Page 39 of Grumpy Ex's Secret Baby

More guilt crept in when I thought about Tyson. He should have been here to see her reaction. I shouldn’t have been sending him a video when he could have been here.

Trinity laughed as she raced around the front yard in the car. She was talking to herself and squealing as she drove. When she ran over flowers, she started cackling. I watched as she got out of the car and picked the dead flowers, throwing them in the back of the car before taking off again.

I ended the video and sent it to Tyson, waiting for a reply. When none came through after a few minutes, I tucked my phone in my pocket and tried to focus on Trinity and her playing.

“Why the long face?” Bret asked as he sat down beside me on the front step.

“It feels wrong not to have Tyson here to see this. He was the one that bought her the car.”

“And you told him that he couldn’t be here?” Bret said, wrapping his arm around my shoulders. “I love you, Haley, but you have got to be the dumbest bitch I know sometimes.”

I laughed and leaned into his embrace. “I have no clue how I’m going to navigate any of this. I never thought this through, and now that it’s happening, it seems like all I’m doing is making the wrong choice.”

“Then maybe you should start making the right choice.”

“You make that sound like it’s so easy.”

Bret liked to make it sound like I was overcomplicating the situation, and maybe I was. It could have been as simple as opening my home to Tyson and letting him in, but I didn’t want it to be that simple. I didn’t think it could be that simple.

Not when we had a child, and an old relationship filled with hurt was still involved in the equation.

“Just do the opposite of what you keep thinking you should do,” Bret said, running his fingers through my hair. “Haley, you’re a good mom, but you’re protecting her against the wrong person.”

“I know. At this point, I’m the one I should be protecting her from.”

“That’s not true either, Hales. You just need to stop being such a control freak.”

I snorted and stood up, dodging Trinity in her car as I walked across the yard to go get the mail. Thankfully, there was nothing in there.

As I was reading a flyer, a black van pulled up in front of my house. Several men got out of the van, and all of them looked like they could have been killers in another life. For a second, I thought about grabbing Trinity and running inside until I saw the name of a security company printed on the side of the van.

“Haley?” the largest of the men asked as he approached the fence that surrounded my yard. “I’m Rush, and this here is my team. We’re here to install your security system.”

“Come in then,” I said, glancing at Trinity. She kept her eyes glued to the men entering the yard with boxes of supplies, even as she drove in circles around them.

“We’ll get to work, and we should be out of your hair in a few hours,” Rush said before starting to circle around my property.

Bret got up and followed him, already starting to irritate them with questions. I rolled my eyes, amused at his interest but wanting him to leave the men alone so they could do their job.

“Momma,” Trinity said as her car came to a stop in front of me. “Can I have lunch?”

I laughed and nodded. “Sure, let’s go inside, and we can make you some lunch while those men put up some fancy cameras outside.”

“Cameras?” Trinity asked as she climbed out of her car and took my hand.

“Yeah, cameras. They’ll watch you while you’re playing.”

Trinity nodded like it made perfect sense. I was glad that she was too young to understand what was happening. Instead, all she cared about was getting her lunch and going back out to play with her car.

I wished that my life was as simple as eating and driving around. It would make everything less complicated.

***

After the team finished installing the system, I was given a bunch of lessons on how to work it. The system barely made sense, but by the time Rush and his men left, I had a little understanding of how to set everything up and take it down.

“You’re going to leave me a manual for this, right?” I asked Rush as I walked him to the front door.

“Of course,” he said, reaching into the bag he carried and pulling out a book. “This book has everything that you need to know. If there’s something that you have a question about, we also have a twenty-four-hour call line.”

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