Malachi Azure
Aria Alt: Going out for Dessert
It didn’t matter to Kai that his father had cut him off. He didn’t need the Azure fortune. It didn’t matter if he was living a life of luxury, or just scraping by. For the first time in his life, he was being who he wanted to be, living the life he wanted, with the people who mattered to him most. He never stopped loving Jess, and from the moment he met Aria he loved that little girl more than he even knew how to explain. The weeks since his father disowned him had probably been some of the best in his life. Life with Jess and Aria was becoming normal, like a life he dreamed of, and they were doing things right this time. No lies, no secrets. Well, one could argue that there were still secrets, but it was less that Kai was keeping secrets, and more just that there were things he simply hadn’t told Jess directly. Now, walking the streets of London with Jess and Aria, it was time for some of that information to actually come out. Kai was a New Yorker, there would always be a part of him that missed the city he grew up in, but London had a place in his heart too. It’s where he had the people who mattered most, it’s where Jess was from and Aria was growing up, and as he had even told Jess years earlier, he wasn’t unfamiliar with the city. He had been there countless times when he was younger, either just passing through or visiting family, like Val when she lived there as a kid. Jess was the expert on London, but this was one of the rare times where Kai took the lead, showing the parts of London he knew. Of course, as one would expect in the presence of a Pierce, the topic of food came up, and recognizing where they were, he knew exactly somewhere to bring them. He led them to a tiny bakery, somewhere even few locals really knew of, and immediately ordered a couple desserts that weren’t on the menu, as he picked Aria up so she could see all of the sweet treats that were in the case to pick from. Of course, he expected Jess to still end up picking more too, and Aria too if there was anything else she wanted, but he knew just something that he thought she would like. The order of which brought a man out from the kitchen, who based on the mess of flour, had just been baking, a man who upon seeing Kai, looked absolutely shocked. “Malachi Maxwell Azure. I can’t believe it.” The man said, using Kai’s full name, including his middle name which very few people even knew. Kai looked over to Jess, clearly interested by the reveal of not only his middle name, but also how he knew of the place. “Jess, meet my uncle. This is his bakery.” Kai then looked to his uncle for a moment before turning his gaze back to Jess. “Uncle Max, this is Jess,” he said, before looking at his little girl with a smile. “And this is Aria.”