30. A Little Advice
A Little Advice
HAYES
T he Chicago skyline materializes through the airplane window, stark and familiar against the morning sky.
Home. I’ve been gone for what feels like years instead of weeks, living in a bubble while my son has been growing, learning, evolving without me.
My stomach twists with the plane’s banking turn—nervous excitement for the genuine love waiting for me in my modest two-story in Lincoln Park.
For the next twenty-four hours, I’m not Bachelor Hayes.
I’m just Dad. Son. A man trying to figure out how he managed to fall in love with a woman he sent home in tears.
Darren’s warning echoes in my head as the plane touches down with a jolt. “When you come back, you need to be all in. No more seasickness, no more hesitation.” The ultimatum hangs over me, but for now, I push it aside. Twenty-four hours. Just twenty-four hours to be real again.
The rideshare driver makes small talk about the Cubs’ prospects this season.
I respond on autopilot, my mind already racing ahead to August. My mother sends me updates and video calls daily, but it’s not the same as seeing my son’s face light up in person, as feeling his small arms wrap around my waist with the absolute certainty that Dad is the strongest, smartest, best person in the entire universe.
An image of Brielle flashes unexpectedly—her smile as she sat cross-legged with August during that group date, listening with genuine interest as he explained the intricacies of his favorite Marvel characters.
I shake my head, trying to dislodge the memory. It doesn’t matter now. I made my choice—or rather, had it made for me. Brielle is gone, and I’m trapped in St. Sebastian with three women I respect but don’t love, facing an engagement I have no intention of following through on.
The car pulls up to my house, a brick two-story with a wraparound porch. Before I can even grab my overnight bag, the front door flies open, and a human missile launches itself down the steps.
“Dad!”
August barrels into me, nearly knocking me over. I drop my bag and scoop him up, marveling at how he seems to have grown two inches in the weeks I’ve been gone. His glasses are slightly askew from the impact, his blond hair sticking up in the back as usual.
“Hey, buddy,” I manage, my voice thick with emotion. I bury my face in his hair, breathing in the scent of Ninja Turtle shampoo. “I missed you so much.”
“I missed you too.” He pulls back, examining my face. “You look tired. And sad. Are you sad, Dad?”
Before I can answer, my mother appears in the doorway, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. Her blond hair—the same shade as mine, though now helped along by her monthly salon visits—is pulled back in a loose bun, and her eyes crinkle at the corners as she smiles.
“Let your father at least get in the door before you start the interrogation, August,” she chides gently. Then to me, “Welcome home, honey.”
I set August down and climb the steps to embrace my mother.
She feels smaller than I remember, more fragile, though I know she’d scoff at that observation.
Since Sarah died, she’s been my rock, moving just down the street to help with August, keeping our little family afloat when I thought we might drown in grief.
“Thanks, Mom,” I whisper, inhaling the familiar scent of her perfume mixed with... “Is that apple pie?”
She laughs, the sound warm and normal and exactly what I need.
“Your favorite. I figured you might need a taste of home after all that exotic food they’ve been feeding you.
” She steps back, surveying me with the same critical eye as August. “You’ve lost weight.
And you’re pale. Aren’t you supposed to be in St. Sebastian? ”
“It’s complicated,” I say, a phrase that’s become my mantra these last few weeks. “Can we go inside? I could use that food.”
August grabs my hand, tugging me through the door. “Dad, I have so much to tell you! I won the Mathnasium Championship. Ms. Peterson says I’m reading at a high school level now and I built a robot that can sort M&Ms by color and—”
“Slow down, buddy,” I laugh, allowing myself to be pulled into the familiar warmth of my mother’s house. The scent of baking apples and cinnamon envelops me, and for a moment, the weight on my shoulders lightens. “We’ve got all day. Let me at least take off my jacket.”
The kitchen is exactly as it’s always been—worn countertops, mismatched magnets on the fridge, the ancient wooden table where I sit and work. A piece of paper adorns the refrigerator door, covered in August’s precise handwriting: “Questions for Dad.” I swallow hard at the sight.
“He’s been adding to that list for weeks,” my mother explains, following my gaze as she pulls the pie from the oven. “I told him you might not be able to answer everything, but...”
“But I want to know everything. ” August climbs onto his usual chair. “About the show and the mansion and the women, and especially about Brielle.”
My heart stutters at her name.
August pushes his glasses up his nose with one finger. “I liked her the best. She knew all about the Avengers and she was smart. Really smart.”
I sit down heavily, unprepared for how directly August would cut to the core of my turmoil.
“Did you pick her? Is she going to be my new mom?”
