Asking For A Friend

by Parker, Ali

  Layton’s eyes slid to mine at the same time I looked at him. “Sounds good to me.”

  “Yeah, me too,” I said.

  He gave me a final kiss before saying goodbye to Denise and thanking her for coming with us, then he turned back to me. “Take tomorrow off too. I’ll see you on Saturday.”

  “Saturday,” I repeated, a smile spreading across my lips as Denise and I stood on the porch and waved goodbye. I already couldn’t wait to see him on Saturday.

  Chapter 59

  Layton

  The morning after the day out at the Freedom Trail, I felt like I was walking on sunshine. Like a fucking rock star. Whenever I spent time with Marissa and Annie, they made me feel like this. Something clicked in me when I got to see them and it felt damn good. The memories of Annie’s excited chatter and happy laughter replayed in my head on a loop. Along with the ones of Marissa’s smiles and the contented look in her eyes. Even Denise got a few seconds of brain-time on the highlight reel.

  She was a good friend to Marissa, a great care taker for Annie, and I still suspected that she was a champion for me. And so, memories of her watching me watch Marissa with this indulgent smile also made it into the replays.

  If someone had told me six months ago that I was going to be so besotted with a six year old and her mother, I would have laughed in their face. Hard and repeatedly.

  But it was undeniable that I was besotted. The more time I spent with them, the worse it became. Marissa had crept into my heart and dragged Annie in right along with her.

  It was so bad that I was a little worried I was turning into a teenage girl on the inside, but I was man enough to admit what I felt for both of them. I wasn’t a coward who hid from my feelings and I wasn’t oblivious to them, either.

  I had simply always thought that the instinct to protect and nurture a family of my own hadn’t been passed down to me. I figured it was as a result of my upbringing—that I had no intention of doing to a kid what my dad had done to me.

  I wasn’t stubborn about it, or enough of an emotional brick that I refused to acknowledge it was in the realm of possibility that I might have a kid of my own someday, it just wasn’t something I had considered in the short term. There had never been a woman who made me want those things and I wasn’t exactly looking for one.

  My father had literally forced Marissa on me and as much as I tried to resent her for it, I couldn’t. Because for the first time, there was a woman who made me throw my own personal rule book out of the window and I didn’t have to tap my fingers against any available surface waiting for a time I could go and retrieve it.

  I didn’t want the rules back. I hadn’t tapped to modulate in weeks, even in Marissa’s house where Annie’s stuff was everywhere. Nothing was in its proper place and I didn’t give a fuck. In fact, it felt like having her stuff strewn all over was the proper place.

  Their place felt like home more than mine ever had. They made me feel like I belonged to someone, a feeling I couldn’t remember having since mom died. Certainly not after nanny number four. Fiona was the only nanny I ever had who made me feel like she really cared.

  Marissa, Annie and even Denise made me feel like I had found the family I fit into. Soppy, yes. And I would never, fucking ever say it out loud, but I wasn’t an insensitive prick about my emotions. I wasn’t one of those guys who believed everything had to be tucked away and shoved down deep for the sake of appearing to be masculine. I was more than confident enough in myself that I didn’t need that bullshit, though I would never plan to spew it out to anyone.

  Marissa knew how I felt about her, she was the only person who mattered. Well—her and Annie, but we would cross that bridge when we got to it. I hoped the feeling I got after spending time with them would never go away. It meant way too much to me to have it fade or fizzle.

  I tried to imagine what it would feel like to have it every day, but I couldn’t. There was a lot of water that had to flow under the bridge before that would become even a remote possibility.

  It wasn’t a fantasy I planned on letting myself get lost in. Despite my feelings for Marissa, we had only been together for a few months. Annie didn’t even know we were together-together yet. I didn’t know when, or if, Marissa was ever going to tell her.

  I wanted Annie to know about us, but it wasn’t my call to make. Marissa had stuff to work through because of her history with Brice. She didn’t take commitment lightly.

