Page 106 of Hale Yes
“Sorry, Reecie.”
“Okay, I’m gonna let you go,” she says in her grown-up voice, drumming her fingers on the desktop. “I have a lot of work to do here.”
“Okay, baby girl. I love you so much.”
“I love you so mucher,” she replies sweetly and then hangs up the phone. “That was my daddy. He can be so dramatic sometimes.”
I stand and kiss the top of her head. “It’s just because he loves you so much. You’re very lucky to have a daddy like him. I’m going to get your medicine. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“Okey dokey,” she says, tipping up the tube holding the popsicle and draining it. “I hope it’s not the bubble gum flavored medicine. That one is gross.”
After I’m done, I report back in to Helix. “Gave Reece her medicine and put a sticky note on it with the time so you’ll know when to give her next dose. Warning, it’s the bubble gum flavorand she doesn’t like it, but I got her a Sprite from the vending machine to wash it down. I hope that was okay.”
He takes his gloves off and tosses them in the trash before kissing my forehead. “It’s fine. Phoenix lets her have clear sodas sometimes, and I say anything that gets her to take the medicine is okay.”
“Good because I gave her a vodka chaser afterward.”
He rolls his eyes at my ridiculousness and goes to the sink to wash up. “I’ll go check on her.”
“Phoenix called while I was in there, and she totally handled him like a champ.”
“She’s good at that,” Helix says, scrubbing his hands with the precision of a surgeon.
“And she drew me a picture of us.” I hold up the masterpiece for his viewing.
“Your boobs look great. Thank god she didn’t decide to draw me anatomically correctly.” He leans over and inspects it more closely. “Wait, am I holding a dildo?”
“It’s a test tube,” I inform him. “Also, she started calling me Auntie Nicolette. I didn’t tell her to.”
His smile is soft on my face. “It’s okay. Maybe it will be true one day.”
And with that, he dries his hands and walks out of the lab, leaving me stunned by his last sentence.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The ball-tickling brat
Helix
It’s been a month since Nicolette and I began dating out in the open. I told my father first since he’s the CEO, and then I spoke with HR to inform them that we’re in a relationship.
Relationship.That’s a word I never again thought I would use about myself, but here we are. And it’s been easier than expected. Because of her.
Nicolette isn’t pushy or clingy. I never feel pressured by her to spend time together, and that makes me want to be with her all the time. She is absolutely my dream girl, and I’m crazy about her.
We go together to the NICU each week, and I’m so grateful to her for introducing me to the baby cuddling program. Is it hard? Yeah, some days it’s really fucking hard, but it fulfills something inside me when I’m able to calm an infant who just need someone to love it.
I feel like I’m a thousand pounds lighter now that I’m in a happy and healthy relationship. Our sex life is amazing, and that definitely contributes to my good mood. The oxytocin and serotonin float freely through my brain in an almost constant flow.
On the work front, the new fragrance development is going better than expected. We’ve run some preliminary trials to get a feel for how it affects various individuals, and the results have been more than encouraging. They’ve been blind studies, so we don’t tell the participants what the expected effects are because that could skew the results. We simply give them a blank spreadsheet with times listed down the side and ask them to write down how they feel during the day while wearing the fragrance, as well as a blank space at the bottom for comments.
Of course, the results are better first thing in the morning, right after they apply it, but the effects seem to last a full twelve hours. Nicolette and I spend our mornings poring over the results from the previous day, both of us practically giddy when we see the words we’re hoping for.
I feel so good while wearing this.
My soul feels warm, like someone just gave me a big hug.
This is liquid comfort.
