Page 4 of Fierce-Colson
Ugh!
He didn’t remember this much of it when he was a teen.
He stood at the bottom of the stairs, his foot tapping, waiting for her to finish her descent so he could watch that she ate breakfast.
She was still really thin to him. Though he’d been a thin kid too for years until he started to work out.
“I don’t know what hurts. It just does.”
“Like you’re going to throw up? Like you don’t want to eat?”
Please, may he not have to deal with an eating disorder on top of everything else.
He’d felt like they’d gotten to a good spot in the past two years.
It wasn’t easy on either of them.
He had no lost love for his father, and he was thinking Bella might not have either.
Robert Ryder was rarely home, often out drinking with his buddies, or had his buddies in the house with him drinking while he ignored his kid or pawned her off on friends.
Two years of counseling for Bella seemed to help, but now he was positive they were moving into uncharted territory for him.
“I’m hungry. Maybe it’s that.”
He hoped so. “Then what do you want?” He looked at his watch. They had thirty minutes before they had to leave and he’d drop her off at school on his way to work.
“Are there any waffles left?”
He walked to the kitchen, opened the freezer, dug around and found an unopened box that got shoved in the back behind ice cream and meat.
“Here you go,” he said, putting them on the counter.
Could he open it up and put them in the toaster himself? Yep, but he wouldn’t.
At thirteen, there were things she had to do on her own. Like fixing food without burning the house down.
She moved past him, opened it up, pulled two out and popped them in. “Can I have a coffee?”
“No,” he said.
“Why? Other kids do at my age.”
“They drink coffee or they drink those froufrou things full of sugar and cream?” he asked.
Damn. He sounded so fucking old.
Thirty-four wasn’t old, but it felt it with a teen in the house.
The worst part was, most thought Bella was his daughter, not his half-sibling, when the two of them were out.
She could be his daughter if he’d had her in college.
More likely than his father having a kid at fifty with a woman who was half his age.
She just sent him the typical shoulder shrug response.
He pulled a pan out, then the eggs while Bella got her breakfast ready.
