ELEVEN #2
She didn’t know why she’d given in so easily, except for the fact that she had always felt fiercely protective of the East Coast, particularly the city that raised her. A sudden urge to make Maddie want to stay in New York took hold of Hayley, to make her choose this life with them—if only to win.
HAYLEY SPENT THE ENTIRE NEXT AFTERNOON at her desk, crafting the perfect itinerary for Maddie’s tour of the city.
The plan for that night was simple and family-friendly, she reassured herself.
But as evening fell, Hayley began to realize that her organized lines of checkboxes were nothing more than a thin facade of control, and a knot tightened in her stomach from all the unknowns.
Now she couldn’t help but feel like she was walking directly into a trap as she stared at Gemma’s front door and took a deep breath to steady herself.
She secured her purse on her arm and reached for the handle, only to find Gemma already waiting on the other side.
“Don’t you look nice for your date?”
“This is not a date,” Hayley snapped, though she couldn’t stop herself from checking her reflection in the hallway mirror.
“Those tailored pants showing off your ass say otherwise,” Gemma teased and leaned against the doorframe, her gaze dropping to Hayley’s white-knuckled grip on her bag. “You should loosen that clutch, Hay. But it’s nice to know you are human after all.”
Hayley forced her fingers to relax. “Is that all? No more lectures about keeping my hands to myself?”
“Lecture is a little dramatic,” Gemma murmured, her voice dropping into a whisper. “I warned you not to fuck and run. And now look, here you are, acting like a gentlewoman.”
Before Hayley could respond, Maddie appeared, squeezing sideways around Gemma to press a quick, soft kiss to Hayley’s cheek.
She did it so casually as if she had done it a thousand times before, and Hayley blinked in surprise.
The heat of Maddie’s lips lingered on her skin long after she pulled away.
“Have her home at a reasonable hour!” Caitlin shouted from the foyer.
Still blinking, Hayley ushered Maddie out the front door and into the backseat of the black car waiting for them. She climbed in on the opposite side, her heart pounding with an unwelcome thud against her chest as the door clicked shut.
Throughout her afternoon of planning, Hayley’s “Tour of New York” had taken on a life of its own, fueled by an inexplicable need to make Maddie fall in love with the city. Now, as they drove toward the outskirts of Brooklyn, Hayley found herself checking her watch full of doubts.
She’d forgotten that the drive was so long, and the steady rhythm of the tires on the pavement matched the mounting tension in her chest.
Hayley eventually spotted colored lights twinkling in the distance and turned to Maddie.
“Close your eyes,” she whispered. “Don’t open them until I say so.”
The driver eased the car to a stop beside the sidewalk.
Hayley got out and opened Maddie’s door, guiding her by the hand and turning her to face the thrum of activity.
“Okay, now you can open.”
Maddie squealed. “Coney Island!?” Her voice was bright with surprise. “Oh my gosh, it’s just like Two Weeks Notice!”
Hayley burst into an unexpected laugh, and Maddie beamed up at her. The light reflecting from her eyes was so bright that Hayley had to look away.
As she led the way toward the boardwalk, the scent of salt air and roasted nuts transported Hayley back through time. She was suddenly six years old again, walking hand in hand with her mom up the pier, jumping from one wooden plank to the next, and giggling at some long-forgotten joke.
Coney Island had been a pillar of Hayley’s childhood. Whenever she thought of the good days, she pictured her family here—hands sticky with sugar and bellies full of laughter, playing carnival games late into the warm summer nights.
Now she saw the place as a monument to her family’s joy, immortalized in the ice-cream-smeared faces of every kid she passed. Those memories felt like they belonged to a different version of Hayley, from a simpler time, miles away from her current life.
As she’d planned, their first stop was Freak Bar. Grab-and-go drinks in hand, Hayley led Maddie toward the vintage pinball machines.
“I have to be honest,” Maddie said, leaning over an Evel Knievel one. “I’ve never actually played boardwalk games before. I’ve avoided the tourist trap of the Santa Monica Pier my whole life.”
