I closed my eyes. “Then, I’ll talk with Mr. Trey and see what we can come up with, but no promises.”
She shot her hands into the air, her fingers balled into fists. “Yes! I knew she’d come around, Mr. Trey! You were right!”
He quirked an eyebrow. “And what did you have to do in order to get what you wanted?”
Rori’s head fell back. “Talk to her like an adult and not act like a child.”
Trey nodded. “Right. Remember that for next time, okay? It’ll save you and your mother a lot of time and heartache.”
I was stunned at how well he handled my daughter. Absolutely stunned. But what left me speechless was when they started cracking jokes with each other. Every time I tried to start in on the conversation about Hawaii coming up in a couple of weeks, Rori would interject with something that would make him chuckle. And then, he’d fire back at her with something that made her giggle as well. Before I knew it, our entire table was taken up by laughter instead of conversation, and the beauty of their intertwining sounds brought peace to my heart.
I’d never heard my daughter laugh like that with a stranger before.
And as I sat there, stunned in my seat, I gazed into Trey’s twinkling eyes as his smile ricocheted across his cheeks. He was a visually beautiful man, but his inner soul was even more stunning than I had once given him credit for.
Which fucked me over in more ways than I could count on my fingers and toes.
15
Trey
Istared at my phone, my eyes drinking in the numbers that made up my friend, Gavin’s, phone number. All night after dinner, I lay in bed, thinking about Leslie. All night, I wished for her to be at my side, intertwined with me while we made love against my soft, effervescent mattress. When I closed my eyes to sleep, I could’ve sworn I heard the life-giving laughter of Aurora as she rushed down the hallway toward us, ready to climb into bed and bounce around until the both of us woke up.
But, when I opened my eyes that next morning, I found myself alone. “I don’t want to be alone anymore,” I murmured.
As I fixed myself a morning coffee and sat at my empty kitchen table, my mind flew back to Gavin and his little family. I wondered how the weekend yacht trip they had taken together had turned out. I wondered if he and that beautiful woman on his arm were still together, trying to figure out how to fuse their lives in ways that I knew that man wanted for his life. And as I stared at my phone, polishing off the last of my second round of coffee, I finally dared to dial him up.
Before his voice came hopping through the phone. “Hey there, stranger! I can’t even remember the last time you called me. What’s up? Everything okay?”
I leaned back and closed my eyes. “I have a quick question for you.”
“Shoot.”
“That woman who was with you at the docks, she’s still with you, right?”
He chuckled. “You don’t even know the half of it. But, yeah, she’s still with me. Why?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Is your daughter fond of her?”
“Oh, they’re two peas in a fucking pod, let me tell you.”
Hope blossomed in my chest. “That’s great. I’m happy for you.”
“So… what’s on your mind?”
“I’d like to know what this woman of yours did to get in your daughter’s good graces?”
He paused. “I’m not following.”
“Like—I’m sure there was a way she bonded with Asia, you know?”
“Yeah, they just spent time together and clicked. There wasn’t anything special that happened.”
“So, there wasn’t, like, a toy she bought? Or a certain activity that brought the two of them closer?”
He clicked his tongue. “Why do you ask?”
I shrugged. “Just curious.”
