled higher. I hadn’t battled this one yet. I wasn’t ready for it. This was my little girl. My formerly sweet daddy’s girl who I could not let anything bad happen to.
“Samantha.”
“I didn’t drink anything,” she said quietly, stopping me.
“You didn’t?” I studied her profile across the front seat, assessing.
Her speech wasn’t slurred or affected. I didn’t smell alcohol. I would smell it, wouldn’t I?
She didn’t reply, but I suspected it was out of anger, not guilt.
Was I being naive?
I stared at her, searching for any signs I’d missed.
“What?” she bit out, whipping her head toward me.
What, indeed?
Where did I start? How did I handle this?
“I said I didn’t drink anything.” Every word was laced with indignation as she met my gaze.
Seconds ticked by as she glared at me.
“I believe you,” I said.
As she looked away, she lowered her chin and crossed her arms. “Can we just go?”
I glanced toward the dark restrooms, which were closed for the winter. I didn’t see any kids, but I was sure they were still there. “I should call the police.”
“Oh, my God. Just kill me now.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Don’t be a nark. Haven’t you destroyed my social life enough tonight?”
“Is Lacey there?”
My daughter went silent.
“She is,” I guessed.
What the hell was the right move here? Should I call Lacey’s mom? I didn’t know the woman from Eve, but I had her number.
If our roles were reversed, I’d want a phone call. I’d want to know my daughter was on the beach drinking.
I pulled out my phone, located Lacey’s mom’s number, and hit Call. It went through on the Bluetooth, so the ringing sounded throughout the vehicle.
“ Dad, what are you doing? ” my daughter nearly shrieked. “Don’t call the cops.”
The call rang and rang. I put the SUV in gear and did a U-turn, driving toward home as I waited to leave a message, for whatever good that would do.
“Dad!”
The woman’s voice mail message came on, short, sweet, not particularly confidence-inspiring.
“Hello,” I said at the tone. “This is Chance Cordova, Sam’s dad. We talked on New Year’s Eve. I just wanted to let you know I found our daughters with a group on the beach. There’s apparently alcohol involved. I’m taking Sam home, but the other kids are still there. I thought you should know.”
“I doubt her mom will even care,” Samantha said after I hit End.
“She doesn’t care if her fourteen-year-old daughter gets drunk with a group that includes boys?”
“She trusts her daughter.”
My brows shot up as I turned a corner. “Her trust is obviously misplaced.”
Neither of us said anything for the rest of the short drive home. I was chewing over what my next move should be.
Once I’d parked in the garage and killed the engine, Sam shot out of the vehicle and stormed inside.
I sat there by the dim light of the garage door opener, biting the side of my mouth in frustration, wishing for a book with a list of effective parenting tips to fall into my lap.
When the light went off automatically and left me in the dark, I swore a blue streak under my breath and headed inside.
The kitchen hadn’t been cleaned yet. Of course it hadn’t. She’d had a beach party to sneak out to. But dirty pans were the least of my problems.
I strode down the stairs to her room.
Sam sat against her headboard, her phone cradled on her legs, attention fully on the screen. Her jaw was set in anger. So was mine.
I breathed in deeply and leaned against the wall, studying my daughter.
Puberty was a bitch. I knew friendships were tough to navigate, probably even more so for girls than boys. Add a new town and high school to the mix…
Damn, did I miss my little girl.
She’d never had an overload of friends back in Missouri, but the ones she’d had were good kids. She’d gotten excellent grades and liked learning. Where had we gone so wrong? Was this all because I’d moved her to a new town?
Tempering my tone, I asked, “What are you doing, Sam?”
Her gaze popped up to me for just an instant, as if the validity of the question got through to her. Sam was smart, so fucking smart, but lately she hadn’t been acting like it, in the classroom or out. For that second, though, it was as if I reached the girl with the above-average brain.
Just as quickly, she shuttered her expression as if I were speaking a foreign language.
“I know how important friends are in high school, but Sam, these friends keep getting you in trouble. Is that what you want for yourself?”
She sat there, sullen and silent.
“Do you wait for me to leave so you can immediately break the rules and do exactly what I’ve told you a hundred times not to do? We don’t have a long list of rules, Sam. I’m not being unreasonable by requiring you to get permission before leaving the house.”
