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“Daddy Rick and Daddy Carl,” Rick said. “I like that.” He smirked at Carl across the table. “I really likeDaddy Carl, it suits you.”
“You can stop that train of thought,” Carl said, but he was smiling.
“And what about school? What about general life?” I continued.
Carl shrugged. “There are plenty of poly relationships out there. We’ll be honest with people, honest with our child, make sure they know how much they’re loved. Believe me, Katie, it could be a lot worse.”
“I know it could be a lot worse, I’m just… won’t they have trouble? I mean kids can be so cruel…”
Rick cleared his throat again, and his eyes were serious. “Kids are cruel to anyone who’s different. I had my fair amount of crap growing up. I mean, I’m bi, always have been, and some kids didn’t like that. But you know what? It didn’t bother me, not really. I had a great family back at home, who taught me I was worth much more than some cheap bullying. I had confidence and self-esteem and I was happy in my own skin. Words bounced off me. I know they don’t bounce off everyone, and I know it might not be as easy for our kid as it was for me, but in general terms, we’ll do our best, we’ll love them hard, and I think we’ll be alright. That’s my gut instinct on it.”
“There are worse things,” Carl added. “Much worse things. We’ll love them, and we’ll make sure they’re confident enough to make their own path, whatever that may bring.”
I leaned back in my seat. “Them? How many children do you want?”
The guys looked at each other.
“Sorry?” Carl said.
“You said, we’ll lovethem.”
“Ah.”
“So, how many?” I repeated. “I mean, this isn’t going to stop at one, right? You’ll want more?”
Carl’s eyes widened. “We haven’t really thought that far. We daren’t even hope…” He sighed. “We thought about adoption. Should we be lucky enough to have one of our own, maybe we’d adopt as well. Plenty of kids need a home. Don’t I know it.”
“And biologically?” I prompted. “You’d be happy with just one? How many would you really want?”
Carl took my hand, and he looked at me, looked through me. “However many you’d be willing to give us, Katie. That’s the truth of it.”
I laughed, shook my head. “I can’t believe this is happening to me. I can’t believe I’m even talking about having kids. I never wanted kids.”
“No pressure,” Carl said. “Like we said, it’s your call.”
I held out my hands, struggled with drunken thoughts. “It’s like asking someone if they want ice cream when they watched their best friend drown in a vat of the stuff.”
Rick smiled. “Sorry, am I drunk? Does that even actually make sense?”
“It makes a little sense,” Carl said. “And youaredrunk, Rick.”
“I mean my mum had it shit,” I said. “I watched her struggle, watched her suffer, listened to her cry at night. And that was my fault. Because she had me. And we had nobody else to turn to, nobody else to make it better.” I sighed. “My grandparents live way up north, and they weren’t that great to my mum, to be honest, I think they’d rather not have had her, either.” I finished my cocktail. “So, the bottom line is that Iknowkids fuck things up, like I fucked things up for my mum. Not intentionally, just because that’s what kids do, they take your whole life and make it about them, that’s what has to happen.”
“You didn’t fuck things up for your mum,” Rick said. “And it would be different. There’s three of us. Mum, Daddy Rick and Daddy Carl.”
“Stop it with theDaddy Carlthing,” Carl said. “You’re enjoying that too much, Richard, don’t think I can’t fucking hear it in your tone.”
“And what if Mum, Daddy Rick and Daddy Carl didn’t work out? What if Mum ended up stuck with all the kids while the Daddies only popped in at weekends? What about Mum’s riding and Samson and stable dreams?”
“Itwouldwork out,” Carl said, and his eyes burned. “We’d make it work out. We’d never walk away from our kids. Never, Katie, not ever. Not in a million years.”
I sighed. “Then you’d be a betterdadthan I’ve ever seen.”
They didn’t speak, and I knew. Yet again the great David Faverley was bamboozling them with his stupid nice guy act.
It upset me again, the thought of him. That weird unsettled feeling I’d been getting since I’d taken his stupid Harrison Gables bargain.
I stared at the dancefloor, watching the lights change and dance, letting everything slip away apart from the alcohol in my veins and the beat of the track.
