Hayley #2
I kept Brooks up most of the night crying into his shoulder. Poor thing looks exhausted this morning driving us into work.
“Come here,” she says, pulling me into a hug. “I thought I’d at least be gone before you.”
“Ha. Ha. Very funny,” I say, knowing what she really means.
“So, Arizona? You’re really going to move there?”
She releases a deep breath and piles some books into a box. “Yeah, but I’m not leaving till the end of the season. Vince is going to be traveling so much, and I just don’t want to get out there and be bored.”
“You mean alone.” She definitely means alone. We know no one in Arizona besides Vince and Boyce.
She shakes her head with a solemn look cast upon her face. “Yeah, I never gave much thought to it until now.”
I shoot her a sad look as we continue to pack books into boxes. The door handle jiggling before the door opens altogether pulls our gazes across the room. My father stands in the doorway, the black box I gave him yesterday tightly held to his chest.
“Cassidy.” He nods in her direction as he moves into the room. “Mind giving Hayley and me a moment alone.”
“Of course,” she says, moving toward the door, pulling it gently shut behind her on her way out.
The air in the room moves thick as my father and I stare at each other. I’ve been mad with my father many times before, but nothing could compare to this. I step around my desk, taking a seat in my chair before gesturing to my father to take a seat.
“So, what can I help you with, Mr. Richards? Do you need my office cleared out quicker?” I say with spit.
He releases a grunt of displeasure before leaning forward and placing the block lockbox on my desk. Resting his arm on his thighs, he leans forward. “I received your letter of resignation this morning.”
“That’s right.” He raises his hand to stop me before I can finish.
“Your resignation is rejected.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I didn’t come here to fight with you, Hayley, I came here to apologize for my actions and behavior.
” He sighs, taking a seat in one of the chairs in front of my desk, placing the lockbox in front of me.
“I said some horrible things to you as a father, many I’m not so proud of.
And what I said to you the other night was the worst of it all. ”
He hangs his head low, giving me a chance to take him in.
His normally grayish hair is no longer perfectly styled, and he has a thick layer of scruff forming on his jawline.
My father has never once had scruff on him, not even during the playoffs.
His suit jacket hangs open, exposing his rumpled white dress shirt.
Another thing not usual for him. If my mother saw him leave the house this morning, she would have a coronary.
That is if she’s still talking to him. She was so pissed at him for what he had said, that immediately after she left my house yesterday, she called to tell me she was staying at the Westin.
“Camden is the light of my life. After you were born, your mother and I tried for several years to conceive again. To give me a son. But we struggled. So, I decided if you were it for us, you were to be held with high expectations.” I stare at him as he lifts his misty eyes to me.
“The moment you told us you were pregnant with Camden, I was furious. Disappointed really.”
“So sorry to disappoint.”
“Hayley. Please let me finish,” he says, standing from his chair.
“The Camerons for years experienced money problems. Conrad had a serious gambling problem, so for years, they struggled and pushed Boyce toward you. I had no idea of any of this until you came home and told us Boyce and you were having a baby. I had called Conrad that night before we all had dinner at the country club. He immediately insisted you two get married. But when Boyce showed up at dinner that following night, claiming you were sleeping around on him and the baby wasn’t his, they immediately accused us of trying to get money out of them. ”
My father’s jaw tenses as he thinks about the night Boyce tried to convince them I was lying about everything.
“I took out my anger on you. I was so mad at myself for letting that boy get to you. Then when Camden was born, everything changed. Yeah, I fought you for a while on your decision to go to medical school, but then I realized this was a chance to start over. Raise Camden the way I wish I would have raised you.” He clears his throat as tears form at the rim of his eyes.
“When Boyce started this whole paternity business, I lost it. Then I lost it even more when you told me Brooks would get Camden from school. He’s my best player who had his own fair share of scandals and drama over the past several years.
I didn’t want him getting involved and distracted. ”
I stare at my father as he finally sits back down, dropping his head into his hands.
“With all due respect, Dad… Brooks told me about his past and the fact that he opened up to me about it at all was more than I could ever ask for. He’s not perfect and neither am I.
” Clearly. “That’s why he’s different from Boyce. ”
He nods in understanding before standing and making his way to my office door.
“I love you and Camden so much, Hayley, and I’m so sorry if I ever made you feel otherwise.
I’m sorry for everything.” He grasps the handle but pauses before turning it.
“My statement before still stands. Resignation denied.”
“Understood,” I say with a smile as a stray tear runs down my cheek.
“Oh, and Hayley,” he says, looking back at me. “Keep the money. Put it toward Camden, save it for a rainy day.”
He leaves my office without another word.
My father has never opened up as much as he did today.
It made a lot of things abundantly clear.
Like the fact that Boyce’s family forced us together because of money issues.
Did he ever love me like he claimed he so called did when we first started dating?
Is the only reason he’s stepping up now to claim Cam because of his image and that I could come after him for money?
I didn’t need money.
I just want my son happy. But would Camden knowing Boyce Cameron was the father he never had and the person who had walked out on us before he was born be for the best?
I guess only time will tell.