#youlikeit - BLACKBIRD book 1

3. andrea

"Dad! I'm home!"

Brock hurried from the back of his apartment to greet his daughter. Andrea Brockner was maybe the only person who would still see him smile, and even laugh, but it was hard not to be in a good mood around her. She was a beautiful, merry, energetic sixteen-year-old, and being with her father was one of the things she enjoyed the most.

"Hey!" Brock got to say before she hugged him.

She noticed he avoided touching her with his hands and frowned with a questioning look.

"I was fixing my old shelf," he explained, smiling. "Loads of dust. Did you have lunch? Want a bite?"

"Don't worry, I'll get it," she said, dropping her bag on the couch and heading to the kitchen.

Brock followed her, washed his hands and sat at the breakfast bar, watching her. Whenever she was there—actually, wherever she was, he thought—it was as if a warm wind of light and life flooded the place.

"So how are you? How was Boston?" she asked, moving like a twister around the cupboards and the fridge and the oven.

"Fine. How's school going?"

"Perfect, of course. I'm a Brockner, am I not?" She winked, then sighed. "I wish you could take me to Boston the next time they send you there." She shrugged at Brock's surprise. "Harvard's there, and lots of other great universities."

"You're considering Harvard?"

"I'm dreaming of it, you should say, 'cause Mom's never gonna let me move there on my own. I'm gonna have to settle for Georgetown or some other college here in DC." Andrea paused to glance over her shoulder at her father's silence. "What."

Brock studied her from narrowed eyes, wearing a mild scowl. His daughter wanted to move to Boston? That was news to him.

She giggled when he kept staring at her. "What!"

Brock smiled, shaking his head. Andrea was still in high school, and he had no way to know where he would be stationed when she graduated. Andrea dropped the orange she was about to squeeze and came to the bar to point a serious finger at her father.

"Speak up, Agent Brockner," she said, making him chuckle. Since that didn't work, she circled the bar and started poking his sides until he laughed.

"Okay, okay! I'll confess!"

"Well?"

"I've been offered a transfer to Boston."

"WHAT!?" cried Andrea, eyes wide open.

Brock circled the bar toward the kitchen, to take on what she had dropped and already forgotten.

"I meant to tell you about it over dinner," he said. "I'm leaving DC, at least for a few months, and one of the options is Boston."

"The other options being...?"

"Texas and Montana. Wanna lay the table? Or should we eat here?"

"Here, I got it. Go on!"

"That's it, those are my options."

Andrea paused grabbing the dishes from the open cupboard and turned to him. "Tell me you're choosing Boston."

"I'm still thinking about it, Andrea. It may be only for a couple of months, and then they would send me to those other states anyway. However, I'm having four days a month to come see you."

"You better!"

Her cheerful voice made Brock smile again.

Andrea had brought over the last season of one of her favorite shows, and after lunch she sat to watch some of the crucial moments again, while Brock finished fixing the shelf.

He was back to the living area when she was watching the end of an episode and paused by her. "That man has a dissociative personality disorder," he said not a minute later.

Andrea chuckled. "No, Dad. There's an angel hiding inside of him."

Brock frowned. These shows she watched always threw him off.

"You see, he was dying, and an angel offered his brother to—" Andrea noticed his scowl and chuckled again. "Forget it."

"Okay," he muttered. "I should take a shower now, so you don't leave me out of hot water."

She shot a very Brockner scowl at him. He raised his eyebrows, daring her to refute him. She smiled. He automatically smiled back.

After his shower, he came to sit with her on the living-room couch, and a few minutes later he couldn't help himself from asking, "Why do they trust that man? He's a narcissistic psychopath."

Andrea laughed heartedly. "He better be, Dad, 'cause he's the king of hell. And the character structure is actually femme fatale."

"But he's a guy. What's that smoke coming in and out of their mouths?"

"Just watch it, Dad, okay?"

Andrea patted his knee as if she were the adult and he were the child, so Brock had no choice but do as he was told. Then she cuddled against his side. Brock rounded her shoulders with his arm and kissed her hair, feeling at ease and contented. And it was so good, feeling like that. Ever since Georgia's death, Andrea was the only one who could bring him any closer to that sensation.