“August,” my mother warns, setting down plates. “We talked about this. Your dad can’t tell us who he chose yet. It’s against the rules.”
“It’s okay, Mom,” I say, though it’s anything but okay. How do I explain to my son that I sent home the one woman he connected with? “August, buddy, Brielle was special. But the show is complicated, and sometimes the person who seems right doesn’t end up being the one who gets the final key.”
His face falls slightly, and I feel like the world’s worst father. “So you didn’t pick her?”
“I can’t give you details yet,” I say, unable to outright lie to those earnest eyes. “But I promise you’ll know everything very soon.”
He sighs with the weight of someone three times his age. “Fine. But can I at least show you my Mathnasium trophy? It’s huge .”
Grateful for the change of subject, I nod enthusiastically. “Absolutely. Lead the way.”
As August races off to his bedroom, my mother slides a slice of pie in front of me along with a glass of milk, as if I’m still twelve years old. “Eat,” she says. “Then we’ll talk about what’s really going on with you.”
I take a bite, the flavors of childhood enveloping me in comfort. “What makes you think something’s going on?”
She gives me The Look—the one that saw through every childhood fib about broken windows and missing cookies.
“Hayes Daniel Burke, I have known you since the moment you entered this world. Your face has more tells than a bad poker player’s.
Now eat your pie while it’s warm, and when August goes to bed, you’re going to tell me why you look like you’ve lost your puppy. ”
August returns with his trophy, which is indeed impressively large for a regional elementary school championship.
I make appropriate noises of awe and pride, genuinely impressed by his accomplishment but distracted by the anxiety coursing through me.
My son chatters about his chess strategies, his new science project, the book he’s reading that’s “way too easy, but the teacher makes everyone read the same thing.” I nod and laugh in the right places, but I can tell he senses my distraction.
“Dad,” he says, setting his trophy aside, “are you okay? For real?”
The directness of the question, the genuine concern in his eyes, breaks something loose in me. I glance at my mother, who nods almost imperceptibly. Permission granted to be honest, at least as honest as I can be without breaching my contract.
“I’m having a tough time, buddy.” I reach out to straighten his always-crooked glasses. “Making big decisions is hard, especially when other people are involved.”
“You mean about who to marry?” he says, with the uncomplicated directness of childhood.
“Yeah. That’s part of it.” I hesitate, trying to find the right words. “The show—it’s not always what it seems like on TV. There are people telling me what to do, suggesting who I should pick. And sometimes what they want isn’t what I want.”
August considers this with the seriousness he usually reserves for chess. “Is that why you look sad?”
I swallow hard, fighting back unexpected tears. When did my son become so perceptive? So wise? “You’re right, Aug. I’m sad because I’m not sure I’m making the right choices.”
“On the show?”
“On the show. And in life.” I take a deep breath. “The truth is, I let someone go who I cared about a lot. And I did it because other people thought it was the right thing to do, not because it’s what I wanted.”
My mother’s hand finds my shoulder, squeezing gently. August’s brow furrows in concentration.
“You mean Brielle?”
“I can’t say specifically,” I say, though it’s clear he already knows.
“Dad,” August says, his voice suddenly taking on that serious tone that makes him sound decades older than nine, “you should pick the woman who makes you laugh like you used to with Mom.” He pauses, then adds, “And the one who’d be the most fun going for ice cream, having dinner, and watching movies with us. ”
The simplicity of his advice, the unexpected clarity of his child’s perspective, hits me with the force of revelation. I feel a lump form in my throat, unable to respond.
“August is right,” my mother says softly.
“Your father and I didn’t have much in common on paper.
An accountant and a dreamer who wanted to take pictures.
But we laughed together for ten years before he decided he needed something different.
” She pauses, then continues, “And with Sarah—you two fit together from the first moment. You just knew.”
“I thought I knew this time too,” I say, the words coming easier now. “With Brielle. From that first day on the beach, even before the show started filming, there was something there. A connection that felt... real.”
“Then why isn’t she still on the show?” Once again, August cuts straight to the heart of the matter.
I consider my answer carefully. “Because sometimes grown-ups make choices based on what’s safe or what other people expect, not what their heart tells them is right.
” I look at my son, really look at him—this miraculous, brilliant, perceptive human being who Sarah and I created together. “But that’s not how I want to live.”
“So don’t.”
He’s right. I realize with crystal clarity that I’ve made the worst mistake of my life since Sarah died. I let Brielle go. And now I have to find a way to make it right—contract be damned, show be damned, image be damned.
Because if there’s one thing I learned from losing Sarah, it’s that life is too short to waste on anything but truth. And the truth is, I love Brielle Wilson. Now I just have to find a way to tell her before it’s too late.