It was intimate talking to Hudson on the phone. The house was dark and quiet. It was just him and me.
"Did you ever get a tree?" His deep voice resonated in my chest.
I looked at our mini artificial one that was on a small table by the fireplace, feeling guilty I hadn't tried harder to make Ayla's Christmas special. "No."
"I'll drop one off tomorrow. I'm sure Ayla wants to pick one out herself, but it's kind of last minute. Besides, there's something else I want to show you."
"Oh, yeah. What's that?" Was my voice low and flirty?
"Ah, ah, ah. It's a surprise."
I laughed. "Why are you surprising me?"
"I want to say it's for Ayla, but I have a feeling you'll both love this."
"Now you have me intrigued." My mind was racing with the possibilities, but I couldn't settle on one.
"You'll just have to wait and see," he said cryptically.
I smiled. "What if I don't like surprises?"
"Mmm. But Ayla does."
"And how do you know that?" I asked, enjoying this back-and-forth.
"She just seems like the kind of kid who would appreciate one."
It was nice that he'd thought about Ayla.
"What are your plans for the holidays? Are you going to be home?"
"Yes. Gus gets Ayla on the weekend."
"You get the whole holiday with her?"
"Gus willingly gives me the holidays, which is nice, but at some point, Ayla might wonder why she spends all of them with her mother. Why not her father?"
"And why is that?"
"I don't know. Holidays come with too many expectations, and he doesn't want to fulfill them. It's easier being the evening or the weekend dad. No one expects anything from you. Now, if he starts dating someone, that might change." I yawned, the late hour getting to me.
"I should let you get to bed."
"I'm wrapping presents while she's asleep. I don't want to wait and do everything on Christmas Eve."
"You make the magic happen for your daughter," he said quietly, as if he'd just come to that conclusion.
"I guess you could describe it that way."
"That makes you amazing in my book."
That hit me in the breastbone. "I always feel like I am failing at this single-parent thing."
"I doubt that Ayla has any complaints."
"Just wait until she's a teenager. I've heard it's nothing but complaints."
"Yeah, but she'll come around. That's how my sister, Aspen, was. Around tenth grade, she chilled out, and we all breathed a collective sigh of relief."
