Page 59 of Face Off

But she wasn’t used to that. She didn’t know how we operated.

I stayed up thinking about how much help was available for her, but she didn’t know. How many other people were in similar situations? How many people could I help? This was what I wanted to do.

I was beyond fortunate that the only reason the guys from the team weren’t swarming me with advice and support was because I chose not to tell them what was going on. That was something not everyone could say.

There were people that didn’t have anyone to reach out to.

I wanted to change that.

My career might be coming to an end, but that didn’t mean my life was over. I just needed to find a new purpose. Explore a new passion. The team did a lot for charities, and almost every guy had their own charity they supported to help the community in various ways.

I sort of lent out my time and money to whoever needed help with their charity that season, but a flame that couldn’t be ignored had lit inside me. Maybe it was not having a personal connection to the other foundations and events, but now I knew what I wanted––needed—to do. And I wanted Holly to help me.

Once it was a reasonable hour, I called her.

“Mommy’s phone,” Sadie answered in the cutest manner possible.

“Hi, Sadie. It’s Mikey.”

She squealed. “Hi, are you going to come play today? Can we go to the park?”

“I was thinking we could get lunch and then do just that.”

“Yay!” She cheered, and I could hear Holly in the background asking who she was talking to. “Mikey,” Sadie replied like it was totally normal for us to have a conversation.

A few seconds passed.

“Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t hear my phone ring, but luckily I have a personal secretary to take my calls for me.”

I laughed. “She did great.”

“Well, she was making a lot of high-pitched, excited noises. So what’s going on?”

“I told her about the new pony I got her,” I said.

“Hilarious,” she deadpanned. “She’ll be so excited to visit it at your house.”

I chuckled. “I live on the tenth floor, so I don’t think that would work out too well. I actually asked her if you guys wanted to go to lunch then the park.”

There was such a long stretch of silence I had to check my phone to make sure the call was still connected. “Holly?”

“Sorry, yeah. That sounds great.” Her voice didn’t match her words.

“Is everything okay?”

She sighed. “No.”

“What’s wrong?” I really hoped she would trust me enough to tell me.

“I didn’t get paid. I already emailed HR, and they said a mistake was made and they’ll try to correct it, but it could take a week just to be added to the next pay period.”

I could hear her frustration and wanted to hug her. Hold her. Tell her it was all going to be okay, and that I would make sure it was fine, but her confiding in me was a huge step for us. I had to be so careful with how I handled this.

“I’m so sorry, Holly.” I wanted to ask what I could do, but that would be too easy for her to say nothing or that she would figure it out. I had to come up with a way to offer help. “How about we go to lunch, then the park, and on the way back we can stop at the store and you guys can pick out what you need to tide you over.”

I held my breath, waiting for her response. Please don’t say no.

Where had this sudden need to be there for someone else come from? As awful as it was to admit it, I was never the type to really care before. If someone walked up to me and asked to borrow a hundred bucks, I wouldn’t have said no, but I also wouldn’t have asked if something was wrong or if they needed help with anything else. I simply wouldn’t have thought about it. I was so absorbed in my own world that it wouldn’t have occurred to me to dig deeper.