Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
HAYLEY
“Dad!?” I called out.
I heard him rustling around down the hallway as I closed his front door behind me.
I’d been coming over to my father’s every morning for the past week, enjoying breakfast and coffee with him before my schedule switched at work again.
I had five more days on this two-week training schedule before I started working a regular nine-to-four schedule.
And while I was ready for it, I’d miss having coffee with my father before he went into work.
But today, I wanted to ask him a question.
“You know it’s Saturday, right?” my father asked.
“I know, I know. But I wanted to see you anyway. That so bad?” I asked.
I smiled as he came down the hallway, looming in the shadows.
His face had days’ worth of stubble on it, and he looked more haggard than normal.
Which meant he was really throwing himself into this case or whatever.
His hair was wet from his shower and his clothes stuck to him—a t-shirt that was always tucked into the pants he wore along with a worn belt my mother had given him for his birthday years and years ago.
I smiled softly. “Morning, Dad.”
He wrapped me up in a hug. “Morning, princess.”
“Ready for some coffee?”
“Very ready. Make a whole pot. I’ll need more than a couple cups to wake me up this morning.”
“Up late working?” I asked.
“Didn’t fall asleep until about three.”
“Daddy.”
“I know, I know. You and your mother both hate that side of me. But it’s what put food on the table and clothes on your back,” he said.
“Well, you don’t have to worry about that with me anymore,” I said.
“Yeah, well, I need clothes. I need food. And I need a hell of a lot of coffee.”
I giggled as we walked into the kitchen, his arm slung over my shoulder.
I enjoyed my father first thing in the morning.
Before the memories hit him and he sunk into his semi-depressive state.
I kissed his stubbled jawline before settling into the routine I’d created for the two of us over the past week or so.
I put on an entire pot of coffee and pulled the bacon from his fridge.
I fried it up extra crispy, just how he liked it, then I put some toast in the toaster.
I put out the butter. The peanut butter.
All the jams he enjoyed switching between.
I scrambled us some eggs and got them onto plates for us and then sat one down in front of my father.
“You and your mother were always too good to me,” he said.
“If anything, we aren’t good enough,” I said softly.
I kissed the top of his head just as the coffee finished up.
I gathered everything and put it on the table and the two of us dug in.
I slathered peanut butter on my toast while he dumped hot sauce on his eggs.
Both of us chugged back an entire mug of coffee before either of us said anything.
The two of us could easily go through a pot of coffee with how strong our need for it was, which was saying something since my mother had always been a tea drinker.
At least, according to my father she had been.
“So, how’s work going?” I asked.
My father nodded. “I’m glad you came over. Want to stay for lunch?”
I paused. “Are you going undercover again?”
He looked over at me and sighed. My father never asked me to stay over for another meal—or spend more time with him, in general—unless it meant he was about to bury himself in something.
He was a creature of habit, and that was one of his habits.
I grew worried that he was. That he was overtaxing his body to go back undercover to wrap up whatever it was he had gotten himself obsessed with.
He poured himself a second mug of coffee and tilted it back, groaning as the burn heated his mouth.
“Dad,” I said.
He held up his finger and took another bite of his eggs.
“Sorry. I’m hungry,” he said.
“It’s a simple question,” I said.
“I’m not going undercover again.”
“Well, that’s a relief to hear.”
“But my team and I are getting very close to wrapping up the case we’re working on currently.”
“What case?” I asked.
He shrugged. “The lingering case that was born from my last undercover operation.”
“What did you do for your last one again?”
His eyes flickered over to me. “How’s your job going?”
“What?” I asked.
“Your job. At the zoo. How’s it going? You still training?”
Maybe if I talked about my job a bit, he’d talk about his.
“It’s going really well. Next week I’m still on a training schedule and then I start a regular nine-to-four job,” I said.
“Nine-to-four. That’s nice,” he said.
“I even have my own office,” I said, grinning.