“You wouldn’t let me go if I asked.”
“Not to stand on the beach and drink,” I said. “You’re absolutely right. These girls… They don’t seem like a very good choice in friends. You’re smarter than this.”
“Friends aren’t about being smart,” she snapped.
I stared at her, confused. “Do you look up to these people? You admire that they sneak out and get drunk? What is it that draws you to this group?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said with venom in her voice. “I’m apparently not their friend anymore anyway.” She indicated her phone and tossed it to the mattress. “They hate me thanks to you calling the cops.”
“I didn’t call the cops, Sam. You were right there with me.”
“Well, someone did. They showed up right after we left, and now they think I’m a tattletale.”
As much as I didn’t approve of these kids, I hated that my daughter was hurting. I’d be ecstatic if she found someone new to be friends with.
“The police likely did a drive-by and saw them,” I told her. “I didn’t call anyone besides Lacey’s mom.”
“That doesn’t really matter if they think I’m the nark.”
A single tear rolled down her cheek, and I ached to pull her to me and hug away her sadness. Being a dad of a teen was a roller coaster ride that might well kill me before it was over.
Knowing she’d rebuke any attempt by me to comfort her, I stayed where I was, crossing my arms against the urge.
“I’m damn glad you were gone before the police arrived, but I’m sorry your friends are mad at you,” I said.
She let out a hollow laugh. “They’re not my friends anymore. So thanks for that.”
More tears fell down her cheeks. I squeezed my eyes shut, exhausted, my heart breaking for my little girl. Fuck, I missed the days when I could make everything okay for her.
“Are these really the kinds of people you want to be friends with? People who blame you for something you didn’t do?”
She didn’t respond.
“Those aren’t true friends, Sammy.” Her childhood nickname popped out. I waited for her to scold me for using it, but she didn’t. She just pulled her legs up and hugged them. “What happened to Kinsley?”
Kinsley had befriended my daughter when we first moved to Dragonfly Lake. She was a little bookish, shy, and had been kind to my daughter. I’d had no complaints about her, but I hadn’t heard Sam mention her for ages.
“She’s probably home studying,” Sam said with a hint of derision in her tone.
“That’s where you should’ve been. It’s Thursday night. You’re in high school. You’re taking tough classes.”
She shrugged.
Now wasn’t the time for a lecture on studying, I decided.
I walked to the foot of her bed and sat down. “Hey,” I said, gentling my voice.
Sam looked up at me.
“I’m proud of you for not drinking,” I said. “That’s not always an easy decision, particularly when everyone around you is doing it. You’re a strong girl.”
She pressed her lips together tightly as a new torrent of tears fell. “He… He kept pressuring me.”
Anger snapped in me at whoever he was. “Pressuring you to do what?” The ideas going through my head weren’t tolerable. “Sam,” I said when she didn’t answer, “what was he pressuring you to do?”
“To drink,” she said.
“Is that all?”
She hesitated before saying, “That’s all.”
“Did he pressure you to do anything else?”
So help me, God, if he had…
Sam shook her head slowly, sadly. “No.” She inhaled shakily, then said, “He said if I’d drink, maybe I’d lighten up.”
This was what people meant when they talked about wanting to kill any teenage boy who came near their daughter. I’d like to break this fucker’s neck.
Would it be wrong for a grown man to beat the hell out of a teenage punk?
I tried to calm down. Thank fuck I’d driven up when I had. Who knew what that little shit had planned for my daughter.
When I looked at her again, tears were streaming down her cheeks as she cried silently.
To hell with being careful around her. I moved closer and pulled her in for a hug, holding my breath, waiting to see if she’d push me away.
Even though she didn’t hug me back, she buried her face against my chest and let out the sobs. I never knew my heart could ache with pain and explode with love at the same time.
“Let it out, Sammy,” I whispered into her hair. “I got you.”
In one night, my daughter had been pressured to drink by a boy, lost her group of friends, and been embarrassed by her dad picking her up. That was a rough time for a fourteen-year-old.
I hated all of it for her, but I wouldn’t apologize for my part in it. And for the first time in months, she was letting me comfort her. That was progress. Maybe we could build on that going forward. With a teenager, baby steps were huge.