“Well, it’s time to change that.” Hayley pulled a large, prefilled bag of quarters from her Birkin and dropped four into the slot with a satisfying clink.
They spent the next hour in a blur of neon lights and laughter. It took Maddie under two minutes to lose all five of the small steel balls, so they moved on to the next game—and then the next. They smashed moles of every color and slung wooden balls up a ramp until their arms ached.
Once they hit every game in the arcade, Maddie skipped down the boardwalk in delight, scanning the booths while Hayley grinned and trailed after her. Maddie veered suddenly to the left, pulling Hayley down onto a stool next to her at Tube Dash Splash and taking aim with her water gun.
“God, this used to be one of my favorite games to play as a kid.” Hayley leaned against the counter as they waited for a new round to start.
“I always won, and Jonathan—my older brother—he used to get so mad.” She laughed, picturing his teenage face, red and pinched with outrage.
“He’d say, ‘these don’t require skill, they’re pure dumb luck.
’ But I thought that was bullshit—he just had bad aim. ” She shrugged.
“Hayley,” Maddie scolded playfully, “don’t tell me you bullied your brother.”
“If anything, it was the opposite!” Hayley protested.
“We were playing here one night as teenagers, and I was on a roll. I had my eye on the grand prize, and my Minion was just about to hit the top of the ramp. Jonathan knew he couldn’t win, and he was such a sore loser that he tried to turn his water gun on me.
But they don’t rotate all the way—for that reason, I imagine—so he used his hand as a backboard and redirected the spray into my face just to stop me from winning. ”
And when we got home, I put him in a headlock until he apologized, Hayley remembered, keeping that part to herself.
“But did you win?” Maddie asked, waiting for Hayley to finish the story.
“Of course I won. I always win.”
Maddie grinned with pride.
The lights on the booth began to flash, and bells and whistles warned them that the race was about to start.
True to her word, Hayley won, beating Maddie and everyone else sitting at the counter by a landslide.
The carny handed Hayley the biggest Minion they had. She turned and triumphantly presented it to Maddie.
“For you,” she offered with a small bow. “This one’s extra wide-eyed and cute—like you.”
Maddie let out a breathless little laugh and nudged Hayley affectionately with her shoulder as she squeezed the Minion against her chest.
A quiet sense of ease settled over Hayley as she watched Maddie. She was feeling more like herself that night than she had in years, closer now than ever to that little girl from her memories. From before.
“This is the most fun I’ve had in a long time,” Maddie admitted, a fried Oreo in her hand.
Hayley looked at the powdered sugar dusted across Maddie’s face and saw another scene.
She was eleven this time on the same boardwalk.
Her mom had stolen a sly lick of her dad’s mint chocolate chip ice cream, even though she insisted she didn’t want any.
Her dad retaliated by smearing it all over her mom’s face, both of them laughing until they had tears in their eyes.
Then he gently cleaned it off with a napkin before giving her a kiss on the forehead and the rest of his ice cream cone.
As an adult, Hayley could appreciate the true depth of the quiet, powerful love her parents had shared.
“Mine too,” she whispered back to Maddie, the words carrying more weight than she had even intended.
They walked along the wooden planks for a while, their arms brushing against each other with every step. Hayley watched as the ocean breeze caught a stray lock of Maddie’s hair and swept it into her mouth just as she stole a bite of Hayley’s funnel cake.
Her side still aching with laughter, Hayley tentatively reached out a hand to help. Her fingers grazed Maddie’s cheek as she carefully tucked the strand of hair behind her ear.
Maddie’s eyes met hers, their faces only inches apart.
On an impulse, Hayley leaned in and slowly ran the tip of her tongue over the corner of Maddie’s lip, where a stray spot of powdered sugar still lingered.
Maddie’s breath hitched in her chest. “Your place?”
Hayley wordlessly laced her fingers through Maddie’s and pulled her toward the town car that waited for them.
It wasn’t until they were almost home that Hayley realized she had never let go of Maddie’s hand.