“Do you want to call him now?” I ask, already passing Brooke my phone. She grabs it, clicking dial because she knows I opened Miles’s contact for her in advance.
Brooke then stops in her tracks, staring at the screen as she waits for Miles to pick up. And when his face finally pops up on the screen, Brooke smiles so widely, she might as well be ripping the corners of her mouth.
“DADDY!” Brooke shrieks, not caring about the heads of strangers passing us turning around to stare at her all judgmentally. “I miss you!”
I can’t really see Miles because, first of all, I am a whole lot taller than this little five-year-old, and second of all, she has the phone so close to her face, even if I could see the screen from up here, I still wouldn’t be able to see a lot.
“I miss you, too, little monkey.”
Truthfully, I never really understood why Miles calls her that occasionally, that is until I now share a bed with her because she’s too scared to sleep alone. Whenever she sleeps over at my apartment, Brooke isn’t scared because she knows her father is across the hall. If something were to happen, he’s there in the blink of an eye. Malibu, however, is different. Miles isn’t near to protect her, and the entire city is unfamiliar to her. She’s been here once, though with Miles and not for long either.
Anyway, now that she spends the nights in one bed with me, being frightened most of the time and missing her father, Brooke clings to me like a fucking monkey all night long. If I try to move, she’ll groan all adorably and gets mad at me for waking her up, so I try my best not to move.
“Do you know that Uncle Grey and I had the Pizza for breakfast, Daddy!” she tells her father like it’s the best thing ever. To her, it most definitely is.
I can’t cook, okay? And since we slept in and missed breakfast from the hotel, I had to get creative. Brooke is really picky when it comes to food, and she tends topukethat shit out if she doesn’t like it. I wanted to avoid that happening at all costs, and since she loves Pizza, it was all I could come up with for breakfast.
That kid might be the most spoiled child in the whole world, at least when it comes to food. I mean, her father does happen to own Rêverie, which is a five-star restaurant with a couple of them spread all around the U.S. He learned how to cook from his father, who built those restaurants and treated them like they’re his kids. Miles’s a damn great chef, so yes, that kid has standards when it comes to food.
Unless it’s ice cream.
Also, I wasn’t sure if I could take her to breakfast at the hotel anyway. They usually serve fruits as well, and Brooke is severely allergic to strawberries. I don’t want to risk her smelling them by the buffet and then ending up in the hospital, or even worse.
“You did?” Brooke nods to which Miles chuckles. “Well, but you are eating vegetables though, right?”
Brooke looks up at me, furrowing her eyebrows like she doesn’t know what to say. When she looks back at the phone, she ends up shaking her head. “Nope. Just the Pizza and ice cream. Oh, Daddy! Yesterday Uncle Grey and I go to the fruit market, and I ate the Dragon.”
It wasn’t afruit market, it was a flea market that happened to sell all sorts of exotic fruits. When Brooke saw one of the dragon fruits, she begged me to try them. Naturally, because I am a great uncle, I bought two of them and we tried them back at the hotel. She never ate a dragon.
Whatever Miles responds, I don’t hear because when I turn toward the Hayesland entry doors, I spot an only too familiar guy with the greenest eyes staring right at me. But he’s not alone.
Chapter 2
“still a flicker of hope that you first gave to me”—Flicker by Niall Horan
June 2023
What the hell is he doing here?
I’ve spent the last three months trying not to think about him, trying not to picture his handsome face and the tons of tattoos I know he has. I tried not to imagine what other kinds of tattoos he’s hiding underneath those black pants of his, or what the Korean letters on his neck mean.
Just when I thought I finally managed to leave my fantasies behind, he’s here. Standing maybe two feet away from me with this little blonde kid who I know is his best friend’s daughter.
Truthfully, I was ready to wait a million years for him, not because I have some kind of obsession with him—I don’t—but because I know a good person when I see them. He may not let it show that freely, but something tells me Grey Davis is nothing like the guy he pretends to be.
And still he ghosted you.
It’s okay. I am a patient guy, knowing very well that Ialwaysget what I want. My mother used to say I tend to want to have everything my way because I’m an only child and was spoiled more than anyone could imagine. However, a decade later and we all know it’s not being an only child that allows me to get everything I want.
“Daddy, you know what Uncle Grey said?” the little blonde girl speaks all high pitched and excitedly. She doesn’t even give her father a second to respond before she continues. “He said, when we come back home, then he take Eden for a day so we can go to the playground together without him!”
That’s nice… but why does Grey take his best friend’sdaughteracross the country? Seems a little weird to me. If Doro had a kid, I wouldn’t take them anywhere without her, at least nothing farther than a playground. Maybe another city for a daytrip, but definitely not out of the state, or even across the state. Anything that’s farther away than an hour car ride would not happen.
There’s a slight chance they moved here, but I doubt it.
Before I know it, the little girl hands over the phone to Grey, and while he’s trying to pocket it, she grasps his free hand and tries pulling Grey into Hayesland. But he’s not budging. It’s like he’s frozen in place, staring at me though his eyes aren’t on mine.
He’s taking in my body, and when I look down at myself, I realize why. I’m still wearing my soccer uniform. I don’t play anymore, but all the Coaches promised our teams we’d play if the U19 won their game last week. They did, and so we clocked in our promise today.
