Park Avenue Player by Vi Keeland
Chapter 8
Hollis
“Anna’s home!” Squawk! “Anna’s home!” Squawk! “Anna’s home!”
Just once, I wanted to come home to a different fucking greeting.
I tossed my suit jacket on the round table near the front door and walked into the kitchen. The apartment smelled damn good. “Where did you order from?”
“Hello, Hollis.” Elodie flashed me an obviously fake smile. “Did anyone ever tell you it’s customary to greet someone before you start barking at them?”
“Did anyone ever tell you you’re a pain in the ass?”
“They have, actually.”
I waited for her to answer my question about ordering in, but of course, she didn’t. Because she’s a pain in my ass. Instead, she folded her arms across her chest and perked one brow.
I sighed. “Hello, Elodie. Where did you order food from?”
“I didn’t. I cooked.”
Well, that was a surprise. “You can cook?”
“We all can cook. But I happen to be good at it. It’s one of my many hidden talents.” She winked before turning around, grabbing a potholder, and opening the oven door.
The smell of something spicy wafted through the air, and she gave me a nice view of her ass as she bent to take out whatever smelled good. I started to salivate, and I wasn’t sure whether it was the aroma or the view.
My eyes were still glued to her rear end when she set the casserole dish on top of the stove, and I almost got caught when she turned back around.
Fuck. I definitely need to get laid.
I cleared my throat. “What is that?”
“Cajun shrimp and quinoa casserole. The shrimp was on sale, and Hailey said it was one of her favorites.”
“I didn’t even realize she ate shrimp.”
She tilted her head. “Did you ask her what she liked to eat?”
I must’ve. Hadn’t I?Fuck if I knew.
I cleared my throat. “You don’t have to cook. I left you a credit card to order in.”
“I know. I used it for the groceries. And also at the drug store. Hailey needed some feminine products. Hope you don’t mind.”
“No, of course not. Thank you for doing that.”
“Hailey likes cooking. I don’t have too many great memories of my parents, but the afternoons when my mom and I cooked together were some of my favorite days.”
I wanted to be a dick to this woman, but she made it hard to be when she showed a vulnerable side. I nodded. “Where’s Hailey?”
“In her room finishing up her math homework.”
“Impressive. She usually does that at nine o’clock at night in front of the living room television.”
“That’s because you let her do that.”
I loosened my tie. “I pick and choose my battles.”
Elodie pointed to the casserole dish. “That needs to cool for ten minutes before you serve it. I’m just going to go say goodbye to Hailey.”
She disappeared and came out with my niece a few minutes later. Hailey had her wild hair pulled back in two pretty braids. It made her look younger and tamed.
“Hello, Hailey. How was your day?”
My eyes darted to Elodie and back, and she smiled as I did what she’d asked—greet Hailey.
I guessed maybe it really wasn’t something I normally did, because my niece’s face wrinkled up in confusion. “Hi, Uncle Hollsy.”
“How was your day today?”
“Uhhh…fine?”
“It wasn’t a trick question.”
“Then why are you acting so weird?”
Elodie chuckled. “Hailey, honey, why don’t you go wash up? Your uncle is going to walk me out, and then you guys can have your dinner. The dish is really hot, so wait for him. Don’t try to serve yourself.”
“Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow, right?”
Hailey sounded nervous that Elodie might not come back.
“Of course. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Elodie waited until Hailey went into the bathroom and then nodded her head toward the front door. “Would you mind walking me out?”
“Sure.”
In the hallway, she pushed the elevator button before turning to me. “If Hailey and I are going to connect, I can’t reveal the things she tells me. Unless, of course, it’s something dangerous.”
“Okay…”
“But maybe…sometimes I can direct you to discover things on your own.”
“What is this about?”
The elevator dinged, and the doors slid open. “Borrow her laptop. Tell her yours is having an issue or something.”
“Okay, but what for? What am I looking for?”
She stepped into the elevator and reached over to push a button on the panel. “By the way, I’m not always abrasive. Just when I encounter rude people.” The doors started to slide closed, and Elodie flashed a last-minute playful smile. “But I am always hot.”
What the fuck?
***
I ate half the damn casserole.
And the dinner conversation wasn’t too bad either. While normally Hailey complained about everything and everyone she’d encountered during the day, tonight she couldn’t stop talking about the new sitter.
“Did you know Elodie likes to paint?”
“No, I didn’t. But that’s great. You two have a lot in common then.”
“She was married, you know.”
“Yes, I did know that.”
“Her husband was an art professor. They went to Paris on their honeymoon, and she went to the Louvre.”
“An art professor, huh?” Now that I didn’t know, and definitely not what I would have expected.
“She’s going to take me to MOMA during summer break.”
“I think that’s a great idea.”
The twenty-minute conversation we had over dinner might have been the best twenty minutes I’d spent with her since she showed up on my doorstep two months ago. Hailey even helped clean up and load the dishwasher, and after, we watched a little TV together.
By nine thirty, she was starting to fall asleep on the couch.
“Hey, kiddo. Why don’t you go get ready for bed?”
She yawned. “Okay.”
I gave her a little time to use the bathroom, and then knocked before opening her door. She was already in bed, but the light was still on.
“You want the light off?”
“Yeah.”
I went to hit the light switch, and my eyes landed on the dresser along the same wall. The laptop I’d given Hailey was sitting on top, and I remembered what Elodie had said.
“Ummm… Do you mind if I borrow your laptop? I forgot mine at the office and need to write a few emails.”
“Sure.”
