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Landon grinned. “I’ve got my own version of homework tonight too, and plenty of laundry. Let’s hang out again soon, okay, dude?” Landon reached out to fistbump him.
Carter lifted his hand and nodded. “Cool.”
Landon waved to Charlotte and Ellie, and then looked up to Hailey.
He stopped, frozen in place as he caught her gaze. She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. She looked tired and worn. Was it just a bad day? Or was she like this all the time? He cleared his throat. “I’ll see you again soon,” he said, wondering as the words tumbled out if they were really true.
“Okay,” she said. “Thanks, Landon.”
“Sure, no problem,” he said. He turned and walked out the door, pulling it shut behind him. He could still hear the kids’ voices as he walked down the front stairs and to his car. The drive to his house wasn’t long enough to process all of the thoughts swirling around his head. So instead of turning right toward his neighborhood, he turned left.
He didn’t have a particular place to go, but driving in the silence helped him think. How many drives had he gone on with Kyle when one of them needed to figure something out? He remembered the last one. He hadn’t known it then, but Kyle had an inclination.
“I need to ask you a favor,” Kyle had said.
“Sure, anything.” Landon had never had a brother, but Kyle was pretty close. He was sure there was nothing Kyle could ask that Landon wouldn’t agree to.
“Hailey and I have been going through some legal paperwork. I know it’s terrible to talk about, but we have to have things lined up, especially with the kids. So we’ve drawn up a will and everything.”
“Dude, this is depressing,” Landon said.
“I know, but it has to be done. Hailey has a list of all the accounts and financial documents. If something happens to me, they should be okay money-wise.” Kyle had parked in a spot at the edge of the movie theater parking lot, and he turned to look at Landon with an intense stare. “If something happens to me, I need you to promise you’ll take care of them. Hailey will try to be tough and act like she can handle it on her own, but I need to know that someone is there for her. You’re my best friend. Promise me you’ll make sure they’re all right?”
Landon remembered how he had looked his friend in the eyes and promised him. Then he went home and told himself it would never happen. Kyle was smart and tough. He was working his way up in the company, and he was in great health. What could happen?
Then came the day he got the phone call.
No. It couldn’t be true. This was all a mistake. Sure, maybe there had been an accident, but Kyle would make it. He was the strongest person Landon knew. He would fight.
Landon hadn’t realized he had driven right to the spot where they’d had that conversation. It seemed like years ago and only yesterday at the same time.
In reality, Landon had let more than a year go by. A year where he failed at keeping his promise to his friend.
Walking into that house and seeing Hailey there with all the kids, he knew exactly what Kyle had meant. Hailey was putting up a front. Sure, maybe she could handle it, but she didn’t have to do it alone.
Landon had made a promise to help, and it was time to make good on that promise.
4
Hailey sat at her desk Monday morning chugging down her second cup of coffee. She’d already completed what felt like a marathon before seven a.m. Carter had been up in the middle of the night saying he couldn’t sleep, something he did often ever since Kyle’s death. Hailey didn’t know how to help him, other than to let him stay in her bed, which meant she slept practically none.
Carter was hard to get up in the morning after that, and the girls were in a bad mood. Ellie said she didn’t want to go to school. Charlotte wanted to go, but she wanted to wear her pink shirt, the one that was at the bottom of the pile of dirty clothes.
Hailey sighed now, thinking about how she had yelled that they didn’t have time, and they had to go. Pretty sure she wasn’t winning any mom of the year awards today. If only she could keep up with the laundry, or if she had breakfast ready for them on time. No, no, she wouldn’t let herself start thinking like that. Charlotte would survive without the shirt, and Hailey had to keep moving forward. She was doing the best she could. Wasn’t she?
“Hailey?” Her boss’ voice from his office behind her desk brought her back to the moment.
“Yes?”
“We have a meeting with the Charity Event Committee at ten.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll be ready.” She might need another cup of coffee, though. Those meetings could last for two hours, and she would leave feeling like it could have been a one-paragraph email. Still, it was part of her job as an administrative assistant at the bank corporate office, and she would do it with a smile. Even if it was a fake smile.
“Do you have the list of donors?”
She nodded. “I’ll print it out.”
“Great. The event is going to be our biggest one yet. I’ve heard they got that comedian, Josiah McClain, to be the emcee.”
