28. Aiden
28
AIDEN
“ U ncle Aiden!” a voice cried as the door to my office burst open. Hailey tore through the room like a glittery blur. She was the Tasmanian Devil come to life as she launched herself at me, grabbing hold of one of my legs and latching on with her whole body like a koala. I took a couple shuffling steps, making her giggle as she stared up at me, hanging on for the ride. “Guess what?”
“What?”
“Daddy said I don’t have to go to daycare today.”
“Is Ms. Linny sick again?” I asked.
“Nope!” Hailey said, popping the P. I couldn’t help smiling at her exuberance.
“Is daycare closed?”
She shook her head, wearing a cheeky little smile.
“Oh, I see. You’re playing hooky.” Was this something to do with Amanda? She’d been flaking on her time with Hailey more and more recently, changing pickup times or forgoing taking her daughter at all for their scheduled weekends. I knew it was another one of her games—make life complicated and inconvenient for Dominic so he’d cave to her demands. A flash of frustration washed through me, but I stamped down on it as Hailey squeezed my leg tighter. “I guess we’re just gonna have to get you a job with the company since you’re here so often. How do you feel about marketing?”
Hailey wrinkled her nose, her little lips pursed in thought. “I’m too small for a job.”
“Too small? Since when? I thought you were a big girl who went down the big girl slide at the park?”
Hailey giggled. “I am!”
“Exactly. If you can handle the big girl slide, I think you can handle an executive marketing position.” She stared at me like I was speaking nonsense, her tiny eyebrows inching closer together. “Maybe marketing’s not your thing, huh? What kind of job do you want to do?”
“Umm,” she said, leaning back, her arms still locked around my leg. “Eat food!”
“Got it. You want to be the official cafeteria product tester.”
“Yes!”
“And I assume you’ll want a full salary and benefits to perform this vital work?”
She nodded. “Yep.”
“Well, then, Miss Hailey, I’ll have HR draw up your contract. How does that sound?”
“Good!”
“Great, now that the boring stuff is out of the way, how would you like to celebrate?”
She pulled two pink hair ties from her pocket. “I got some new ones!”
“What? New hair ties!”
“Daddy bought them for me ’cause I put away all my toys in the bin. See, they have unicorns on them.” She handed the ties to me so I could examine the matching unicorn charms.
“These are definitely the coolest hair ties I’ve ever seen. Should I put them in my hair?” I teased, gathering up my curls with one hand.
Hailey squealed a delighted laugh. “Uncle Aiden, nooo! They’re not for you. They’re for me!”
“You don’t want to share?”
“No. I need two ponies for two braids.”
“Can’t argue with that math.” I handed back the hair ties.
Hailey slid them over her wrist. “Where’s Cora? I want her to braid my hair like last time.”
A wave of regret washed through me. Heartbreak was shitty enough for grownups, but I didn’t want to have to let Hailey down, too. She blinked up at me with those big brown eyes, so innocent to the world and all the ways that love truly sucked. The longer I looked at her, the more her eyes reminded me of Cora’s, and I had to look away, swallowing down a heap of emotion. “Oh, sweetie,” I cleared my throat, “Cora doesn’t work here anymore.”
“What?” Hailey said, releasing my leg and flopping back on the floor. She stared up at me, her lip jutting out in a pout.
I reached down to scoop her up, sitting down on the arm of the couch with her in my lap so I could explain. “Her work with the company was all done, so she had to go away to a new job.”
“But why?” Hailey huffed in that way kids did when they didn’t get their way.
Because I chased her out. Because she probably couldn’t stand looking at me after what I did. Because it was easier this way. Hailey wouldn’t understand any of those explanations. There was no way to explain that a few floors between us wasn’t enough distance to stop the heartache.
“Why?” she said again, whining.
“Well,” I began, searching for the right words. “You know that Cora makes special drinks, right?”
Hailey nodded.
“And she’s really, really good at her job. Just like you’re really good at going down the big girl slide and eating food. So Cora had to go make drinks for other people to enjoy. Because sometimes it’s good to try new things.”
“Oh,” she said, going quiet. I wondered if what I’d said made any sense to her at all. I didn’t quite know how to have these kinds of conversations with a four-year-old. I could dote on her and take her to the park and out for treats so Dom could sort settlement stuff, but this kind of conversation was way out of my depth.
“She didn’t say goodbye,” Hailey said after a beat.
My chest panged. That was my fault, too. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
“I’ll miss her,” Hailey said, that little lip stuck out in a pout again.
“I bet she misses you too,” I said. Hailey wasn’t the only one missing Cora. I’d already heard about her absence in the lab. A melancholy had swept through the team with Cora’s departure. Last time I saw Dot in the hallway, she’d marched past without a word, clearly annoyed with me. I don’t think she had any idea about the breakup—or even that Cora and I had been together in the first place. She probably just assumed I’d refused to extend Cora’s contract. But I had to admit I was missing Cora, too. Every time I found myself itching to visit the lab, I had to remind myself she was no longer there, perched on that stool, bent over her ingredient lists.
