Page 7 of Callow

“What bar?” she asked, and I heard shit hitting the ground as she jumped to her feet and stumbled around.

“Redemption.”

There was the shortest of pauses. Then, “Seriously?” she asked, sounding more exasperated than upset.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “I’m standing outside with her. Will wait here for you,” I said before ending the call before turning back to the kid. “What’s your friend’s Mom’s number?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said, voice a little shaky.

“Figure it out,” I said, handing her back her phone.

“She’s eighteen,” Daph declared.

“Like you’re twenty-one?” I asked, barely managing not to roll my eyes at her.

“No. She’s really eighteen. She lives alone and everything.”

She was still too young for a bar. But if she was at least legal, her fraternization with other adults wasn’t any of my business. I would just tell Toll when I went inside to boot her ass out.

“The fuck kind of a so-called friend would let you leave the bar with two guys too old for you?” I asked.

“I can make my own decisions,” she declared, lifting her chin.

“Yeah? Your mom agree with that?” I asked.

“She treats me like a baby,” Daph insisted, crossing her arms.

“You are a fucking baby,” I said, watching her eyes spark.

“Am not,” she said, tilting her head to the side, eyes going half-mast.

Christ.

Was she trying to… flirt with me? I was old enough to be her fucking father.

“Save that shit for boys your own age,” I said. “Better yet, save it ‘till you’re thirty. Boys ain’t shit,” I added.

“You’re a boy,” she said, rolling her eyes at me.

I figured this wasn’t the time to explain the difference between a boy and a man when she clearly already had inappropriate feelings toward guys older than her.

“Yeah. And I ain’t shit either,” I agreed as a dark blue SUV came barreling into the parking lot. “Your mom, I’m assuming,” I said as the SUV whipped into a parking space a few feet away, the engine not even cutting before the driver’s door flew open.

“Daphne Elizabeth Waters what the fuc—“ her mother started before she even turned around. Then, getting a look at her daughter, changed tack. “What are youwearing?” she asked.

I didn’t even know what she was looking at because, fuck.

This was hermom?

I mean, yeah, the genetic transfer was strong.

They both had black hair, pale skin, and big hazel eyes.

But the years had refined the mom’s features a bit, chiseling out her jaw and giving her eyes a sultry look.

She was about average height with a compact, but curvy body that she had dressed in casual skinny jeans and an alt-rock concert tee.

I snapped back as the kid tried to insist her mother was overreacting.