It must be love

Chapter 3

Nigel

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful which was saying a lot since it was a constant hustle and bustle around here. When the clock struck two, I left the office to pick Kayla up from preschool then drove to the airport since Jen's cousin's flight was said to arrive in an hour.

"How was your day princess?" I asked an uncharacteristically quiet Kayla as we hit the highway towards Logan International.

"Fine" she mumbled and I looked into the rear-view mirror and saw how upset she looked. I frowned wondering what may have caused the upset because normally when she came from school she was like an energizer bunny and would tell me all about how her day went, what she learned and the things her friend got up to, then afterwards she would ask about my day and then proceed to interrupt almost every sentence.

"What's wrong princess?"

"Why I don't have a mommy?" She asked adorably mixing up her sentence. I felt like the wind just got knocked out of me. Kayla had never asked me about her mother, therefore I was woefully unprepared for the question.

My silence prompted her to continue,“Penny in my class say that my mommy don't want me."

I clenched my jaw so tight and my knuckles turned white from the tight grip I hand on the steering wheel. This Penny girl must have heard this crap from her parents because there was no way a four year old could say such a thing without having not heard it somewhere.

"Kayla, your mother loves you. She just can't be with you right now because she’s uh… doing stuff.” I fumbled with what to say, I once again looked at her in the rear-view mirror and saw how adorably confused she looked. "What I'm trying to say is, your mom is helping people right now but she'll be here for you soon."

"Helping like The Flash?” She perked up and I found myself nodding and she sat back in her car seat looking so damn pleased that her mom was like some superhero and in that moment my hate for Tracy intensified. I hated lying to my daughter but dammit I had no clue on what to say.

"We can get ice cream later." I suggested, trying to distract her from the topic as she started throwing more questions at me.

"Yay!" she squealed clapping her hands excitedly.

I pulled into the parking area of the Airport and got Kayla out of the car seat and the two of us went in to look for Ava who I have never seen before; despite Jen being in our family for over eight years. Reason being that Ava had been living in San Francisco with her parents then went off to follow a modelling career. Seriously, what is it with people and these damn modelling careers?

"I need to pee." Kayla wiggled in my arms as we stood in the arrivals section, we had been looking for Ava for the past ten minutes and have come up empty, it would help if I knew what she looked like but I don't, all I’ve ever seen were old pictures with Jen in them and I was pretty sure that she didn't look the same as she did 20 years ago.

"Okay let's get you to the bathroom." I said to Kayla who was still wiggling about in my arms.

I walked to the bathrooms and went inside, not caring whether it was a female toilet there was no way I was letting my girl go in there alone, after she was done I helped her wash her hands and walked out ignoring the glares from the women in there.

When we rounded the corner I saw a blonde with sunglasses on her head standing alone looking around as if searching for someone, could it be Ava? I started making my way towards her with Kayla in my arms and her face buried in my chest then I froze as the blonde turned in my direction.

My God, she was beautiful. I was immediately awestruck at her beauty, she looked to be about 5'8 with long flowly blonde hair and was curvaceous, nothing like the models I’ve seen before. I was transfixed but came out of it when I heard Kayla yawn.

I looked down and saw her eyes fluttering shut, my baby girl was tired. This prompted me to put my ass in gear and look for Ava so we can get out of here and I can put Kayla down for an afternoon nap which normally wasn't such a great idea because getting her to sleep at night proved to be a nightmare.