  It kind of stung that she couldn’t tell me she loved me back, but I got it. I could handle it. I was in this for the long haul. I could wait, and I would.

  Things were the way they were for now, and I had to be okay with that. I was seeing Marissa again tomorrow and I couldn’t wait, but today I had to work. I still had a lot of catching up to do and not a lot of time to do it in.

  As much as I hated to do it, I had to stop thinking about my personal life and focus on work. Pushing my thoughts of Marissa and Annie out of my mind, I took the elevator up to my floor.

  The office was a hive of activity by the time I got there, with the usual ‘it’s Friday’ energy crackling in the air. People waved at me as I made my way to my office before going back to their computers or drafting tables.

  “Hey Carrie,” I said to my assistant as I reached her desk outside my office. “Anything urgent I should know about?”

  She shrugged, handing me a few paper slips with messages scrawled onto them in her neat cursive handwriting. “Nothing earthshattering as far as I can tell, but Craig is here waiting in your office.”

  My eyebrows shot up. I’d promised Craig I would pay a visit to the site some time. We didn’t have any meetings scheduled here. “Did he say what it was about?”

  “No,” she replied, her eyes sliding to my open office door. “He just said he needed to talk to you.”

  Nodding, I smiled. I would find out soon enough what Craig was here for. “Thanks, Carrie. Do me a favor and hold my calls while I’m in there with him.”

  “Sure thing,” she said, and immediately started punching buttons on her landline. As promised, Craig was waiting for me in my office. He had made himself comfortable and was sitting on the white sofa with a cup of coffee in his hands.

  When he saw me coming, he set the coffee cup down while standing and reached out his hand to shake mine. “Sorry to show up unannounced, I know how much you hate that.”

  “That’s okay,” I shrugged, releasing his hand and rounding my desk to take my seat. “I’m getting better at it, actually. It doesn’t bother me so much anymore.”

  Craig’s brows lifted in surprise and he cocked his head, but then he cleared his throat and got down to business. “I wanted to come down and tell you personally that all work at the site has been resumed and the guys are all putting their backs into it.”

  Relief washed through me. I hadn’t even realized how stressed I’d been about that project until Craig told me it was up and running again. “It’s progressing well?”

  “We should be back on track in a week, now that you’ve funded it,” he told me, nodding in satisfaction. “How are you feeling about raking out your own money? You ended up having to put in a small fortune. I would have been a basket case knowing my money was on the line.”

  “It will be a small price to pay,” I assured him. Pumping my own money into projects wasn’t something I did often. In fact, it was something I had only ever done once before. It had paid off in a big way then and I was hoping it would do the same for me now.

  Craig’s hazel eyes found mine and I saw a flash of worry in them. “Let’s hope you’re right, man. It’s killing me knowing how much money you’ve pushed into this, but I guess all we can do now is wait and see.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I joked, making sure to keep my tone light and even. I didn’t need Craig worrying about me. His head had to be in the game on site, not worrying about who was going to lose what money if the project bombed.

  “Anyway, I called your office earlier this
week and Carrie told me you weren’t here. What’s up with that? I know for a fact you weren’t down on site. And it’s not like you to play hooky.”

  I smirked. “Would you like to see my sick note signed by the doctor, teacher?”

  Craig rolled his eyes, throwing his arms out to his sides. “Fine, don’t tell me. It’s no skin off my nose, I just wanted to make sure you’re okay. I don’t think you’ve taken a day off since I’ve known you.”

  “Fair enough,” I sighed and buried my hands in my hair. Having had some time to think about what I did, I wasn’t proud of heading to New York the way I had without telling Marissa about it. “I went to New York to see Marissa’s ex.”

  His eyebrows nearly jumped off his brow. “You did what?”

  I explained the basics about the videos Dad had left for me and how he had assigned the task to make things right for Marissa. When I was done, I rubbed my eyes with my thumb and finger. “I wasn’t expecting my dad to make me do something like that. Truth be told, I have no idea why I went along with it immediately either. I was just so fucking pissed. I mean, this guy used to be my friend.”

