Calling the Shots. Ellen Hartman
have any idea what to say.
All he knew was that the kid Clare Sampson described wasn’t his kid. His Allie was competitive, driven even, but she wasn’t a bully.
Was she?
As soon as that traitorous doubt entered his mind he wanted to step on the gas and drive, take him and Allie down the road to a new town where they could start over. That’s what he’d always done, hit the road, let his commitment to his sales job run interference for him. He’d never taken his daughter with him on the road, never expected to have to, because she’d always been safe at home with Erin. He’d understood that his role was to make the money, that was what his wife had wanted from him. But now the roles were changed. He and Erin were divorced last year. Three months ago, she’d left Allie with him, and Allie, apparently, was beating people up left and right.
He hit the blinker before he made the left onto Green Avenue.
Screw Clare and her kid and everyone else. His kid was not a bully. He knew Allie.
What a freaking nightmare.
“Is she really going to call the cops?”
Those were the first words either of them had spoken.
“No. Of course not.” He wanted so desperately to reassure her that he lied. He had absolutely no idea what Clare had in mind. What would he want if the situation were reversed; if Tim had been the aggressor? He hoped to hell Clare was a more forgiving person than he was.
He made the last right turn and pulled into their driveway.
“Dad!” Allie said, hunching her shoulders and tucking her face into the front of her Twin Falls Cowboys jacket.
He followed her horrified gaze out the car window to the front of the little white Cape Cod where he and Erin had spent their entire marriage and where Allie and Erin had lived after the divorce.
“Sorry. I forgot.” He threw the car into Reverse and pulled out. They’d sold the house when Erin decided to go on the road with the band, and Allie had moved into his apartment. He hadn’t had time to keep the house up and Erin wanted the money.
He drove to the apartment complex and pulled into the empty space outside their door. The light over the front door and the one on the deck were both off, the windows dark. The lights were supposed to be on a timer, but it looked as if that was one more system he’d set up that wasn’t working the way it was meant to.
“You want to tell me what happened?” he asked.
“Mr. Jackson already did.” Allie stared straight ahead at the dashboard while she spoke. “It was exactly what he said. I punched Tim first and then we had a fight. I…” Her voice wavered and she stopped. When she started again, her tone was more defiant. “I hit him really hard and I wanted to hurt him, but then some grown-ups broke it up and now his mommy is going to call the cops. All right? That’s what happened. Exactly that.”
Her chest was rising and falling with her rapid breaths.
“Allie, that can’t be the whole story.”
“It is.” she said. A few tears slid down her cheeks. “I beat Tim up and that’s it.”
Bryan put his hand on her shoulder. “Listen,” he started, but she pulled back and opened her door.
“He’s an idiot. Why is he even on the team?” she yelled.
“Did he do something or say something to you?”
“No. Nothing.”
She slammed the door and ran through the thin coating of snow on the walk. She pulled the extra key out from under the empty planter on the cement steps and opened the front door. He watched it all unfold and he didn’t move a muscle.
In his mind, he saw what should happen next. He was supposed to go after her and get this sorted out. If she’d been honest about what prompted the fight, maybe he could have done that. He imagined himself following her into the house. They’d sit at the table in the kitchen and he’d make hot chocolate or they’d share a plate of Oreos. He’d tell her that she was grounded and she’d have to write a letter apologizing to Tim and another one to Danny, and there’d be extra chores so she could work off some of the money for the damages. He’d be stern and she’d be sorry and then he’d make a joke that wasn’t very funny and she’d smile anyway and things would be okay again. He’d seen Full House. He knew how it was supposed to work.
Except she hadn’t been honest. It wasn’t as simple as she punched Tim, Tim fell down. He sighed. Thirteen years in sales had taught him about reading people.
He had no doubt that she’d started the fight or that she’d wanted to hurt the kid. She’d definitely told the truth about those parts. But there was more to it than that. She wasn’t a bully. She was hurt and angry and something that happened between her and Tim had upset her deeply enough to make her snap.
So yeah. It was his job to reinforce that hitting people wasn’t okay. She needed to be disciplined, but she also needed to be helped. Unfortunately for Allie, he’d been caught up in his job for most of her childhood, and even when he’d been around, Erin hadn’t let him take the lead on much of the parenting. She’d said it was disruptive to the routine if he did things his way when he was home.
He’d felt so guilty over not being able to give Erin and Allie everything he’d planned that he’d decided the best thing he could do for them was to work and make sure they had everything they wanted. And now that he was in charge he was out of his depth.
He flipped his phone open and scrolled through to Erin’s number. She might be off living out her childhood dream of being a hairdresser to the stars, or at least to the latest designer girl band, but she should be able to spare a few minutes to tell him what the hell to do for their daughter. Was it asking too much for him to want some advice? After all, she disrupted the routine in a pretty freaking thorough way when she left them for her job.
Of course, she didn’t pick up. She rarely did when he called her. He left a message but didn’t go into detail.
He should work out a code with Erin so she’d know which calls she couldn’t ignore. He’d text the code word and that would be the sign that he wasn’t messing around. The code word could be Uncle.
He rested his head on the steering wheel briefly before climbing out and opening the trunk. He grabbed Allie’s hockey bag and her stick and his own suitcase and leather laptop case. The skates and gear samples he’d taken on his sales calls could wait until morning.
When he hitched the bags higher on his shoulder, his knee protested, but he refused to baby it. The accident that ended his hockey career had controlled him for a long time, erasing his choices, forcing them to move back to Twin Falls, and him into exactly the kind of sales job his dad had had and that he’d sworn he’d never take. He’d decided years ago that he wouldn’t acknowledge the pain from his knee any more than he’d let what might have been rule him.
When he pushed the front door open, the shower was running in the bathroom down the hall. Allie had the music on, too, some band he didn’t recognize blasting over the noise of the water, so any chance of an immediate conversation was gone.
Bryan kicked the hockey bag to the side and then unzipped it and took the wet shin guards and socks out. He laid them on the drying rack around the corner in the living room, unrolling the striped blue-and-green socks and shaking out Allie’s jersey.
He stretched it flat to dry. Allie’s number seventeen was the same one he’d worn. Same color, same team, same name. James, number seventeen, Twin Falls Youth Hockey.
Erin would have killed him if he’d put the drying rack in the living room when they lived together. Hockey gear smelled like a pungent combination of dampness, sweat and locker room, but to him that smell was home. Before Allie, his best times had been on the ice. Hell, even after Allie, his best times had been at the rink, watching her skate and knowing this was one thing they shared, the one thing he was sure