“Thanks.” I took it and felt a miniscule amount of guilt for lying when she’d been so nice all night. “Goodnight, Hailey.”
“Goodnight, Uncle Hollis.”
I went into my home office and poured two fingers of scotch. Settling into my chair, I opened the laptop and started to poke around. Nothing looked unusual. Then again, I had no idea what the hell I was looking for. Elodie hadn’t given me any direction. I opened Word and checked what documents had been recently used, and then checked the Internet search history. Nothing odd. I was just about to give up when I decided to go into the applications folder and see if anything new had been installed.
Bingo.
What the hell?
The call-monitoring software I’d installed on her cell and my laptop was also on her computer, and I sure as shit hadn’t put it there. I clicked and noted the time of the latest sign in—last night at nine thirty.
Fuck me.
I shut my eyes and shook my head. I’d been on the phone with Lucas, a buddy of mine. The last thing Elodie had said before the elevator doors closed—about her being abrasive and hot—made sense now. Because that’s exactly what I’d told Lucas about the new damn nanny.
***
Damn. I took a deep whiff. I was going to need to add some cardio to my exercise routine if this cooking shit kept up. I walked into the dining room and found Elodie and Hailey playing Scrabble.
“What did you make tonight?”
Elodie looked at me and waited.
What was her problem?
Oh. Shit. Fine.
I nodded. “Hello, Elodie. What did you cook for dinner tonight? It smells good in here.”
She smiled. “Hello, Hollis. Thank you. We made sauce, with meatballs and sausage.”
“You keep this up, and I’m going to have to spend an extra hour at the gym.”
Elodie’s eyes did a quick sweep down my body, but she didn’t comment. Instead her eyes returned to Hailey. “Why don’t you slide the game down the table, and we’ll finish it up another day?”
The Scrabble board was half full, and I read one of the words spelled out with the tiles.
Youniverse?“Uhhh… Is that supposed to be universe?”
My niece smiled. “Nope. Y-O-U-niverse. It’s a person who’s full of themselves and thinks the world revolves around them.”
My forehead wrinkled. I read another word on the board.
Carcolepsy? “What the hell is carcolepsy?”
Hailey answered again. “It’s what an annoying passenger who falls asleep as soon as they get in the car with you has.”
I read another. “Snoot?”
“It’s the dirty, sooty looking snot that comes out of your nose after you’ve been playing in dirt.”
“Internest?”
“The big pile of blankets you bury yourself in when you don’t feel like getting out of bed and you spend the day surfing the Web.”
I chuckled. “Interesting Scrabble game.”
Elodie stood. “It’s more fun to play with made-up words.”
“If you say so.”
Hailey pushed the board game down to the end of the table, and Elodie went to the kitchen. She took the lid off a pot and stirred. “It’s ready when you are. There’s angel hair pasta in the cabinet to have with it. You just need to boil water.”
“Thank you. If it’s half as good as the shrimp thing you made last night, I’ll be in a food coma by eight.”
Elodie smiled. “Well, I made extra since we won’t have time to cook tomorrow.”
“Do you guys have other plans or something?”
Her smile wilted to a frown. “Tomorrow is the year-end family picnic.”
“The what?”
She walked past me and into the dining room. “Hailey? Did you forget to tell your uncle about the picnic at school?”
My niece shrugged. “I didn’t think he’d want to go.”
Elodie sighed. “It starts at three o’clock, right after school.”
Great. Smack in the middle of the damn day. I had to check my calendar, but I was pretty sure I had a meeting at four. My face must’ve given away that the time wasn’t exactly convenient.
“It’s fine,” Hailey said. “Elodie is going to come. You don’t have to.”
Well, now I felt like a dick. “No, of course I’ll be there.”
Elodie told Hailey to go finish her homework, and the two of them said goodbye.
“I’ll walk you out,” I said.
Just like yesterday, we waited until we were in the hallway and out of earshot from prying ears.
“Thank you for the heads-up about the cell phone software.”
She nodded. “What are you going to do about it?”
“I closed my account, so neither of us can listen to each other’s calls anymore. Since she hasn’t brought it up, I think I’m going to leave it be and see if we can just move on.”
Elodie pushed the button to call the elevator. “I think that might be best. Can I ask what you were hoping to hear by listening in on her conversations?”
“After I found out my brother was in prison, I told her where he was. I didn’t want her thinking the worst. She asked if she could talk to him, so I put some money on a prisoner calling account so my loser brother could call his kid.” I shook my head. “I don’t know what I was hoping to hear when he called.”
Elodie smiled. “I can understand why you’d do it, of course. But you’re going to have to have a little trust in her, if you want her to have a little trust in you. We haven’t talked about him yet, but I’m sure she’s angry at her father for abandoning her and getting himself in trouble. I’m guessing she also feels like there’s no one in this world she can depend on and trust.”
I blew out a deep breath. “And her finding out I was doing shit behind her back just added to that.”
She nodded and the doors slid open. “You’ll get there. Look at how well you’re doing with using words for greetings already.”
I chuckled. “How come you can let things slide with Hailey, but you have to call me out on everything?”
She stepped into the elevator and pushed the button on the panel. “For the same reason Hailey and I get along. We both want to make all men pay for the sins of others.”
The doors started to slide closed, but Elodie jabbed a button on the panel to keep them open.
“We’ve discussed Hailey’s father, but you never mentioned why her mom is no longer in the picture. What exactly happened there?”
I frowned. “She died when Hailey was two. Hailey doesn’t remember her at all. Which is for the best, considering she’s the one who found her.”
