Branded(53)

Dax got a court order to pull Phina’s phone records and the call that she got right outside the PD came from a payphone on the other side of town, only a few blocks from the fire station. An APB has been put out for Phina’s father, but so far, there’s been no trace of him. It’s like he just keeps disappearing into the fucking wind.

I glance at Phina on the opposite end of the couch, watching her stare blindly at a movie I put in after dinner. I want to reach over and pull her against me. I want to hold her and tell her everything will be okay, but I can’t make that fucking promise. I can’t make her any kind of promise when her father is still out there. I have no idea what he said to her on the phone and after I questioned her a few times on the ride home that night, she completely shut down and told me it didn’t matter. She’s quickly retreating back to the person she was just a few months ago: cold, aloof and pretending like everything that happened between us isn’t real. I hate that she won’t trust me. She’ll give me her body and she’ll give me the words, but they mean absolutely nothing when she doesn’t really believe them. She doesn’t believe that she’s good enough to be loved and nothing I do will change her mind.

The doorbell rings and when Phina looks at me with curiosity, I don’t say a word as I get up from the couch to greet my guests. The only thing I have left is emotional manipulation. Hopefully, it works.

As soon as I open the door, my small townhouse is filled with so much noise you’d think I invited a hundred people over. I hold the door open as my sisters and my mother file inside, each one wrangling a child or two and helping them remove their coats and shoes. Kids yell, women argue, shoes are thrown around the entryway like landmines and I couldn’t be happier.

“Whoever is quiet the longest will get a cookie from Uncle DJ!” Dannica announces.

A hush falls across the room and I’m the first one to speak.

“Uh, cookies? Was I supposed to make cookies?”

I hear a quiet laugh from behind me and turn to see Phina standing in the doorway with her arms crossed. “We don’t need you burning the house down. Who wants to help me make cookies?”

The kids immediately forget about the quiet rule and start screaming and bouncing up and down. I wink at Phina and she gives me a small smile, holding her hands out for two of my nieces to grab as she leads everyone down the hall and into the kitchen. My sisters each give me a kiss on the cheek before following behind her, filing out of the room until I’m left alone by the front door with my mother. She gives me a hug and pats my cheek, holding her hand against the side of my face as she searches my eyes.

Not knowing what else to do to bring my Phina back around, I called my mom and told her as much as I could without worrying her too much. She immediately suggested bringing my sisters and the kids over so Phina could have some extra company to take her mind off of things. I knew she would have probably preferred the company of her best friend, but Collin and Finnley were out of town for the weekend and I didn’t want to tell them about what happened over the phone and freak them out.

“You’re a good man,” she tells me quietly.

I look away from her, not sure I agree with her right at this moment.

“Do you remember that time I was mugged when you were back in high school?”

I nod my head quietly, thinking about that night when I was fifteen and my mom was late getting home from work. We got a phone call from the police saying she’d been walking out to her car and had been attacked from behind. The scumbag beat the hell out of her face and broke her arm just to take her purse with all of twenty dollars inside.

“Your father was beside himself. He was angry that he hadn’t been there to help me and he blamed himself for being laid off from his job those couple of months, forcing me to take a part-time one at night,” she explained.

I remember my father coming home from the hospital that night, going out into the garage and trashing the place. He threw a hammer through a wall and cracked his workbench in half by pounding it over and over with his fists.

“I ignored him for a week after I got out of the hospital, but not because I blamed him. I could never have blamed him for a freak accident like that, but I did blame myself. I knew better than to walk out to that dark parking lot alone. I knew I should have asked the security guard to walk out there with me or even call your father to come and pick me up, but I was stubborn back then.”

I cock my head to the side and smirk. “Just back then?”

With her hand still on my cheek, she smacks it a little harder this time.

“Watch it, smartass,” she laughs.