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“I’ll let you in on a little secret…” He leaned closer and lowered his voice. “I was a shitty dad when I was married.”
“Really? I find that hard to believe.”
“I mean, I wasn’t an asshole or anything like that. I just wasn’t around a lot, and even when I was, I wasn’t really present. The divorce was a gift, in terms of my relationship with my girls.”
It was a good thing she’d had a hysterectomy because her ovaries wouldn’t have stood a fucking chance with that admission.
“I wasn’t the best mom, either. I mean, I tried. But, between work and school, I didn’t get to see a lot of Chloe’s early years.” She shrugged. “As parents, we just do the best we can. I don’t think she’s worse off because of the time she spent with my parents instead of me, and I don’t think your girls are either for the time they spent with their mom. And once we knew better, we did better.”
“Or, in your case, once you were financially able to.”
“Yeah, that too. But I was just a kid when I had her. I had no idea what I was doing.”
“Well, I wasn’t a kid when Kailey was born, but I still had no idea what I was doing. Hell, I still don’t.”
“You’re better than you think.”
“How’s my aura today?” he asked with a grin.
She leaned back to study him for a moment.
“It’s a very vibrant red and green.”
There were no blacks or grey anywhere, which made her happy.
The red made sense, considering how much sex they’d had in the last eighteen hours.
“Red and green? What am I—a walking Christmas card?”
“No, red symbolizes passion—a zest for life.”
“And green?”
“Green—” she paused. “Green means you have a kind heart.”
Or, it could also mean he was in love with someone who balanced him out.
Oh, this was bad.
Casual starts Monday, she reminded herself.
****
Aiden
“What do you want to do for dinner?” he asked when she walked back in the family room after feeding Barney. “We can get takeout or I can cook something. Or we could go out.”
“I’m good with anything. What do you want to do?”
“Let’s go out.”
“Okay, but I didn’t bring anything other than jeans.”
“No problem. We’ll go to my favorite pub, if that’s okay? They have great burgers and they’re supposed to have a band tonight.”
“That sounds fun.”
As they got ready, it struck him that A) he couldn’t remember the last time he went on a real date and not just met up with a woman as part of the vetting process to fuck her, and B) how easy the domesticity of them getting ready in the same bathroom was.
