Chapter Nineteen
EMERGENCY CONTACT
Tori
My phone buzzes while I’m restocking supplies, and Zayden’s name on the screen makes my stomach do a little flip.
Zayden: I need a favor.
Zayden: Hannah’s sick. Stomach bug. Can’t pick up Maisie from school.
Zayden: Flight from Jersey got delayed. I won’t land until 4.
Zayden: I tried the backup sitter, but she’s not answering.
Three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again. I didn’t travel with the team for this one—just an overnight trip to Jersey, quick turnaround.
Zayden: School gets out at 3:20.
I check the clock. 2:47.
Me: Send me the address. I’ll head over now.
Zayden: You’re sure?
Me: Already grabbing my keys.
Zayden: I owe you.
Me: You really don’t.
· · ·
Twenty minutes later, I’m standing in the pickup line at the elementary school, feeling distinctly out of place among the SUVs and minivans and the moms who clearly all know each other.
A woman in yoga pants and a messy bun gives me a once-over, probably trying to figure out if I’m a nanny, an aunt, or some random kidnapper.
I give her a little wave. She does not wave back.
The doors open, and kids start streaming out—a flood of backpacks, lunch boxes, and high-pitched chatter. I scan the crowd until I spot her. Maisie, walking with her head down, her dinosaur backpack nearly as big as she is.
She looks up, sees me, and her whole face transforms.
“Tori?”
She breaks into a run, weaving through the other kids, and crashes into my legs hard enough to make me stumble. Her arms wrap around my waist and squeeze.
“Hey, Maze.” I smooth a hand over her hair, something warm and dangerous blooming in my chest. “Surprise.”
“Where’s Hannah?”
“She’s not feeling well, so I’m on pickup duty. That okay?”
She pulls back and looks up at me with those big brown eyes—Zayden’s eyes—and nods solemnly. “That’s very okay with me.”
This kid. Seriously.
“Your dad said I could take you for ice cream if you want. Or we could go to the park. Your call.”
“Ice cream,” she says immediately. “Obviously.”
“Obviously. Let’s go.”
· · ·
The ice cream shop has too many flavors and a toppings case that would make a dentist weep. Maisie peers through the glass, studying her options.
“Cotton candy,” she decides. “With rainbow sprinkles. And gummy bears.”
“Solid choice.”
I order her a kid’s cup and get myself salted caramel because I’m a grown-up and I can. We grab a booth by the window, and Maisie attacks her ice cream like she hasn’t eaten in days. There’s a spot of blue on her nose within thirty seconds.
“So,” she says between bites. “Are you my dad’s girlfriend?”
I choke on my salted caramel.
“Um.” I grab a napkin, buying time. “That’s... we’re... your dad and I work together.”
“Hannah thinks you’re his girlfriend.”
“She does?”
“She said, ‘I think she might be his girlfriend,’ on the phone to someone.” Maisie shrugs, unbothered by the eavesdropping admission. “I have good ears.”
“Apparently.”
“So are you?”
How do you explain situationship dynamics to a six-year-old? How do you explain them to yourself when you don’t even know what’s happening?
“Your dad and I are figuring things out,” I say carefully. “We like each other. But it’s complicated.”
Maisie considers this, spoon hovering mid-air. “Because you work together?”
“Partly.”
“What’s the other part?”
“Grown-up stuff.”
“That’s what people say when they don’t want to explain things.”
“You’re too smart for your own good.”
She grins, and there’s a chunk of gummy bear stuck to her front tooth. “Daddy says that too.”
We eat in comfortable silence for a minute. The afternoon sun slants through the window, catching the glitter in her nail polish—purple, slightly chipped.
“Do you have kids?” she asks suddenly.
The question lands somewhere soft and unprotected. “No, I don’t.”
“How come?”
“I guess... I just haven’t yet. I’ve been busy with school and work.” I trail off, unsure how to finish.
“Do you want kids?”
I look at her—this earnest, curious girl with ice cream on her chin and questions that cut right to the bone—and something in my chest aches.
“Yeah,” I admit quietly. “I do. Someday.”
“You’d be a good mom.”
The words hit like a sucker punch. I have to look away, blinking hard, focusing on the napkin dispenser until I’m sure I’m not going to cry in the middle of an ice cream shop.
“Thanks, Maze.” My voice comes out rougher than I intended. “That’s really sweet.”
“It’s true.” She says it matter-of-factly, like stating the weather. “You let me get sprinkles and gummy bears. And you actually listen when I talk instead of looking at your phone.”
“Of course I listen. You’re interesting.”
“And you don’t make promises you don’t keep.”
That one lands heavily. I think about Sienna, showing up twice a year with expensive gifts and empty words, leaving Maisie to pick up the pieces.
