Denver flops over the side of the bed, hanging his head down. “Don’t be sorry,” he says, staring down at me. “You’re adorable.”
“I’m mortified for you.”
“She comes with the territory of owning the title of a single dad.”
“I should have locked your door,” I tell him.
“I should have locked my door,” he says. “There are no boundaries with Aya. I’m lucky if I can go to the bathroom without her trying to storm the door down.”
“Oh,” I say, unsure what else to respond with. There was never much privacy in our house either, but Lea and I are both girls and closer in age, obviously. “Does she wake you up a lot?”
“No, she’s probably just having a tough time, being the first night in this house.”
“Probably.” I’d happily go in there and comfort her, but she should not know I’m still here. That would cause a whole lot of unnecessary questions.
“I’ll be right back, beautiful. Get into that bed.”
My car is still in the driveway, right outside of Aya’s bedroom. Oh no.
“Kai!”
You have got to be kidding me. What the hell am I supposed to do right now? I can assume Denver doesn’t want to get into detail with Aya about us, especially not yet with everything so new. She mentioned her plan of finding a new mom. It broke my heart, and the last thing I’d want is to start something with Denver, have it end, and hurt her. I should have thought this all through better.
Dammit. I grab my dress from around the side of the bed and slip it over my head. I find my panties and shoes and put myself back together, debating if I should run or continue hiding out.
Chapter Nineteen
Denver
“I’m so sorry about that. Thanks for not responding when Aya yelled out for you—” I look around the room, making my way over to the other side of the bed since that’s where I left her, but as I feared, she’s not here. “Kai?”
I head back into the hall and jog down the unfamiliar stairs in the dark. I don’t hear anything, and I wouldn’t think she’d be walking around downstairs in the dark anyway, but I can’t figure out where she went. I look out the front window, and a wave of rejection hits me when I notice her Jeep is gone. She left.
I spot my phone on the entryway table where I left it after I walked in earlier. I search through my recently made calls for Kai’s number since I never saved it in my phone after Aya called her.
Three rings and no answer. Did I do something? Maybe it was Aya, and it’s too much for her. Being a single dad to a seven-year-old daughter is baggage but nothing I’m ashamed of or hide. I would embrace a permanent single-ever-after for Aya in a heartbeat if that’s what she needed from me, but she’s made it clear she wants me to find someone.
I haven’t made a big effort to find the “right” person after Isla left. Her abandonment hurt me, but the pain it put Aya through was more than I can consider putting her through again. Of course, Aya’s already attached to Kai, which means I have to deal with this one way or another, but not until I find out what’s wrong and if I fucked up.
Her phone continues to ring on the other end and then goes to her voicemail. Normally, I’m not the voicemail type, but it feels necessary if there’s any hope of Kai hearing me out at the moment. I listen to her sweet voice on the recorded message before the beep stings my ear.
“Kai, I hope I didn’t do anything to upset or embarrass you in any way. I guess I should have warned you more about Aya and how life gets interrupted more often than it did before I had her, but I didn’t think to mention it, I guess. In any case, please call me back when you get this.”
I hang up the phone and check the display for any new messages before heading back up the stairs to my lonely bedroom. What the fuck?
The good part about working night shifts is having the daytime free, but I have tonight off too because Aya and I are supposed to go to the hotel’s luau to watch Kai. She never called me back, though, so now I don’t know what’s what.
“Are you full?” I ask Aya as she finishes the eggs I made for her.
She nods her head yes but doesn’t say anything else. Her silence is giving me a headache this morning. I don’t know what she knows or what she doesn’t know, but she looks upset and won’t tell me why.
“I have an idea,” I tell Aya. She looks up at me after scraping her fork around her plate. “Do you want to go to the kids’ club at the hotel? I think I saw they have a painting activity today.”
“Okay,” she mutters. “I’ll go get dressed.”
She slides her seat back across the tiled floor and scuffles to the stairs, stomping all the way up, then slams her door. Women are going to be the death of me.
I’ve been up since five, so I’m showered and dressed, just waiting on Aya now. This isn’t how I was expecting the first couple of weeks post-Marine Corps to be. Aya isn’t adjusting, and I don’t know what to do to fix it. Maybe I should just go back to Oahu and try to put life back the way it was somehow. Of course, I just signed a year lease with this house, so that’s going to be hard. Maybe moving in the summer wasn’t a good idea because Aya has no friends or school. I can’t win.