  “I’m assuming Marissa wasn’t enchanted either?” Craig asked, the look in his eyes telling me he already knew the answer.

  I formed a gun with my hand and pretended to pull the trigger. “Bingo.”

  His brow furrowed, his hand lifting to his chin to scratch his beard. “If your dad’s first video was about business and this plan he had laid out for you, I just don’t see where this fits in. How does going to New York to speak to Brice help your business?”

  I lifted my shoulders, releasing a bunch of air. “I have no idea, that’s the question isn’t it? I’m sure there will be more videos. I just hope he ties this elaborate plan of his together with a neat bow by the end of it.”

  Craig nodded. “Yeah, me too, man. Me too. What are you planning to do about Brice now? It doesn’t sound like New York went very well.”

  “I thought the same thing, but at least he knows now that he didn’t get off scot free and that he’s not going to. One way or another, I’ll make sure that he pays for what he has done.”

  Craig frowned. “What are you going to do?”

  “Nothing,” I said, as much as it pained me to do so. If it were up to me, I would already have sued the fucker and once I won the case, there would still have been hell to pay. “It’s not up to me, though. I won’t go after him again or do a single fucking thing unless Marissa tells me to.”

  She claimed not to want anything to do with Brice. Just like I expected, he’d threatened her with his legal mumbo-jumbo and convinced her she couldn’t win.

  Knowing Marissa though, I suspected it wasn’t so much his threats but her own determination to raise Annie alone that kept her from going after him. So far, she was doing a hell of a job with her daughter. She didn’t want Brice’s help or money, or mine for that matter.

  I respected her enough not to go against her wishes on this one. Which meant that for now, my hands were tied. Life works in mysterious ways though. Something deep inside told me it wasn’t over yet.

  Chapter 60

  Marissa

  “Are you ready for some awesome mom and daughter bonding time today?” I asked Annie as I helped her settle into the car.

  She clapped her hands and nodded, her head bouncing up and down so hard I wasn’t sure if she could stop nodding if she wanted to. “What are we going to do today?”

  Since Layton gave me the day off, I returned the favor with Denise—especially because she was already taking Annie again tomorrow—and decided to spend some quality time just with Annie. It wasn’t something we got to do often enough.

  Between work, school, my dresses, Annie’s activities and Denise’s schedule, we had precious little time to just relax and spend time together as mother and daughter. “Well, for starters I thought we could go to the aquarium. We’ve been meaning to go since we moved here, I thought it was time we finally did it,” I said, glancing at her in the rear view mirror as I slipped into the driver’s seat of our car.

  Annie’s reaction was even more priceless than I’d been expecting it to be. She grinned so wide I could see the gaps between her teeth and cheeks, as she bounced up and down in her booster seat. “Do you know if they have a Touch Tank there? Can I hold a starfish mommy? Can I?”

  “A starfish and a hermit crab,” I told her, returning her smile with one of my own.

  At the mention of the hermit crab, Annie shuddered and frowned a little. “I don’t know if I want to hold a crab. They have pincers, you know. Pincers pinch. Ouch.”

  Chuckling as I started the car, I said, “I don’t think they would let kids hold them if they were going to hurt you.”

  Annie considered this, but still shook her head. “I think I’ll just hold the starfish instead.”

  “Whatever you want, sweetie. Today is just about us, we can do whatever we want to do.” Several of Annie’s friends had visited the aquarium before and had told her all about it. She chatted to me all the way there, relaying stories about sharks and turtles and one about her friend’s dad who missed a step and had to go to the first aid station to have his ankle wrapped.

  She told me the story from start to finish, including how the dad loved cycling and how sad her friend was that they weren’t able to go cycling together that next weekend. “They go every weekend, mommy. It’s their thing and they couldn’t do it.”

