Junkyard Dog(65)

“I was thinking about Dreamy,” I say, wrapping them against me. “She’s so scared of the new house, and it might take a long time before she gets used to Hayes’s house too. I think we should stay at our house some nights and his house other nights. That way, Dreamy will get used to the changes. Nightmare will probably need time to adjust too. He’s used to having the house to himself.”

Hearing about the animals calms their tears.

“If you marry Hayes, we’ll live in his house?” Chipper asks.

“Well, technically they’re both his houses. We’d eventually move to his bigger house. We don’t have to do it right away. I think Hayes needs time to get used to us living there. We all need to get used to new stuff so we won’t rush.”

Tears over, they rest against me and wait for the bus. Cricket takes a sip of the soda and then clears her throat.

“Hayes got us a nice room at the hotel,” she says. “That cost him a lot of money.”

“He wants us to be happy.”

“He scared that little kid yesterday when we were in line,” she says, grinning at me. “The kid kept staring at him, and he stared back, and the kid cried. That was funny.”

“He’s a scary guy, but he’s good inside.”

“Like Cricket,” Chipper says, and his sister sticks her tongue out at him.

“I like Hayes,” Chipper says as we stand for the approaching bus. “He’s nicer than Dad.”

“Yes, he is.”

Cricket helps me with the bags, and I see her already adjusting to this new reality.

“I wonder if Nightmare and Dreamy will fight,” Chipper asks once we’re on the ride back to the hotel.

“Probably. We’ll keep them apart if we have to. They’ll adjust with time, and we’re in no rush.”

The kids smile at me, and I feel a burden lift from me. Soon we shuffle into the hotel and take the elevator up to our room. The minute the air conditioning hits our sweaty bodies, we’re ready to crash. I drop the bags on the couch and walk into the kids’ room where two beds await. They crawl into one and then watch me full of hope I’ll take the other. I kick off my shoes and collapse on the second bed.

The kids laugh at my dramatic display before they get comfortable. A few minutes later, I hear them sleeping. I don’t take long to follow them into dreamland. Sometime later, Hayes returns to the hotel. I’m too tired to lift my head. I don’t want to call out to him and wake up the kids. I just wait for him to find us and hope he’ll curl up with me.

Hayes moves around the suite for what feels like forever before I feel the bed shift. His fingers slide up my spine and caress the hair from my neck. He kisses the exposed skin and then relaxes against me. I smile at how the four of us must look like a normal family after a long day on vacation. I doze off thinking this is probably the first time Hayes has been normal in his entire life.





FORTY - CANDY


On our last day at Disney World, the four of us try to get in every last bit of fun. We hit our favorite rides, eat at our favorite restaurants, and spend the evening watching the animals on the savanna outside of the hotel. I know we didn’t do a million things on the trip, but there’s no time to visit every sight and ride every attraction. Hayes promises the kids we’ll come back soon, and they believe him. They’re realizing he isn’t their father who talks a great game yet never comes through. Good or bad, Hayes is an open book. If he says something, it happens.

At our last dinner, Balthazar and Lizzy Anne join us at a long table at a Mexican-style restaurant. Hayes claims his father thinks I hate Lizzy Anne. I claim I don’t and spend a good part of dinner proving my lie.

Balthazar finally says we don’t have to pretend. Family doesn’t have to like each other. Lizzy Anne and I share a smile at the thought of being family. Then we spend the rest of dinner ignoring each other.

Back in the hotel room, the twins babble wildly at their grandparents about everything they've done on the trip. Grandma and Grandpa Eddison sound genuinely happy, yet I suspect they’re unsure about this man suddenly playing the father role. I know they’ll want to visit and meet Hayes. I know he’ll scare them initially, but they’ll end up respecting him. The Eddisons appreciate money and power and Hayes possesses both.

After the twins crash from exhaustion, I sit on the couch in the suite and look at my ring still in the box.

“We’ll get it resized in White Horse,” Hayes says, stripping down for bed. “I figured it was better to get a size too small than too big. I know how women are about their weight.”

Laughing, I watch him disappear into the bathroom and listen to the shower. Waiting for him to return, I study the ring and think about the last week. I never had a father yet never missed out. I spent most of my adult life without a man, and I never missed that either. I was satisfied because being unsatisfied meant becoming my mother. She gave up, and I refused to.

Now I had Hayes, and he needed me. Not to look pretty or f*ck him. No, he needed someone to have his back. From following him around White Horse, I learned how many people viewed Hayes as indestructible. He was a flesh and blood man, though, and needed someone capable of letting him be weak when need be.

Hayes appears from the bathroom wearing only boxers and smelling like soap. I’m drawn to the bedroom where he rests against the headboard. He’s tired after a long week of playing family man with his dad, kids, and future wife.