Page 81 of My Big Fat Daddy Issues

"I'm saying I can go in alone. I know what you want, I get your stuff and it will be done."

She looks at me like I've insulted her dead relatives. "And miss watching you scare the shit out of him? Absolutely not."

There she is.

I pull into the lot biting back my smile, my dick hard as always when she's around.

The complex is cheap stucco like some new adaptation of Melrose Place. Dylan's white Audi is parked by the stairs. Daddy's money waxed into the clearcoat.

Wren unbuckles but doesn't move. Sixteen years in the Navy teaches you that patience is a weapon most people don't know how to use.

"He's going to say something." She whispers, fussing with her cuticles keeping her eyes down. "He always has something to say."

"Good." I shut down the engine with a push of the button. "So do I."

***

Two knocks and the door opens. The little fuck is waiting.

Dylan is lean, generically handsome in a way that'll go soft by thirty — the kind of face you'd cast as the best friend in a cologne ad, not the lead. T-shirt that costs more than a utility bill.Basketball shorts at noon on a weekday. His eyes find Wren first and that arrogance puffs his chest, then he registers me.

I watch him deflate.

I don't need to say fucking anything. He reads the energy in the fucking room. Then, a defensive hostility settles over his features like bad lighting. I make the guess that he knows who I am. Wren's step-father.

I'm so much fucking more than that now.

"Wren." He pins his eyes back on her. First mistake. "I've sent you like ten messages."

"I know." Her arms cross, standing behind my shoulder. "I'm here for my things."

"Can we talk first?" He leans into the doorframe. The stance of a kid who's won every argument by making the other person feel crazy. "You made this into something it's not--"

"She said she's here for her things." I keep my voice steady. We have a mission to accomplish here, and the faster, the better. "Step aside."

His eyes cut up to mine. Up. "I don't know what she told you, but this is between me and her."

"It's between you and me now."

He snorts with that particular entitlement of a boy who's never been in a room where he wasn't the most important person in it.

Wren touches my arm. "Grant."

As much as I love hearing her say my name, it doesn't change what needs to happen here. I push into the doorway and Dylan steps back. The alternative is my chest against his, and whatever's left of his lizard brain has done the calculation.

"Fine. Whatever. Your shit's by the bed."

The apartment is what I'd expect from a twenty-year-old with family money and no class. Big TV, gaming rig, protein shake bottles on the counter like a still life called Boy Who Thinks He's a Man.

Wren heads down a hall to the left. Dylan starts to follow, but I stop that shit hard stepping into his path with a sniff.

"It's my apartment." He musters some shaky courage but it's already crumbling.

"Sit. The. Fuck. Down." I nod at the closest chair and give him one breath to do as he's told.

Unfortunately for my ready fist, he sits with a scoff but for now, it's Wren I need to focus on.

"Stay." I add then follow Wren's path down the hall and to a bedroom.