  Heart wrenching sadness flashed in her eyes. It was only there for a moment, but it bugged me. Was she sad because her friend hadn’t been able to go cycling with her dad for one weekend, or because she never would?

  When we arrived at the aquarium, my worry faded at the sight of the bright signs and huge buildings. The ‘dad issue’ would be there for me to fret over later. This time with Annie wouldn’t be. Putting it out of my mind, I focused on finding parking.

  It wasn’t as busy as I heard it could get on weekends. I was glad we were visiting on a Friday morning, before the crowds really descended. I bought time to tickets on the aquarium’s website last night for several of the attractions that apparently usually filled up fast if you didn’t book in advance.

  “We’re going to see a penguin feeding, harbor seal training, and even divers descending into the ocean tank later,” I told Annie as we joined the throng of locals and tourists alike, and headed inside.

  She let out a little squeal and her hand gripped mine, her eyes widening to the size of saucers as she tried to take in everything going on around her. “I’ve never seen anything like this, Mommy.”

  I agreed, pausing in the crowded lobby to take a map and an information pamphlet from a woman wearing a plastic shark fin on her head. She smiled and handed them over. “Welcome to the New England Aquarium. We hope you’ll enjoy your day with us. If you need any help, anyone wearing this uniform should be able to point you in the right direction.”

  “Thank you, I told her, my head swiveling to take in the gigantic tanks lining the walls and the cylindrically shaped ones positioned all over the room. The lights in the aquarium were dim, except for the purple and blue lights shining in and on the tanks themselves. It gave an otherworldly feel to the place and I shivered, grasping Annie’s hand a bit tighter.

  I was glad we were doing this together. Experiencing things like this together was making memories I knew I would cherish forever.

  Annie tugged my hand and led me towards one of the cylinders in the center of the room holding thousands of tiny jellyfish. She gaped at them, marveling at how they shimmered in the light, almost transparent in the water.

  I looked around the room to try and get my bearings, opening the map I had been given to see which one of the numerous hallways we should walk down first. Reading from the informational pamphlet which I opened along with the map, I told Annie, “They have three different kinds of penguins, plus sharks and sea turtles along with exotic lion fish and sea dragons. What do you want to see first?”

  “P
enguins!” Annie exclaimed without any hesitation.

  I smiled, took her hand again and once I located the penguin habitat on the map, led her in that direction. The penguins were adorable and we stayed with them for nearly half an hour. It turned out that our timing for visiting the habitat was good, as it was also nearly time for the penguin feeding I had booked tickets for.

  Soon we were shuffling along with all the other ticket holders to metal bleachers set up along the far side of the enclosure. Annie and I had seats right near the front and her eyes were glued on the aquarium employees as they came out with buckets of fish and started explaining the feeding.

  When we were done there, Annie was entranced with the penguins and had decided that she wanted to work in the aquarium when she grew up. The harbor seal training presentation was next and once it was done, she had changed her tune slightly and announced, “When I grow up, I’m going to be a seal trainer, Mommy.”

  “You can be whatever you want to be, honey,” I said, squeezing her hand as I smiled down at her. “I think being a seal trainer could be really fun.”

  To me, the showstopper of the aquarium was the four-story Giant Ocean Tank showing off the colorful inhabitants of its Caribbean coral reef. We watched the divers descending into the tank and when Annie told me she wanted to learn how to dive one day, I agreed wholeheartedly.

  The aquarium took up most of our morning and a bit of the early afternoon. By the time we were done, we were both ravenous so we headed for lunch at the Chowda Co. at Quincy Market nearby.

  The atmosphere in the restaurant was great and the food was even better. We had their signature seafood chowder, which was everything chowder should be. It was monstrously thick, intensely creamy and full of clams.

  Annie and I laughed and talked about the aquarium all through lunch, absolutely in awe of all we had seen. In some ways, I was adventurous, but I preferred to be adventurous with both feet planted firmly on the ground.