Hailey sighed, rallying as much as a four-year-old could. “Daddy said I have to get you for lunch.”
“What are we doing for lunch?”
Hailey perked up, delivering the message she’d only now remembered. “Daddy said we have to celebrate.”
“We do, huh?”
“Mm-hmm,” Hailey hummed. “’Cause he did the papers.”
“Papers?” What the hell was she talking about?
Dominic arrived at that moment, stepping through my open office door, happily disheveled, like he’d been hugged to death. He was grinning from ear to ear. I hadn’t seen him smile like that for months. “Sorry, got sidetracked talking to Connie. Ask me what we’re celebrating.”
Connie came around the reception desk and closed the door behind Dominic, giving us privacy.
Hailey hopped out of my lap, racing to her father’s side. He scooped her up and planted a noisy kiss on her cheek.
“What are we celebrating?” I asked, looking around for my phone so I could clear my schedule for lunch.
“Amanda and I finally signed the d-i-v-o-r-c-e s-e-t-t-l-e-m-e-n-t,” he spelled out. “And guess who got full custody?”
My head snapped in his direction. “Shut the hell up!”
Hailey gasped, pointing one accusatory finger at me. “Uncle Aiden! You said a bad word!”
Vivian’s Ice Cream Parlor was a short three-block walk from the office. Hailey clutched Dominic’s hand, skipping by his side as the noon sun beat down, warm and bright. She sang to herself, dreamy-eyed over the promise of multiple scoops of something called Unicorn Dreams.
“You’re sure you don’t want to go for actual food first?” I asked again. “My treat.”
“If there was ever a day that deserved ice cream for lunch, this is the one,” Dominic said, still beaming as we reached the shop. He pulled the door open, and Hailey darted inside.
“Ice cream!” she bellowed as I walked through the door behind her. Luckily, the shop was relatively empty. She raced up to the display counter, peering in through the cold glass at giant tubs of ice cream. “That one,” she said to the woman behind the counter. “No, that one! Ah, I don’t know.”
“I think she’s gonna need a minute to settle on a flavor,” Dominic told the woman who simply laughed and shook her head at Hailey’s antics.
“I don’t know what to say other than congratulations,” I said quietly, nudging Dominic’s shoulder with my own. I couldn’t even imagine how relieved he must be to finally have the custody battle over with.
“Thanks, man.” Dominic chuckled at Hailey as she raced back and forth, trying to narrow down her options. “There’s the Unicorn Dreams,” he said, pointing it out to her.
She gasped. “Yeah, that one!”
“We’ll take one kid’s cone,” Dominic said to the woman.
“Two scoops,” Hailey reminded him.
I snickered. This girl was never going to let him get away with anything.
“Two scoops,” Dominic agreed, paying at the register. Once Hailey had secured her ice cream, she raced over to take a seat at one of the bubblegum pink tables, perfectly content as she clutched her cone with both hands.
“I really am happy for you,” I said as Dominic grabbed a handful of napkins. “Can’t help wondering what you had to give up in return, though.”
“I paid out a lot,” Dominic admitted. “More than even I imagined when this all started.”
I nodded sympathetically. I’d figured as much. There was no way Amanda was going to sign anything without making bank off of it. Yeah, sure, I knew Dom could afford to pay out whatever she’d asked for, but it still didn’t seem fair that Amanda got to cash in on a major payday in return for being a lousy wife, a shitty mother, and a witch of a gold digger.
“But I guess that’s the cost of love,” I said to him. “Too bad you couldn’t just go back in time and avoid Amanda altogether! Then you could save yourself all this trouble.”
Dominic turned to me, a baffled expression on his face, like I’d just said the most absurd thing he’d ever heard. “If I’d avoided her, then there wouldn’t be a Hailey. There’s the cost of love right there,” he said, gesturing at his daughter, her hands and face now covered in pink and purple swirls of Unicorn Dreams. “And there’s honestly no price I wouldn’t pay for her. I’d have given Amanda the shirt off my back if that’s what it took to keep full custody of Hailey.”
His words took me by surprise. Even though I knew how much Hailey meant to him, I suppose I’d never thought of his divorce in terms of what he might gain from the settlement. I’d only ever focused on everything he had to lose. And I never stopped to consider that Dominic couldn’t regret his dumpster fire of a marriage because even after his love for Amanda had fallen apart, his love for his daughter had made it all worthwhile. My heart lobbed against my chest as I watched Dominic wipe Hailey’s face with a napkin, grinning at her as she giggled.
Loving Hailey had been worth everything.