Two in a Million | Auslly

Twenty Five: Long Distance & Look Alikes

one week later

"Hi, mommy!" Ally was rudely awoken from her mid-afternoon nap by a familiar shouting in her ear. Her eyes shot open to find Ava standing right in front of her, Alex close behind. Ally shot straight up.

"Um, hey..." she looked around frantically, frowning and trying to figure out if they'd broken anything. That was what had happened the last time they woke her from her nap. Needless to say, Ally had not been happy. "What...are you guys doing?"

"Mommy, me and Alex drawed a pretty picture!" Ava exclaimed, jumping up and down. "Do you wanna see?"

"Oh..." she looked down at her son, who was flashing his biggest and brightest smile. "Um, can I ask where?" Ava ran out of the living room and over to the dining room.

"Over here!" Ally narrowed her eyebrows, turning to look in that direction, her eyes turning to saucers when she saw the scribbles on the wall to the right of the staircase.

"No, no, no, no, no!" Ally exclaimed, running over to the wall and whimpering a little when she saw it was in black marker. "Ugh, you've got to be kidding me." She glanced down at Ava, who still held the Sharpie proudly in her hands. "Ava Marie, give me that." Ava frowned as her mom snatched the marker out of her hands, capped it, and set it down on the table. Ally paced back and forth, running her hands through her hair.

"Go to your room. Both of you." Ava and Alex exchanged scared glances. "Now," she added. She watched her two kids scamper up the stairs immediately and she continued to pace, wondering how Austin was going to react. It had been a week since they'd last discussed sending Ava and Alex to daycare, but this was enough to make her reach her breaking point.

She called Austin, biting her lip as the phone rang. When he picked up, she burst into tears.

"Babe, what's wrong?" Austin asked, balancing his fork deftly in between his pointer finger and thumb. He set it down on the desk, frowning. He'd just gotten on his lunch break—they were on the verge of signing a brand new artist, who was insanely talented. He listened as Ally described through tears how the kids had drawn on the wall in the kitchen with Sharpie and she didn't know how to get it out, and begged him to not be mad because she was taking a nap when it happened and—

"Ally," he interrupted, "Slow down." She sniffled on the other end, catching her breath. "It'll all be okay," he continued. "I'm not mad...at you, anyway. Just...look on the Internet and see if it says anything about getting permanent marker off the walls."

"Really?" Another sniffle. Ally wiped her tears with her sleeve, attempting to pull herself together.

"Really." There was silence between them before he spoke up again. "Hey, do you want to hear about the new client we're about to sign? Her name is Hailey, she's seventeen, and she's crazy talented. She has the voice of an angel!"

"Oh. Well, that's cool," Ally commented, forcing herself to tear her eyes away from the wall. "So, what's this girl's story?"

Austin shrugged. "I dunno. She recorded some covers and put them on YouTube, and one of the recruiters here found it and showed it to me. She actually did a cover of Parachute not too long ago."

"Wait, really?" Ally broke out into a smile. "That's...amazing. Do you know her last name? I'm going to look her up."

"Yeah, give me one second." There was some shuffling in the background on Austin's end as he set the phone down, put it on speaker, and looked it up on his computer. A few more seconds passed before he exclaimed, "Ooo, I found her! Her name is Hailey Starr."

Ally's eyebrows furrowed. "Wait...that last name is familiar. Do you know if she's related to Jimmy?"

"Huh. I'd never even thought about that." Austin typed a few more things into his keyboard and after about a minute he frowned. "Well, this is awkward."