1 Chapter 1

At nine o’clock in the morning, Gavin Dozier is pacing the hall of his tiny apartment, waiting for his turn to use the bathroom. Whoever decided one would be sufficient in a two-bedroom place was out of their mind, because he has to be in his office at Richmond State College in a half hour, and that isn’t going to happen. He hasn’t had a shower yet, he needs to brush his teeth, he needs to take a piss, damn it, and the door is firmly shut against him like it’s been for the past twenty minutes, ever since his daughter Evie zoomed past him with the backward cry, “Me first!”

What could a seven year old possiblybe doing in there for so long?

The next time he passes the door, he stops and raps quickly. “Evie, honey? Did you drown in there or something?”

“Daddy!” she shrieks. It’s half a shout of independence and half a cry for help.

He tries the handle; it turns easily in his hand, but he only opens the door a crack. “Need a hand, sweetie?”

“Don’t look!” she shrieks again. At some point after her fifth birthday, Evie began talking in exclamation points. Gavin hopes it’s just a phase she’s going through, but he isn’t so sure. A few female students of his still do the same thing.

“I’m not looking,” he promises, placing his free hand over his eyes so she won’t see him peeking through the fingers. He eases the door open further and ducks his head inside the bathroom. The water is running in the sink, there’s toothpaste squirted all over the counter, and the strong scent of honeysuckle fills the air. “Are you finished in here yet, Evie? Daddy needs to use the bathroom, too.”

Suddenly his daughter erupts in loud, choking tears. “I’m st-st-st-stuck!”

Lowering his hand, Gavin catches sight of Evie perched precariously on the edge of the tub and fights back laughter. Her face is all scrunched up in obvious distress; he can’t so much as smirk if he doesn’t want her to sulk for the rest of the day. But it isn’t the first time he thinks, Kids do the damnedest things.

He doesn’t even want to know what happened. One small leg is covered in the opaque white tights Marian says Evie has to wear because she can’t seem to remember to sit like a lady in a dress. The tights are pulled all the way up to her hip on the one side—no underwear beneath them, Gavin notices, which means they’re going to have to come off and go back on again. If it took twenty minutes to get this far, then there’s no way he’s going to make it to college in time to meet with Lacey, or is it Stacy? Maybe it’s Cayce, he isn’t sure, some undergrad in his freshman comp class who wanted advice on an upcoming paper but couldn’t meet during his regular office hours. He told her at the time weekends were bad for him, but she’d insisted.

And now this.

The tights are only halfway on—the other half dangles into the tub like a shed snakeskin. The tub has a few inches of sudsy water in it, and from the dried rings on Evie’s skin, it’s obvious she didn’t wash the soap off after she attempted to take a bath. Her blond hair hangs in straggly clumps around her shoulders, the ends wet and soapy, the dry crown wispy with flyaway strands. Her bangs have toothpaste in them, for some reason. More toothpaste is smeared across her cheek, and there’s another swatch above one eyebrow. The dress she’d picked out to wear hangs bunched around her neck like a cape.

Yeah, they’re not leaving the apartment any time soon.

“Honey,” Gavin starts.

With a shrill cry, Evie clasps her tiny hands over the front of her flat chest. “Daddy! Don’t look at my nips!”

That does it—he can’t help but grin. “Your what?”

Her hands reposition themselves over her nipples. “My nips! Mommy says I can’t let boys see them, so don’t look!”

He takes a deep breath and mentally counts to five. Well, to three, that’s as far as he gets before the grin returns. “I’m your daddy,” he points out. “I don’t count.”

He’s speaking gently with the misguided notion that if he talks softly enough, she’ll stop with the histrionics. No such luck. Her eyes glisten wetly and she rubs the back of one arm across her nose as she sniffles. Somehow she manages to do so without moving her hands, which are still clamped steadfastly on her chest. “You’re a boy,” Evie says with a pout. “You do too count.”

Another thought strikes him, this one disturbing. “Wait, are you showing other boys your…what’d your mother call them, again? Your nips?”

Through her tears, Evie giggles. “Noooo,” she says, drawing the word out in such a way that Gavin remains unconvinced.