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“You don’t have to tell me, and sorry if this brings the mood down, but I was curious about something.” I pause, nervously playing with the strands of my hair. “You sounded oddly offended when your father asked if you were working for me.”

“Ah,” he says, scratching his jaw and looking uncomfortable. “It’s not––I wouldn’t have a problem working for you. I mean, I am basically working for you, although it’s mostly unpaid labor.” He jokes, and I can tell he’s trying to keep it light. “My dad was trying to insinuate something with that question.”

I frown, still confused. But I stay quiet, not wanting to push.

“Okay,” Hayden says, sitting up taller and rubbing his hands together. “I’m going to tell you something, but you can’t tell anyone else.”

I nod, slightly taken aback by his serious tone.

“I trust you, obviously. I just want to emphasize that this is something nobody knows.”

“I won’t tell anyone,” I say, reaching over to take his hand again.

He gives me small smile and squeezes my hand. “So … I bet you’ve gathered that something happened that made me leave all those years ago.” He waits for me to nod before he continues. “When I was sixteen, I stopped by my father’s office one night. I had to print a school assignment, and our printer at home was out of ink. We had a backup key for his office at home, so I didn’t tell anyone and simply went. Not to go into too much detail, but when I arrived, I caught my dad with his assistant,” he says, his face scrunched up in disgust. “They noticed me, and I ran, but my dad followed me and threatened me. He told me not tell anyone, saying I would destroy the whole family and the business. And so I kept quiet. I hated it. I hated seeing him and knowing he was sleeping with a twenty-year-old woman. Yup. Twenty,” he says when he notices my incredulous look. “That’s when I started acting out, not caring about what anyone said. My dad tried to reprimand me, but since I knew his secret, he didn’t have much power over me. A few weeks later, he fired his assistant, and she mysteriously disappeared for good. I continued being a delinquent, as he so kindly called it, until Jon let me work at his garage.” He smiles at me weakly, his eyes full of sadness.

“I’m sorry. You must’ve felt awful. And that’s why you left?”

“Sorta. I couldn’t stand living here anymore, in a place where everyone idolizes my dad. Where the guilt about keeping his affair a secret was eating me alive. But that’s not all.” He sighs.

“What do you mean?”

“A few months before I graduated, I kept thinking about his young assistant. How and why she disappeared. I mean, the secret never came out, so why? So, I went back to my dad’s office and went through some old files and found her name. I managed to figure out where she moved to after she left. I felt this weird need to see if she was okay, so when I graduated, I took a trip to New Mexico, where she lived.”

“New Mexico,” I echo, things slowly falling into place in my mind.

“I didn’t plan to move there. I just wanted to see how she was doing. I felt like such a creep,” he mutters, shaking his head, “but it’s surprisingly easy to find someone’s address if you know their full name.”

“And you found her? Talked to her?”

He nods. “That’s when I found out that she didn’t willingly leave. My dad forced her, paid her off so she’d disappear. All because she was pregnant.”

My eyes widen in shock, and Hayden chuckles humorlessly.

“Yeah, once she was pregnant, she became a liability to him. So, he made her leave. It was his own kid, but he didn’t want her.”

“Her?”

“Yeah. I have a sister. A half-sister. Her name is Mira. I was going to move away from here regardless, but that’s why I chose New Mexico. I wanted to be around her. I wanted to be a part of my sister’s life, especially since I felt like I lost the rest of my family. Sarah, her mom, was wary at first. She didn’t want another reminder of my dad.”

“Wow,” I say, adoring Hayden even more now than before. “I assume she let you be part of her daughter’s life?”

“Yeah, once she realized I hated my father as much as she did, we bonded really fast. It might sound odd that I befriended the woman my dad had an affair with, but she was a victim in all of it. She’s basically like a sister to me as well. And that’s why I left that day at the florist. Sarah called and said that Mira got injured. I could’ve told you that my friend was in the hospital, but I’ve been so protective over them the last few years that I didn’t want to risk it.”

“Thanks for telling me now,” I say, leaning over to brush one of his curly locks out of his face. “I promise you, on the life of Mort, I won’t tell a soul.”

“I know. I trust you.”

“I’m glad you have a family there. I know it’s still hard that you’re estranged from your family here, but I’m happy you have your sister.”

“Me too. To be honest, it was super weird at first. Sarah was a stranger, and my sister was so young, and I was like, what does one do with a human that can’t really talk?”

“I’m kinda weird around kids, so I get that.”

“You’re much better around corpses, I guess?” His eyes twinkle with amusement.

“Why does everyone think I hang out with corpses all day?” I say, laughing. “I work the front desk. I don’t see the bodies.”

He smiles, but then his face turns serious again. “I cannot believe my mom knew all this time. I’ve been carrying this guilt around for years, and it turns out she knew all along. Why would she stay with him? And does she not care that he abandoned a kid? I don’t get it.”