Page 192 of Midnight Curfew

Finally, she nods. “Okay.” Heading to the foyer table, she picks up her bag and keys. “Are you sure?” she asks. “He might be gone overnight.”

Motherf—

I draw in a hard breath and hold the door open for her. “Weather’s bad and getting worse. Drive careful.”

In any case, he’ll get a notification from the exterior cameras that I arrived and that Damaris left, while I didn’t. He’ll come home.

The kid leaves, and I lock the door, walking farther into the house. “Anna-Katherine?”

I hear the pitter-patter of footsteps across the hardwood floor upstairs. She rushes up to the railing, drying her hair with a towel. “Hi!” She beams. “Are you staying with me?”

“Yeah.”

She makes some sound, a mix between a yip and a gasp, and disappears back into her room. In six seconds she’s back with her hair dryer and a brush. “Damaris was going to dry my hair,” she says as she hurries down the steps.

Holding the shit out to me, she smiles.

I grimace, not even trying to hide my discomfort as I take the brush and dryer. “I’m sure you could do a better job yourself than I could.”

She starts walking for the kitchen, telling me, “It’s relaxing.”

I didn’t even do my sister’s hair when she was little.

Following, I frown as she takes a seat at the island. “Who brushes your hair when Damaris isn’t here?” I ask.

“My brother.”

I cock a brow at how easy the image pops into my head. He seems fatherly to her. I mean, the right kind of fatherly. Protective. Nurturing. It’s why I don’t fear not being around for her anymore. He’ll take good care of her. If he can keep his father away from her.

Plugging in the hair dryer, I hesitate. But then I take her long hair and run the brush down it.

Her head jerks backward. “Ouch,” she whines. “You gotta do the ends first.”

I purse my lips. If she were Liv, I’d throw the fucking brush out the window, but I don’t want to make her cry. Taking her hair in my fist, I work the ends and then gently move the brush farther and farther up until I’m combing through in long, smooth strokes.

As I glide the brush down her brown locks, I go still, a memory hitting me.

My parents’ bedroom. The curtain billowing in the breeze, a storm coming. My mother sighing—happy—as I ran a brush down her shiny, long black hair. Maybe I was nine or ten.

My arm moves on its own, combing Anna-Katherine’s locks, almost seeing my mom’s hand reaching back and patting mine as I brush.

I blink, water in my eyes and my throat aching, but I grab the dryer and start working the strands.

In a moment, she’s tipping her head back like my mother did and I’m brushing as I dry.

I completely forgot that I brushed her hair sometimes. Why didn’t I remember that? It’s a good memory, and I have almost none of those with her.

I turn the dryer off and set it down, continuing to smooth down the girl’s hair.

I didn’t help my mother, but I can try with Anna-Katherine.

“AK?”

She swings her legs a little. “Yeah?”

“You know he’s not your…real brother, right?”

Her legs stop moving, and I know it’s cruel to say, but she needs some perspective. She needs to fight for herself instead of trusting others. Someone needs to say it just once.