My daughter’s voice immediately cracks something open in me.
“Hey, sweetheart. I’m on my way. I’ll be home soon to say goodnight.”
Guilt tightens my chest. I missed dinner. Again.
“I’m thirteen, Dad. You don’t need to tuck me in.”
I chuckle. “God forbid anyone finds out I still kiss you goodnight.”
The elevator doors open. I see Shaina heading toward me, and I jab the button to close the doors like my life depends on it.
Brianna giggles on the other end of the line. It’s the sound I live for. The one thing that still feels like joy.
“Maggie made me call to check if you’re still alive. She said, ‘make sure your father hasn’t worked himself into cardiac arrest.’”
I roll my eyes, though Bri’s impression is spot-on. “Tell Maggie I’m taking my vitamins and drinking plenty.”
“She says whiskey doesn’t count as hydration and that you need rest. R-E-S-T.”
I laugh, walking through the underground garage to my car. Brianna is barely a teenager and is already teaming up against me with our nanny.
When my marriage imploded, Maggie never tried to take anyone’s place, but she filled in the cracks. Always steady and dependable. Now, she’s become a second grandmother figure to Brianna.
“I’ll be home soon,” I promise again.
Butsoonwon’t matter forever. Brianna is getting older. There will come a time when I won’t be able to fix things with a bedtime joke and a forehead kiss. When she won’t need me at all.
And maybe I deserve that.
I think about what Maggie said the other night.
“Brianna needs stability, Worth. You either show up now or you lose her later.”
But how do I show up for my daughter when I can barely keep my own head above water?
Maybe that’s why Henson, my brother and the company’s Chief Financial Officer, has been pushing me to restructure the business, hire a junior designer, and delegate more. So I can make room to actually be present. Both in my daughter’s and in my own life.
I unlock my car, throw my jacket on the passenger seat, and slide behind the wheel. My head hits the seatback.
The blowjob didn’t help. I’m still stiff.
I grip the steering wheel until my knuckles go white.
Thank God it’s Friday.
A while later, I walk inside my house and hang my suit jacket on the hook by the door. The rest of my things drop to the floor by the wall. My bag slouches down, and my body wishes it could do the same, but I’m always tense, wound tighter than a suspension cable. Some say my personality is the same—they’re not wrong.
I tried being the easy going guy once. That version of me got used, taken for granted, especially by my ex-wife. So now, I’m sharp edges and short tempers.
The grand staircase stretches ahead of me under the domed ceiling. I head towards it and call out, “Brianna? You up there?”
No answer.
I step further into the foyer.
The kitchen is spotless. Dishes put away. Counters wiped down. It looks like no one has been here in days, but I spoke to Bri less than an hour ago. Where the hell did they go?
I check everywhere. Kitchen. Dining room. Living room. Theater. Office. Bathrooms. Nothing.