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I looked down over the edge to where she was pointing with her finger to see the object of my thoughts on her butt in the middle of a blue water slide, her hands on the railing.
She was doing this shimmy shake thing as a lifeguard talked to her at the top of the slide above her head.
He gestured to her with his hand to lay flat, and I realized that due to the water pressure around her, it was likely she couldn’t hear anything even he was saying. Let alone what we were saying.
“No,” I told her. “She likely can’t even hear what the lifeguard is saying. He’s having to use hand signals, see?”
Briley nodded, looking worried and sick.
That was my Briley girl.
Always thinking about everyone and wanting everyone to be happy.
She was a kind soul that I’m not sure should’ve been blessed with parents like me and Abilene, but I was so glad that she’d been given to us.
Well, to me.
Abilene, Briley’s mother, hadn’t wanted much to do with her from the moment she was born.
In the hospital on the day she was born, Abilene hadn’t even wanted to hold her after Briley had been pushed from her body. I’d taken her that day in my arms, and Abilene hadn’t held her ever again.
Though, we’d all tried to get her to pay attention to Briley. To give her just a single chance to change her mind.
Hell, Boz, Abilene’s brother, was a significant part of Briley’s life, which was odd since Boz and Abilene had been so close.
But honestly, I thought it might be because Briley looked so much like Abilene. He saw pieces of his sister in my daughter, and he missed her dearly.
Abilene had been killed by a serial killer. A serial killer that just so happened to be the principal of our old high school.
The man had something against teenage mothers who gave their children away as if they were unwanted.
If he found out that they’d given their child away in a way he didn’t like or think was acceptable, he stalked them and murdered them, then delivered them along a stretch of highway that was known as the ‘Highway to Haughton.’
“Daddy, this is going to be bad,” Briley said, interrupting my thoughts.
And as if he heard her, Keene started to notice a few of the same things we’d already realized.
“That one has a drop, too,” Keene said in horror.
“I know.” Hades snickered.
I refrained from calling her a bitch underneath my breath.
Not because I didn’t want to curse in front of my child.
I was a single dad and a professional football player. Literally every other word that came out of my mouth was a curse word.
No, I refrained from saying it because I didn’t want to bring their attention to me.
We’d come with the “Circus Sisters,” a.k.a. the Singh family.
Sloan, Titus, Banner, and I had all grown up together. We were the best friends that you could have. But now that Banner was in the Navy SEALs, he had a new set of friends, and because we all loved Banner, we hung out when they all had time off.
Now being one of those times.
We’d originally come up to spend time with Banner. But shit had gone down last night at the circus that Banner had asked us to come to with our kids, and that’d gotten his whole team the day off the next day.
So they’d all requested we go to the water park.
