16. Addie
Chapter sixteen
Addie
I went back and forth on whether or not we were going to show up today.
But here we are, after a two-hour drive. Thankfully, Luna slept most of the way, and I was able to listen to my favorite motivational speaker’s podcast.
“Come here, baby,” I insist after putting on her pink bucket hat. “Close your eyes.” I spray her with sunscreen from head to toe.
“What about you, Mom?”
I’m still crouched down by her, and I boop her little button nose. “Don’t worry about me. I put my sunscreen on before my makeup.” And I’m not lying.
“Okay, good.”
From there, I make sure I have everything—snacks, band-aids, tissues, wet wipes, you name it—in my tote bag, and then we head inside.
Just in case Hayden decided not to show up, I didn’t tell her he was going to be here. But as soon as we round the corner, I see him, in a hoodie and basketball shorts.
Luna gasps and looks at me in excitement. “Mom! Is that who I think it is?”
Despite the fact that he hardly looks like his stuffy self, there’s still no denying that it’s him.
I sigh to myself and wave. “Hello, Hayden.”
He was leaning against a fence at first, but he steps away from it and says, “Well, if it isn’t my favorite Flores girls!”
“Mom?” Like the good kid she is, she seems to ask my permission before she takes off towards him.
“Go ahead.”
“Yay!”
She sprints off, and he catches her in his arms and then lightly tickles at her sides.
My heart wrenches in my chest at the sight of them together. And it doesn’t help that he looks like the Hayden Cohen I knew before, when he seemed to favor Nike over Armani.
“I’m so glad you could make it,” he says with a warm smile, still holding onto my daughter.
“Yeah, well. We didn’t have anything better to do today.”
He grins again. “Right.”
It’s been a hot minute since I’ve been here myself, and I can’t believe how big the grounds are.
But as we travel between exhibits, it seems as though the bond between Hayden and Luna only deepens. She requests to be up on his shoulders, I help hoist her up, and she enjoys most of the park from that viewpoint.
“You can put her down whenever you want,” I remind him after an hour.
He looks over at me like I’m crazy. “Are you kidding me? I’m loving this.”
Seeing them together is already adorable enough. And I’ve heard at least two older couples pass us by and comment on how “lovely” of a young family we are together.
Ah! After being a single mother for the better part of a decade, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love soaking up every minute of that. There’s something about having a strong, handsome man by your side who is being so attentive and caring to your child. It almost makes my uterus hurt and yearn for more.
“I’m hungry,” Luna eventually whines.
“Oh! No worries, I’ve got mango slices—” I’m already rifling through my bag when Hayden stops me.
“Come on! She can have that healthy stuff any day.” Then, he looks around. “Oh, Looney Tunes, there’s cotton candy.”
She grimaces.
“Huh. No kidding. I hate the stuff too.”
No kidding?
“Too sticky,” Luna reports.
Hayden nods. “Too sticky indeed. What about ice cream?”
“Because that isn’t sticky at all,” I bring up.
They both wave me off.
Then, before I know it, they have dripping cones in their hands.
And you made fun of my preparedness, I mock internally before getting out my wet wipes and helping them clean up after their bellies were full of sweets.
“Thanks,” Hayden says sweetly with his palm right-side up in my hand.
Damn those green eyes.
“Yeah. Thanks, Mom.”
When I look down, I see the exact same-colored irises staring up at me.
“You’re—you’re welcome. Come on. We’ve still got a lot of ground to cover.”
“Yeah!” Luna and Hayden cheer in unison before she hops back up around his neck.
They go running off ahead of me, and another woman around my age says, “It sometimes feels like having two big kids, doesn’t it?”
“Oh.” I laugh. “Um, yeah. I suppose it does.”
She nods over to who I assume is her husband and two young children. All three of them are horsing around.
“Well, at least we get our fun too,” she says, holding a cup with the words, “Mom Juice” along the front.
“Right.”
Unlike her, I’m doing this completely sober, but I’m grateful for that because I don’t want to miss, or forget, a single minute of the cuteness between the two of them.
“Oh, my gosh! Look at that!” Hayden exclaims, pointing at something.
“It’s like a rainbow bird! What’s it called?”
“I’m not sure.”
They both look down at the chart below the large enclosure. And after cordially excusing myself from the boozy mom, I join them.
“Let’s see.” Hayden is balancing her on his shoulders by holding firmly to one of her hands, and he uses the other to scan the various common and scientific names.
And each time that he looks up to inspect the animal, he squints.
“Did someone forget their glasses at home?” I joke.
“What? No!” By the way he reacts all defensively, I believe he may have. And that makes me giggle. But on the other hand, the thought of him in a distinguished pair of glasses doesn’t sound like the worst sight in the world.
Finally, he gasps.
“Luna, you’re going to love this.”
“What? What?”
“It’s called a Beautiful Sunbird.”
“No way!” Her legs thump against his chest in excitement.
He shakes his head. “I wouldn’t joke about such a thing.”
“And the sun causes rainbows to form! Did you know that?”
“I didn’t.” I’m not sure if he’s telling the truth or just playing dumb.
“Oh, yeah. We just learned about it in school. You see, rainbows form when light from the sun is scattered by raindrops or fog through a process called refraction.”
“Refraction,” Hayden repeats. “Wow. You’re really smart, huh?”
She beams and pushes her nose into the air. “My teacher says I’m mature for my age.”
“Okay!” Now, I have to get in on the action. “Which bird are we looking at.”
My daughter purses her lips before spotting it again. “That one, Mom. That one!”
