All Chapters of Asking for a Friend: Chapter 111 - Chapter 120

LAYTONOn that Thursday morning, I was at Marissa’s door an hour before she was due to arrive at work. There was no way I wanted to miss her, it would ruin my whole plan.After we made up the night before, I went home determined to come up with a plan to start making it up to her and Annie. I thought I had the beginning of one, but it all depended on how strict Marissa was about school attendance.I knew I shouldn’t encourage Annie to skip, or ask Marissa to let her, but I didn’t want to wait before I started making it up to them. I wanted to start immediately, but it just so happened to be Thursday.Still, I was serious about making it up to Marissa and Annie and I couldn’t think of a better way of driving that point home than to start as early as I could with the amends. Literally early, since it was only just past six in the morning now.I knocked on the door, my breath misting as I waited for them to answer. It was freezing out at this hour and the sun was barely rising, but hopef

MARISSA “Layton!” Annie called from a statue up ahead from where we were on the Freedom Trail. “There’s pigeon poop on this man’s head.”Layton threw his head back, well as much as a six foot something guy could, and laughed. He was more relaxed and carefree today than I’d ever seen him. Even more so than when we’d gone fishing.He and Annie were really bonding. While I would have thought it would make me nervous to see it, the opposite was actually true. It warmed my heart so much it felt like it was about to implode.All day he’d been so dedicated to her. When he told her this morning she didn’t have to forgive him, I nearly started crying. There were tears in my eyes, anyway.The whole scene was just so touching, so honest and sincere. I could practically feel his heart breaking when he saw how sad and hurt she still was about the weekend. But Annie was more resilient than anyone I knew.She bounced back in spectacular fashion and thrived under all the attention he was giving her.

LAYTONThe morning after the day out at the Freedom Trail, I felt like I was walking on sunshine. Like a fucking rock star. Whenever I spent time with Marissa and Annie, they made me feel like this. Something clicked in me when I got to see them and it felt damn good. The memories of Annie’s excited chatter and happy laughter replayed in my head on a loop. Along with the ones of Marissa’s smiles and the contented look in her eyes. Even Denise got a few seconds of brain-time on the highlight reel.She was a good friend to Marissa, a great care taker for Annie, and I still suspected that she was a champion for me. And so, memories of her watching me watch Marissa with this indulgent smile also made it into the replays.If someone had told me six months ago that I was going to be so besotted with a six year old and her mother, I would have laughed in their face. Hard and repeatedly.But it was undeniable that I was besotted. The more time I spent with them, the worse it became. Marissa h

MARISSA“Are you ready for some awesome mom and daughter bonding time today?” I asked Annie as I helped her settle into the car.She clapped her hands and nodded, her head bouncing up and down so hard I wasn’t sure if she could stop nodding if she wanted to. “What are we going to do today?”Since Layton gave me the day off, I returned the favor with Denise—especially because she was already taking Annie again tomorrow—and decided to spend some quality time just with Annie. It wasn’t something we got to do often enough.Between work, school, my dresses, Annie’s activities and Denise’s schedule, we had precious little time to just relax and spend time together as mother and daughter. “Well, for starters I thought we could go to the aquarium. We’ve been meaning to go since we moved here, I thought it was time we finally did it,” I said, glancing at her in the rear view mirror as I slipped into the driver’s seat of our car.Annie’s reaction was even more priceless than I’d been expecting

LAYTONSomehow, I managed to get through the day on Friday actually being productive. After Craig left my office, I popped in my earphones and got into the zone, finalizing a few designs that had been sitting for a while.I attributed it to the feeling that had still been lingering after my day out with the girls on the Freedom Trail. The feeling inspired me and helped me to finish and tweak designs I was now excited to finally be able to show my clients.Before I went home for the weekend, I sent all the designs off for finishing touches on the 3D disks to be prepared for the clients, and planned the model for the biggest one. All in all, it was a good day’s work.It didn’t hurt that I had my date with Marissa to look forward to, which was what I was getting ready for as I stood in my closet and grabbed a pair of jeans, a t-shirt and a belt. There was a black leather jacket that hung at the back of my closet. I hadn’t worn it since college, but my lips curled into a smile as I tried