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I was completely lost in the photos that I didn’t even hear anyone coming down the stairs or into the room until Charlie’s sharp voice hit my ears.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
I looked up at him as he slammed the photo album shut. I had no idea why he was so pissed off right now, but I didn’t appreciate it.
“What the hell is your problem?” I snapped as I pushed off from the couch.
“You have no right to go through any of my things. I made that very clear to you.”
“No, you made it very clear that you were Zoey’s parent, and I was the free help. You never said that I couldn’t look around and see photos. What the hell is the big deal?”
His reaction was way too extreme. It was just some old photos. What did it matter if I was looking at them? So what if I saw his baby pictures?
“It’s my personal property. You have no business nor right to go through any of it. You will stay out of my things,” he seethed.
“You know what? I’m too tired for this bullshit with you. It’s a fucking photo album. If you didn’t want me to see your naked ass in the tub, then you should have put them in your bedroom. Get the hell over yourself,” I told him before I stormed towards the stairs. It was too late for this shit, and now my stomach was back to being upset. It was looking like this year was going to be a lot longer than I had anticipated.
Charlie
Imademywaydown the hallway after waking Zoey up. I just passed the bathroom when I heard someone throwing up inside of it. I knew it wasn’t Zoey, and instantly, I felt like an ass. I knew last night I had been an asshole to her. When I had gotten up to check in on Zoey to make sure she was sleeping okay with being in a new house, I had noticed that Maya’s room was empty. I went downstairs to make sure she was okay, but when I saw that she had my old family photo albums, I just blacked out. I hated those albums. The only reason I brought them with us was because I couldn’t bring myself to throw them out in case a day ever came where I could look at them without feeling like my heart was going to be ripped right out of my chest. That hadn’t happened yet, and I doubted it ever would. Maybe one day Zoey would want them. She didn't know the story, and I had no idea how I was ever going to tell her. Thankfully, I didn’t have to worry about that for another ten or eleven years.
I hadn’t known that Maya wasn’t feeling great, and I felt like being a complete dick might have added to her not feeling well. She was most likely stressed by all the change. She had been through a lot before I even came into her life. Now within the past five days she had gone from sleeping in her car and barely making enough to eat to living with a man she didn’t know and his child. She was working a job she might never have wanted had circumstances been different. It was a lot, and I didn’t stop to think about how it could be physically affecting her.
I made my way down the stairs to get started on breakfast. I knew Zoey was going to be down in a minute, and she would eat before getting dressed. I made quick work of tossing in some frozen waffles. Not the best, but I still had to make her lunch, and we were a bit behind today with how tired we all had been. Once they were finished, Zoey came bouncing into the room.
“Is Maya sick?” she asked as she went and sat down at the kitchen table.
“I think she is just feeling a bit rundown. Let’s give her some space this morning, and hopefully tonight she will be feeling a bit better,” I said as I put the plate down in front of her.
“Okay Daddy. I could make her a picture in school today to help make her feel better.”
“I am sure she would love that. And is school okay?” I knew she was happy about it last night when we picked her up, but I wanted to double check and make sure that was still the case.
“It’s awesome. Everyone is really nice, and I like Ms. Belmont,” Zoey answered with a big smile, and it was a huge relief to me that she was loving her school. It was finally happening after the last three years of her feeling like she didn’t belong.
I listened as she started to talk about different things she learned about her new friends as I got to work on her lunch. By the time she finished eating and her lunch was packed, she ran up the stairs to get dressed. My phone rang, and I went over and quickly picked it up when I saw that it was Lucas calling me.
“Hey man,” I said as I answered.
“Hey, you got a minute to chat?”
“Yeah, Zoey is just getting ready for school. What do you got?” I knew he was calling me about Maya and what he was able to find.
“Nothing,” he said, sounding a bit worried and annoyed.
“Okay, but nothing is good. So why does that bother you?” Nothing was perfect. That meant she didn’t have a criminal record. I couldn’t imagine that would be a bad thing.
“Nothing is not good. Because not only does she not have a criminal record, but she also doesn’t have any record. Maya Hawke doesn’t exist. No social security card, no birth certificate, not even a library card. It’s a complete fake.”
And that would be why he was annoyed and even slightly worried. With him being a cop, his mind would already be going to the worst-case scenario. Not that I could blame him. To Lucas, Maya was a conwoman or on the run for a double murder. My mind didn’t automatically jump to that place though. Maybe because I was a bit more hopeful than Lucas.
“I kinda expected as much. I was hoping it was real and we could learn more about her, but it being a false name, not that surprising.”
“Why would you have been expecting it to be a false name? And if you thought it was a false name, why would you ever get her to agree to this farce and have her around Zoey?”
Now he was pissed and again he was a cop and saw the world very differently. He also hadn’t met Maya, so he was going off of what very little he knew and his decades of training.
“She was living in her car. It’s not a big jump to assume she would be using a false name. She’s been really nice to Zoey. She hasn’t done anything that would make me question that she was dangerous, even before I proposed this idea.”