“It’s about damn time. You need an office with all the running around you do as a zoologist. You getting much time with the giraffes and elephants?”
I smiled. “I’m actually overseeing the entire Africa section of the zoo. So, yeah. I practically get to spend my days with them.”
I watched my father’s eyes light up before he placed his hand on my shoulder.
He squeezed it before reaching up to cup my cheek, and I nuzzled into his palm.
I missed that light in my father’s eyes.
That happiness. It was a rare sighting nowadays, the pride he had in his stare.
The grin that crossed his face. His chuckle as it slid from his throat and filled the space around us.
“I’m proud of you, princess,” he said.
“Thanks, Daddy,” I said, smiling.
“And these eggs are fantastic.”
“I’m glad you like them.”
“Did you do anything new to them?”
“I beat them a little more to make them lighter and fluffier.”
“You should keep that technique,” he said.
“Is your team coming over today to work? I could whip them up some, too,” I said.
“Nah. They don’t come over much nowadays. All the work we do is in the office.”
“You going into work today? That why you look so nice?”
“Nice?” he asked.
He looked down at his outfit and I snickered.
“Your clothes don’t have holes or stains, so yes. For you? It’s nice,” I said.
He chuckled again, and it shocked me to my core. Apparently, they must be getting very close. Because my father was in a very good mood.
“Well, I’ll have to work on that, then,” he said.
“You really should,” I said, giggling.
“So, what else is on your mind?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, other than you wanting to constantly question the work I do that I can’t talk about, what else is on your mind?”
I smiled. “That obvious?”
“You’ve always been curious about my job.”
“Can’t fault a girl for wanting to know more about what her father does for a living.”
“I can see a question tumbling behind your eyes. You’re always so easy to read. Like your mother was. Well, sort of,” he said.
I sighed. “She was easy to read?”
He shrugged. “I thought so, at least.”
I furrowed my brow. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing. She was complicated.”
“Was she easy to read or complicated?”
“What is your question, Hayley?”
“What if that’s my question?” I asked.
He shot me a glare, and I rolled my eyes.
“Fine. I do have a question,” I said.
“Ask away.”
“Have you ever heard of The Lost Boys? Like, a motorcycle gang or something?” I asked.
He paused before he placed his fork down onto his plate.
He wiped his lips off before he slowly turned to me, and I saw something cross my father’s face.
It was dark. Menacing. It darkened his eyes almost to black and cast strong shadows across his face.
I didn’t like the way my father looked at me.
It made me nervous. I took a long pull from my mug as his eyes connected with mine, trying to put some sort of a barrier between us.
“What?” I asked.
“How do you know about this club?” my father asked.
I shrugged. “I’ve seen them weaving in and out of traffic on their bikes. They’re annoying as hell. I was wondering if you had heard of them or something.”
I really hoped he bought my lie, because my father was an expert detector.
I kept my face as stoic as possible while his eyes danced along my features.
I kept my movements under control. I settled my mug of coffee into my lap, trying not to change any of the movements I would have usually made had I not been under the pressure of his stare.
Then, my father drew in a sharp breath.
“You need to stay away from them, Hayley. Do you hear me?” he asked.
“So, you do know about them. Do you know what assholes they are in traffic?” I asked.
“You don’t even know the—”
I narrowed my eyes as my father’s phone rang out in his pocket. He pulled it out, turning his pocket inside out to try and get to it quickly. He grumbled to himself before he held his finger up to me and then stood up to take the call.
“Detective Woolf,” he said.
That was all I heard as he hurried over to the back porch doors.
He slid them open and stepped outside, concealing the phone call from me.
Leaving me alone in the house with my breakfast partially uneaten.
I leaned back into my seat and sighed. I tipped back my second mug of coffee, finishing it up.
I eyed the pot, watching as the last two mugs of black liquid sat there, waiting to be had by my father and myself.
“Fuck it,” I murmured.
And as my father talked out on the porch, I poured myself another mug.