Page 31 of Six Years
A no would’ve sufficed, you know…
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Luan Hayes
February 14th, 12:00 AM
Happy Valentine’s Day then, I guess
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Luan Hayes
March 7th, 9:51 PM
That was a good game, I think? You did win…
Thanks
Grey, if you don’t want to talk to me, can you just tell me, please? Because I would gladly spend another six years texting you daily and get vague answers, but I’d still like to know if all my efforts are even worth it.
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Luan Hayes
March 8th, 12:01 AM
I guess that answers that
Chapter 1
“what the hell did I do?”—New by Days
June 2023
“I was thinking, Uncle Grey…”Brooke holds on to my hand a little tighter when we cross the street. “When I ask Daddy for the pink dress princess, maybe I also get the blue dress princess because I saw on the TV that they are friends and then I need both, right?”
Miles asked me to take Brooke in for the week as Eden’s sick and he wants to try and reduce the chances of Brooke getting sick as well. I suppose having two sick kids is a whole lot more exhausting than one. I wouldn’t know, I don’t have kids.
Because I know Brooke would only ever run back to Miles if we stayed in my apartment, I decided to take Brooke on a little vacation. In Malibu.
I am not here to see my parents, though I am hoping to see my mother. But there’s this little voice in the back of my head that says if I just walk around El Matador Beach, I might cross paths with a certain curly-headed guy. Yup, I have sunken that low.
He just won’t get out of my head, and I am convinced if I see him one more time, I can finally put him in the past. By now, he should be mad with me, especially given how I’ve treated him the past couple of months. First I ask him to spend the night in my hotel, and then I barely even respond anymore like he’s done something wrong.
It’s not him, and if I could, I’dloveto get to know him a little better, but I think that’s also mainly because he’s a mystery to me. Figuring people out has always been my favorite occupation, and me not being able to read him like a book annoys me.
“Well, Brookie, how about instead of us going to get some ice cream, we will go to the toy store, and I will buy you both princesses?” She’d get ice cream either way, and I love spoiling her.
Brooke gasps. “But what about Daddy? He said no more many Barbies.”
He did say that. Brooke barely has any room left in her bedroom, however, as her uncle, it is my duty to make sure she gets all the things her father tells her she can’t have. “Well, if you already have them, he can’t say no anymore, can he?”
Brooke giggles, nodding. When she looks up to me as soon as we reach the other side of the street, her eyes fill with tears. “When we go back to the hotel, Uncle Grey, can we call Daddy?”
Brooke might be used to being away from Miles for the nights, but even when she lived with Miles’s stepsister up until the beginning of our last year of college, he still showed up to see her every day. He drove from New City to Manhattan just to say good night to her every single day. There were times when he couldn’t make it, but that was okay because Brooke was used to it. And now that she’s been living with her father for almost two years, has him around her all day, every day, it’s a little hard on Brooke not seeing Miles for a week. She’s been on more phone calls with him in the last two days than she was asleep. She even refuses to take her usual naps only so she can FaceTime her father.
We’re about to pass a Hayesland store when I pull out my phone, ready to call Miles right now. I would take Brooke into that store because it’s closer to our hotel than a Li Co. store, but if my father happens to see me in there, I’ll be dead.
