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“Hey Mick, I’d love to have dinner tonight. I got to come home early from work, I’m just hanging out at home now. I left Preston at daycare until later this afternoon. He was excited to see his friends.”
“Can I come by? I’m out and about. Can be there in fifteen minutes,” he replied.
Ayla was too excited to see Mick to say no, despite what she considered her haggard appearance and messy house.
“I can’t wait,” Ayla replied.
Twenty minutes later, after navigating around an accident on the freeway, Mick pulled into Ayla’s driveway. She’d scrambled to put way Preston’s Matchbox cars and action figures, toss the unfolded laundry into a closet, and load the dishwasher. When the doorbell rang, she was in the middle of changing from the sweats she’d put on after work and into something nicer.
“Shit!” Ayla abandoned her plans to put herself back together and shimmied into a form-fitting green and white maxi dress. It would have to do.
Ayla opened the door, and Mick said “Whew! How do you get prettier every time I see you?”
Waving off the compliment, Ayla blushed and hugged Mick. She gave him a quick tour of her home and they settled on the couch. Ayla’s eyes were drawn to Mick’s rippling forearms. She couldn’t keep her eyes off them. Every last inch of him was sexy.
“I was thinking about you and Preston,” Mick began. “And how you’ve done this all by yourself. How unfair that is. How hard it’s been. I know nothing can make up for that lost time, for the struggle, but I hope this helps.”
Mick handed Ayla an envelope with First Nevada Bank’s insignia on the corner.
“Mick, this isn’t necessary. You didn’t even know—”
“It’s completely necessary. It’s the least I can do. Absolutely the least. I want the two of you to have… everything. Please, open it. Use it for whatever the two of you need.”
With shaking hands, Ayla opened the envelope, and saw her name on a cashier’s check. She glanced at Mick and found warmth there, a genuine smile. She turned back to the check, pulling it out far enough to see the amount.
$100,000.00.
“Mick…” Ayla’s tears filled in the gaps, but when they were finished hugging and Ayla found her voice again, she told Mick the truth about her morning.
She couldn’t read him at first when she’d finished the story, but then he threw his head back and laughed.
“You really did that?”
“I did,” Ayla affirmed. “I honestly did. Not my best moment.”
“You’re ruthless!” Mick exclaimed. “That’s my girl!” He high fived her.
Ayla and Mick drove to her bank together, where her $36.14 balance suddenly ballooned to six figures.
The first thing she did after catching up on all her utilities and paying the following month’s rent, in full, covering her share and Desiree’s, was to go on-line and purchase a season pass to the largest water park in Las Vegas, Waveworks.
“Preston is going to lose it,” Ayla told Mick. “We went once last summer, and he’s been begging to go again ever since. We just couldn’t afford it.”
“Can we go tomorrow? The three of us? I’ve never been. Introduce me as your friend Mick. It might be a fun, zero-pressure way for me to get to know Preston a little bit. Yeah?”
And I get to stare at you in a swimsuit all day? Ayla thought, at the same moment Mick pondered what Ayla’s gorgeous ass must look like dressed for the pool.
“That would be amazing,” Ayla agreed.
For the remainder of the afternoon, Mick and Ayla drove around Las Vegas, chatting about what it was like growing up in Sin City.
Ayla showed Mick her old schools, the neighborhood library where she won several grade and middle school reading contests, and various other places that held special meaning for her.
As they drove away from her high school alma mater, Mick broached a subject he knew might be difficult, but he longed to know more.
“Do your parents still live near here?”
Ayla was taken aback, but did her best to respond. “As far as I know. Yeah, I think so. But it’s been almost seven years now. I saw my Mom in Target once, from a distance. I hid so she wouldn’t see me. I haven’t seen my Dad except in pictures Amy, my sister, shows me sometimes.”
