A Family Affair

2

Hailey walked into the bedroom to find Jay pacing from side to side, the phone pressed tightly against his ear. He was mumbling into the microphone, trying not to raise his voice so high because Macie had just gone to bed.

It had been a few hours since Macie had dropped the shell about knowing the reason behind Olivia's behaviour toward Jay, and since then Jay had been trying his utter hardest to reach his brother to absolutely no avail.

At first, Will's phone had gone straight through to voicemail, it didn't even ring. Starting an hour ago however the phone would ring for fifteen seconds, then go to voicemail. Usually Jay would be concerned by now, if it was anyone but Will. But call it brotherly senses, Jay knew Will was fine, he just wasn't beside his phone.

Hailey stayed quiet, perching herself on the edge of the bed, listening in slightly to Jay as he left yet another voicemail for Will.

"Just please call me back when you see this, I need to talk to you about something and it's really important." He sighs, already beginning to take the phone away from his ear.

Once he hangs up the call, Jay shuffles across the floor and exhales a defeated huff as he collapses on the bed beside his wife.

Hailey shoots him a slightly concerned look over her shoulder as she watches him lie flat on the mattress, his knees hanging off over the foot of the bed. "Why didn't you just ask Macie when she told you she knew?" She wonders, furrowing her eyebrows. That had been a question on her mind from the moment Jay had blown it off and went into the living room to try and call Will for the first time.

Jay shrugs his shoulders, sitting up on his elbows. "Because you know what Macie is like. She said she took a vow of silence with Olivia over it, which means no matter how hard I pushed, she wouldn't give in and answer my question."

Hailey can't help but smile a little. "She would be such a great suspect to interrogate." She says, a hint of sarcasm leaking through her voice, making Jay smirk too.

He nods, but takes it back to their previous conversation, rather than talking about how good or bad their daughter would be in an interrogation room during a criminal investigation. "But Will's being a pain in the ass and is not answering his phone."

She tilts her head to the side slightly. "He's probably busy with Livvy, you know he gets really involved with her, especially when he knows she's going back to Nat's the next day."

There's a second nod that comes over Jay. Hailey was right, he had noticed over the past few years that on the day before Olivia was to go stay with Natalie, Will would never really be around his phone.

"Why don't you try in the morning, when Olivia would be at school and you can sit down and have a proper conversation about it?" She asks, moving her body to the side so she was sat further on the mattress.

Jay gives her a smile. "Yeah, that would work." He replies, sitting up completely again.

Haley leans forward, placing her lips against his cheek for a brief second, pulling away as quickly as she had moved in. "I'm glad."

************

The following morning, Jay was awoken to the sound of laughter coming from downstairs.

He reluctantly rolled over and put his arm out, only to find that Hailey wasn't where she usually was. Deepening his eyebrows, he shifts back over to his left side, reaching forward and grabbing his phone from the bedside table.

As he checked the time, he also couldn't help but notice that there hadn't been any missed calls or messages from Will regarding his many voicemails he had left the previous day. He sighed seeing the time, it had only just passed seven, but he climbed out of bed despite that fact.