Page 337 of Forbidden Billionaires: Vol. 2
God.I pressed Axel's head to my chest and put my hand over his other ear. It didn't even sound like Rob was near the phone. Which meant he was screaming those words in whatever club he was in. "Tyler, can I talk to Hailey? Axel's having trouble sleeping. He needs to hear her voice."
"Put him on. I'll talk to him."
I took my hand off Axel's ear and put the phone on speaker. "Here's your daddy."
Axel looked down at the phone. "Daddy?"
"Hey, Axel. Having trouble sleeping? Do you have Bert with you? You know that whenever you have Bert with you you're not alone."
Axel hugged his stuffed animal to his chest and leaned toward the phone. "Daddy, I want Mommy," Axel said into the receiver.
Tyler laughed. "Okay. Give me one second to get her." Loud music blared through the phone as Tyler went to find her. "Hails, Penny's on the phone..."
"Why is she calling you in the middle of the night?" I heard Hailey say on the other end, cutting off Tyler's words.
"She's calling you. You gave me your phone because you didn't want to bring a purse. Axel needs you."
"Oh."
I heard the phone exchanging hands.
"Axel, what are you doing up so late?" Hailey asked. "You should be in bed."
"Mommy!" Axel grabbed the phone out of my hand. "Mommy, can you come home? I need you."
"Axel, Mommy can't come home right now. You need to go back to sleep and I'll see you in the morning."
"But...but I need the song."
There was a pause on the other end and suddenly the music died away. "Hey, Penny, can you hear me?" Hailey asked.
"Yeah," I said.
"Can you turn it off of speaker?"
"Of course." I grabbed the phone and turned it off of speaker mode and then gave it back to Axel.
"Mommy?" He pressed the phone to his ear and moved so that he was sitting on my lap. In a second a huge smile crossed his face.
I watched him as his eyes slowly drooped. He shifted so that his head could rest against the desk. And in one minute flat he was fast asleep.
I removed the phone from Axel's hand, being careful not to wake him, and put it to my ear. I was just about to say hi to Hailey when I heard her singing. Her voice was beautiful. I had never heard her sing before.
"We ain't ever getting older," Hailey sang. "You look as good as the day I met you. I forget just why I left you, I was insane." The lyrics from Closer sounded just as good as when The Chainsmokers sang it.
"Hails," I said, cutting off the song, knowing perfectly well she didn't want me to hear it.
She immediately stopped singing. "Hey." She cleared her throat. "Did he fall asleep?"
"Yeah." I smiled at Axel who was now snoring softly. "Whatever you did was exactly what he needed."
"Good. I should probably get back. Thanks for watching him, Penny."
I looked down at my laptop that was right by Axel's head. "I'm not going to publish the book." I pushed his hair off his forehead again. He really did look just like his father.
There was silence on her end.
"You're one of my best friends, Hails. So is Tyler. And I'm not going to publish it. I'm so sorry that I even wrote it in the first place. Can we please just go back to the way things were?"