It takes me a second, as evidenced by the spectacles I donned when he burst into my house with pizza a few nights ago—my eyes also aren’t as young as they once were. But then, I finally see it. She was right, the feathers do resemble a rainbow with their pastel green, blue, yellow, orange, and red colorings.
“Beautiful Sunbird, you said?”
Hayden grins over at me. “Indeed.”
“That’s very fitting.” I cross my arms and continue to watch it fly around.
He glances down at the infographic again.
“It says here that they mostly live in West and East Africa, among savannas, semi-arid, or dry forests, wooded grasslands, riparian,” he struggles a bit on that last word, but it’s not like I could blame him, “. . . systems, villages, and gardens.”
Luna’s nose scrunches up, and she admits, “I think I recognized about two or three of those words.”
All three of us laugh together before moving onto the next exhibit.
Before long, we come to one of the many gift shops.
While my daughter is used to walking right past such over-priced novelty stores, she pretends not to notice it, but Hayden insists that we go in.
“Really? Can we?” She looks at me hopefully.
“Yeah, can we?” Hayden echoes her sentiments and pouts like a little kid. It would be pathetic if it wasn’t so adorable.
“Fine!” I can’t help but relent. “But just this once.”
Luna nods in understanding before mounting off of his body and storming inside.
“I don’t usually let her go into these kinds of places,” I confess when she’s far enough ahead of us, but I’m still able to see her.
“I figured as much, yeah.”
Of course, I don’t want to just come out and say it’s because I found it a waste of rent money to buy toys or stuffed animals. I suspect that she’ll just grow disinterested in them after a few hours. I assume that would be wildly unrelatable to someone with as much disposable income as he’s grown accustomed to having.
“Hayden!” her little voice cries out with cheer. “Look what I found!” In her arms is a stuffed penguin. “Our favorite!”
We walk closer, and he crouches down beside her.
“I’d say that’s an absolute winner! What do you think, Mom?”
“Yeah, for sure.”
I take it in my hands and see that the price tag says $30. But before I can react, Hayden takes it from me and buries it deep in his arms.
“Oh!” he exclaims while grabbing for another squishy item. “It’s the Beautiful Sunbird.”
Luna’s eyes bulge out of her head. “Two? Are you serious?”
It’s bad enough that we’re already in here, and I don’t want her to get too comfortable doing stuff like this. He’s also getting more than one expensive thing after another.
“Just this once,” Hayden jumps in and says before I can. “It’s a special occasion. But that doesn’t mean we can always get everything we want. Right?”
“Right.”
“So, we should probably take some time and be grateful for moments like this.”
Well, dang. It’s almost like he’s done this parenting thing before or something.
After checking out, Luna clings to her new toys tightly as we continue our journey through the park.
Next up, was her all-time favorite. The penguins.
I sit back as I watch the two of them gawk and marvel at the flightless birds that look like they’re always dressed in little tuxedos.
“I’m going to name her Pearl,” Luna announces, holding her stuffed animal up.
“I think that’s a great choice.”
“What?” I was distracted by people-watching, and I missed where she got that from.
“The new emperor penguin,” Hayden explains, pointing it out to me. “Her name is Pearl.”
“Aw! That’s so cute. Well, then I agree, Loones. Pearl it is.”
“Yay!”
After what felt like over an hour spent in that part, we finally managed to coax her out through the promise of getting her face painted.
“There’s for sure a booth around here, right?” I mutter out of the corner of my mouth. I’d hate to have lied to her. When I was a kid, I felt like my mom was always making up lies and fake promises just to get me to do whatever she wanted me to do. And I did not want to do the same thing to my child.
“Yes, I promise.”
Fortunately, it turned out that he was telling the truth, and we soon came upon the tarped area that kind of resembled a beauty salon. Sure, the chairs were shorter, but they were still propped in front of mirrors with lights that went all the way around them.
“Hello,” Hayden says after a staff member approaches us. “One face painting please.”
But Luna tugs on his arm. “Please, will you do it with me?”
She already knows darn well I can’t because my sensitive skin will flare up within seconds.
He understandably hesitates, but she gives him her best doe eyes.
“Ugh,” he groans before agreeing.
“Great. I’ll be Pearl, and you can be the rainbow bird.”
The face painter assigned to him doesn’t seem familiar with what she’s talking about, so I hold up the toy for reference.
“Ah, got it. Thank you.”
Hayden fakes a smile and says, “Yeah, thanks a bunch, Adds.”
“No problemo!” I’m happy to help aid in this embarrassing moment in any way that I can.
When they’re both finished, Luna is over the moon with the results. But I secretly think they both look like crazy people with random colors splattered on their faces.
“Okay, let’s get a picture of this.” I corral them near a cool rock formation outside.
He gives me a curt look, but nevertheless, complies.
After he picks her up in his arms, and they both say “Cheese,” I make sure to take plenty just in case.
However, it soon seems as though karma is on Hayden’s side when it starts to pour.
Taking his jacket off, he shields both of our heads as we run out with the rest of the crowd through the park and out to our car.
It continues to rain heavily as we navigate and stomp through muddy puddles, but after getting closer to my vehicle, it calms down a bit.
After helping Luna get into her car seat, he closes the door, and then it’s just the two of us standing there.
I grin and point between his eyebrows.
“What?” His fingertips raise to that point, and he looks at himself in the reflection of the mirror. “Did the paint get all smudged?”
“A little. But that’s not what I was referring to. It’s just nice to see your frownless forehead for a change. I guess the day did you some good.”
His mouth drops. “I am not always frowning.”
I giggle. “You’re literally doing it right now.”
“Fine.” His face returns to neutral. “I’ll admit, I did have a great time. What about you?”
“I—”
Before I can answer, his phone rings. He tells me that it’s Randall.