#youlikeit - BLACKBIRD book 1

5. insight

Brock and Andrea came back from having dinner, laughing and struggling to keep their voices down, to not bother the neighbors. She went to the bathroom, still protesting that Brock had to be lying, because her mother had never told her she'd done such things as a baby. Brock put the kettle on for their mandatory late tea and went to crouch before a bookcase, searching the lower shelves for his old family albums.

On her way back to join him, Andrea spotted the blue box on her father's modular, on the tray with the whiskey glasses, and paused, finding the small white envelope.

"What's this, Dad?" she asked, not daring to read the card inside the envelope, but dying to.

He glanced at her and replied absentmindedly, "A bottle of whiskey."

"Don't say. Where did you get it? It's a hell of a whiskey!"

"Andrea."

"Sorry. It's a very good whiskey, and it looks like a present."

Brock pulled out an album, smiling. There they were, the pictures from Andrea's first birthday. Now he had proof of what he'd just told her.

"Dad!"

"What?"

"Was it a present?" The girl noticed his frown. "The Blue Label."

"Yeah, a police officer gave it to me. Well, she actually—"

"She?"

Brock was forced to shift his attention from Andrea's pictures to her in the flesh. He faced her, still frowning, and found his daughter's smirk.

"What."

Andrea went to the kitchen to make their teas. "A woman gave it to you?"

"Yes."

"That a dad!" Andrea giggled. "Where's she from? Is she here, in DC?"

"No," he replied cautiously. "She's in Boston, why?"

"And you're not considering a transfer there."

Brock came to sit at the bar, narrowing his eyes at Andrea's irony. She glanced at him from over her shoulder. No matter how brilliant and sharp he was at any other subject, he was always so thick about certain things.

"Dad, that woman? She's totally into you."

His mild frown turned into an all-out scowl. "Andrea, I only met her twice, for a little while, and just because she consulted me about a murder."

The girl could hardly believe it. "And she gave you a Blue Label over that!? C'mon, Dad!"

The idea sent a chill down his spine.

"And what's she like?"

Well, she's a smartass rogue in worn jeans. No, that wouldn't be fair. It was true, but not fair. She's brilliant, driven, and good-looking, you may say. No, that would make Andrea start planning a wedding. She's a rogue workaholic with a very sharp...

"I see, she's old, dumb and grumpy."

Brock scowled deeper, because Gillian was none of the above. And that made his daughter's smirk grow positively mischievous.

"I think we're going to Boston," she crooned, bringing their mugs to the bar, and laughed out loud at Brock's horrified face. She patted his hand with a reassuring smile. "Boston, Dad, trust me. It's in the air. And you can start dating that Blue Label woman, so when I graduate in two years, I can move in with you guys and go to Harvard. Wouldn't it be terrific?"

"It'd be terrifying," he muttered.