“I try not to,” I say.
Maisie nods, swirling her spoon through what’s left of her ice cream, turning it into blue soup.
“My mom says stuff but then doesn’t do it.
Like she said she’d come to my dance recital, but then she had a ‘work thing.’” She makes air quotes with sticky fingers.
“And she said we’d go to Disney, but that didn’t happen either. ”
“I’m sorry, honey.”
“It’s okay. I’m used to it.”
She says it so casually, like it’s just a fact of her life, and that’s somehow worse than if she’d cried.
“You shouldn’t have to be used to it.”
She looks up at me, head tilted. “You’re better at this than my mom. The mom stuff, I mean.”
I can’t breathe.
I physically cannot draw air into my lungs because this six-year-old just said the thing I didn’t know I needed to hear and also the thing that’s going to wreck me completely.
“Maisie...”
“I’m not trying to be mean about her,” she adds quickly. “I love my mom. I just...” She shrugs those little shoulders. “I’m glad you’re here with me.”
I reach across the table and take her hand. Her fingers are sticky with sugar, and she squeezes back with surprising strength.
I don’t know what’s happening with her dad, not when my career could implode if anyone finds out how deep I’m already in. But I can give her this moment. This afternoon. This version of me that shows up.
“Can we go to the park after?”
“Absolutely.”
“And can you push me on the swings?”
“As high as you want.”
“And can you not tell Daddy about the ice cream before dinner? He gets weird about sugar.”
I laugh, and it comes out watery. “That might be hard. Your face is literally blue.”
She grins and licks her spoon. “Worth it.”
· · ·
The park is mostly empty—a few kids on the climbing structure, a dad scrolling his phone on a bench, everyone bundled against the late afternoon chill.
Maisie’s got her purple puffer coat zipped to her chin and a colorful pom-pom beanie.
She makes a beeline for the swings, and I settle into the familiar rhythm of pushing her higher while she kicks her legs and shrieks.
“Higher! Higher!”
“Any higher and you’re achieving orbit.”
“What’s orbit?”
“Space. You’ll fly into space.”
“Cool!”
I push her again, watching her ponytail stream behind her. The late afternoon light is golden, and for a moment I let myself pretend this is my life. That I pick her up every day, that I know her favorite flavor and all her stuffed animals’ names, that I get to watch her grow up.
Dangerous fantasy. I know that.
I let myself have it anyway.
My phone buzzes.
Zayden: Just landed. How’s she doing?
Me: Currently attempting to defy gravity on the swings. I’m supervising.
Zayden: That tracks.
Zayden: I can be there in 45. You’re okay to stay?
Me: Of course.
Zayden: Thank you, Tori.
Three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again.
Zayden: For everything.
I pocket my phone and go back to pushing Maisie, trying not to think about how this feels more like home than anywhere I’ve been in years.
· · ·
We’re on the couch watching Moana when Zayden walks in.
Maisie’s tucked against my side, singing along under her breath to “How Far I’ll Go” while I pretend not to notice. There are goldfish crumbs on my shirt, her hair is escaping its ponytail, and she’s got the blanket pulled up to her chin even though the living room is perfectly warm.
“This is the best part,” she whispers loudly, like it’s a secret. “Watch, watch, watch—”
Zayden stops in the doorway. Just... looks at us.
His face does something complicated. Soft and hungry and sad all at once, like he’s seeing something he wants but doesn’t think he’s allowed to have.
“Daddy!” Maisie launches off the couch and barrels into him. He catches her easily, scooping her up like she weighs nothing.
“Hey, little shadow.” He presses a kiss to her temple. “Good day?”
“The best.” She’s already talking a mile a minute. “Tori took me for ice cream and the park, and we watched Moana, and she knows all the words to the songs, and she can push really high on the swings, like really, really high—”
His eyes cut to me over her head, amused. “She knows all the words?”
“I have a lot of hidden talents.”
“Apparently.” He’s smiling—really smiling—and it transforms his whole face. “Thank you. Seriously.”
“Stop thanking me. It was fun.” I rise from the couch. “I should go. Let you guys have dinner.”
“Stay.”
The word comes out fast, like he didn’t plan it. We both freeze.
“I mean—” He runs a hand through his hair. “I’m ordering Italian. There’s always too much. You should stay.”
I should go. Maintain distance. Protect my heart from this man and his daughter and the life they’re offering me one moment at a time.
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll stay.”
Maisie cheers weakly from the couch, and Zayden’s whole face lights up.
I am in so much trouble.
But when Maisie grabs my hand and pulls me toward the kitchen, chattering about her favorite noodles, I find I don’t really care.