Page 14 of The Oscar Escape
The thought of staying in one place sent a ripple of panic through his chest.
“Do you think you’ll ever settle down?” Inez pressed.
He parted his lips, unsure how to answer, when another call came in—a call from his little sister. “Inez, I need to go. It’s Ivy.”
“I understand. See you soon,” she replied smoothly.
See you soon?She had to have misspoken. But he didn’t have time to worry about Inez’s slip of the tongue.
It was almost eleven on the East Coast and nearly nine p.m. where his sister was in Denver. It was an hour past her bedtime. And it was a school night. Ivy wasn’t one for breaking the rules. This had to be important. He studied the screen. She was trying to connect via video call. That sure as hell couldn’t happen. She’d ask too many questions.
He answered in audio-only mode. “Hey, Ives, what are you still doing up? Shouldn’t you be asleep?”
Situated between two frilly powder-pink dresses, he’d pin-pointed the child’s location. He couldn’t help but chuckle as she sank deeper into her closet, looking like she was being swallowed by a crush of tulle and velvet. She wiggled behind the row of dresses as a few stray strands of her auburn hair swept across her face. She scrunched up her nose and blinked her blue eyes, then wiped at the hairs like she was removing cobwebs in a haunted house.
He bit back a grin. “Are you okay, Ives?”
She leaned in, and all he could see were the freckles dusting her nose and cheeks. “I can’t see you, Ozzy Bear.”
Ozzy Bear.
He was a hulk of a man. Usually, he sported a perma-frown that said don’t even think of fucking with me, but damn, to hear his sweet little sis call him Ozzy Bear sent a much-needed rush of warmth through his body.
“Something is wrong with my phone,” he lied, and the heartening heat that had brought him a moment of comfort cooled. He’d been doing a decent amount of lying tonight. He stared at his sister. It was good to see her face. “What’s important is that I can see you, Ives. Did you lose another tooth? Is that why you’re calling so late?”
Ivy held her phone in front of her wide-open mouth. He couldn’t see a damn thing.
“Yep, a big one on the bottom. I lost it last week. I emailed you a picture. Did you see it?”
Shit!He hadn’t even looked at his email in fourteen days. “Not yet—I’m in the middle of a work project and haven’t had a lot of internet access.”
Another lie.
“But I’m not calling you about my teeth, Ozzy Bear.”
He concentrated on his sister’s image. “Did something happen? Are you okay?”
The little girl blinked her big blue eyes. “I miss you.”
Ivy’s admission hit like a punch to the gut.
“I saw you a couple of weeks ago,” he stammered. “Remember, you showed me your new pink scooter?”
“Yeah, but your brain was somewhere else.”
“What do you mean?”
“Anytime I’d ask you something, you’d nod your head. You barely said a word. Tula said adults do that when they’re thinking about something that takes up every drop of brain energy. She knows a lot about energy because she does yoga with her mom.”
Tula Cress was Sebastian’s little sister and Ivy’s best friend, and evidently, little Tula had his number. He’d had a hell of a lot on his mind for the last few months.
Feeling like he deserved that box of dog shit Inez had threatened him with, he released a pained breath. “I’m sorry about being preoccupied. I promise I’ll make it up to you. But I’m listening now, Ives. I’m all ears. Tell me why you called.”
A wide grin stretched across the kid’s face. “It’s super important. It’s about your birthday. I made you a present, and I made one for Aria, too, because her birthday is the day before your birthday.”
He flinched at the mention of their birthdays, but he couldn’t let on that the day only brought him pain. “That was kind of you. Is it a secret, or can you tell me what it is?”
Ivy pursed her lips and frowned. “It’s a surprise. Surprises are okay. If you want to surprise someone, it means you’ll tell them the truth, eventually. Secrets get people hurt. I learned that at school.”
