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"Frank, I need your help," her voice says when he answers the phone at 4am after limping inside an hour earlier with a new round of cuts and bruises.
"What do you need me to do?" he asks, waking up in an instant, calculating how fast he can get to her, what weapons he can bring, how he can do the most hurt to the people that are threatening her.
He hears her pause. "I need you to walk me down the aisle."
"Jesus Christ, kid," he says and rubs his face with his hand, eying the half-empty bottle of whiskey on his nightstand. "This couldn't have waited until the morning?" he groans, lying back on top of his bed. He wrapped up his elbow before he fell asleep but he never got round to taking off his boots and pants and now his hip is burning like he's pulled something.
"...no," she says, only slightly penitent. That kid is a menace. He was glad not to hear from her for the first couple of years, to think that she'd broken free of all this shit and found herself a happier, simple life in Florida and then two years ago she'd sent him a Christmas card and started calling him once a month, not-so-subtly questioning him to find out if he was OK, if he was sleeping, if he "had someone" in his life, like she felt responsible for him or something, ridiculous. And now this nonsense.
"Kid, I'm not a wedding kind of person."
"Well neither am I!"
"You're not being forced into this?" he checks, sitting up with his back to the wall, gritting his teeth as he unbuckles his belt and slides it out of the loops.
"No," she sighs and he can hear her sullen pout. "I was the one who proposed."
"You were?" he says, and huffs a pleased laugh and then winces at the pull of the cut on his cheek. "Are you even old enough to get married?"
"Yes, dad," she says and he winces at a deeper ache.
"Sorry," she says, in a soft voice.
"S'okay," he says. "I guess I'm filling in for him then."
"So you agree? You'll do it?"
"I didn't say that," he says.
"Er, yes you did."
"Can we talk about this tomorrow? I'm kind of busy right now." Busy with trying not to vomit, to be honest, because the blow to his head has made the dim light from his phone feel like a spotlight, like some torture device.
"Busy with a woman?" she asks, delighted and overly curious.
"No," he says, pointedly not thinking about things he's trying not to think about.
"It's just that this is kind of urgent," she says and he can hear her setting the phone down and shuffling around. He wonders what her home looks like, what she looks like, he hasn't seen a photo of her for several years, maybe she's dyed her hair purple or something, isn't that what young women do, dye their hair crazy colours?
"Hey, you got purple hair now?' he asks.
"...no. Are you feeling alright?"
"I'm swell."
"Uh-huh," she replies, unconvinced. "But you're well enough to travel, right? No major broken bones, no brain swelling etc etc."
"How urgent?" he repeats.
"Sunday."
"This Sunday? As in two days from now?"
"That's right."
"Are you pregnant, kid?"
She laughs like he's said something funny. "Nope, definitely not."
"Sunday," he says with a weary sigh.
"You're the only one I can ask."
He doesn't bother asking about her real father, she would have mentioned him before now, maybe when they were holed up in Madani's apartment and she was throwing out stories as fast as she dealt out cards. And besides, no good father would have let her end up where she did before he found her.
"You don't have anyone I can kill instead?" he asks.
"No. And you're not allowed to get into any fights at the wedding."
"Oh, I'm not am I." The cheek of her.
"So will you come?"
"Yeah, I'll come. I need a tux or something?" he snorts, and rubs at the sharp pain in his temple.
"God no, it's a beach wedding."
"S'nice."
"Yeah it will be," she says and he can hear her small pleased smile.
"He good to you, this man of yours?" he asks.
She laughs. "She's good to me, my wife-to-be."
"That right," he says. "Well," he coughs. "That makes things easier for me, no dickhead I need to take down a peg or two."
"Women can be dicks too," she says, indignant.
"Yeah."
"I've had boyfriends, you know–"
"Yeah, we really don't have to talk about this–" he says, remembering that conversation they had years ago now, when she talked about his daughter and all the trouble she would have gotten into as a teen.
"-I swing both ways, it's just that sometimes it's easier with women, you know, less baggage, not that women can't be terrible too–"
This is the kind of thing she should be talking about with her girlfriends, he thinks, sipping margaritas and painting each other's nails or whatever they do, but he knows that once she gets started on a topic it's damned near impossible to get her to shut up.
She yawns and he does too, slides back down onto his back. He needs to take his boots off but that would mean sitting up again.
"I had some poor male role models growing up, I guess," she continues.
"Uh-huh," he murmurs automatically. Maybe if he gets his boots off now, he can sleep for longer. He sits up again, slides to the side of the bed, groans as he bends over.
"You would have hated my stepfather," she says, a wavering note in her voice.
"That right?" he says, alert now, hands pausing on his laces to clench into fists. He'll get a name from her sometime, or find a name, he'll pay that son of a bitch a visit.
"One of my foster fathers wasn't too bad I suppose, until he swapped me for the sons he wanted instead."
He grits his teeth. Thinking about all the people that have hurt her over the years, even though she was just a kid, has his blood boiling.
"Or maybe you spoiled me," she says and he hears the squeak of a window opening, the mumble of her mouth as she lights a cigarette. "I had a bit of a crush on you, you know," she confesses.
He grimaces and busies himself with a last tug of the lace, kicks his boots free.
"That whole gruff protective quasi-father figure thing. I mean you're not bad looking."
"Kid-"
"It lasted like a month, don't worry, I got over you, got better taste."
"I'm glad."
"You'll like her, I think. At least I hope you do, don't tell me if you don't. She's better than us, you know, good, she sees the best in people but she's not a fool either, not a mark."
He thinks of another woman like that, someone pure despite all the shit they've been through, someone who thinks the best of him; and of the last time they met, of how she looked in his bed, her pale skin against the dark sheets.
"By the way, it's an invitation for two. You can bring someone if you want," she says, seeing through him somehow even down a phoneline.
"I'll keep that in mind."
"And weddings are very romantic occasions, you know, the sun and the beach and the happy tears."
"You think I'm going to cry?" he says.
"Well you might, you might get a little choked up when you see me in my dress, I don't know."
"Sunday, you say."
"Uh-huh, I'll email you the details. And don't worry, I won't make you say a speech at the dinner or anything."
"I wasn't going to offer."
"Thank you, Frank, for saying you'll come," she says, carefully casual.
"I am coming," he says, thinking of all the people who've disappointed her, who've promised her things and then disappeared.
"I better let you get your beauty sleep then," she says.
"Yeah, about that–"
"I'm expecting you to turn up bruised and bloodied, don't worry, I've told everyone you're an MMA fighter."
"Great," he says sarcastically, loathing the idea of being lumped in with those jumped-up idiots.
"Just get here in one piece, that's all I ask."
"I'll do my best," he says and yawns again.
"Night, Frank," she says, sounding fond. "And thank you," she adds, meaning more than just this.
"You're welcome," he says and sets down the phone, blinking up at the dark ceiling and thinking of weddings and family and wounds that will never heal, of people who come into your life when you least expect it, of time that keeps rolling on.