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“Laura,” I start over, and I think I’m sweating at this point. “Laura… is Miss James. She’s Lewis’ sister.”
“Okay…” Angie frowns and pokes at a meatball.
“Laura,” I try again. “Yes. Laura is… yes, she is my girlfriend.”
Before I finish speaking, I’m so afraid. It feels like I’ve dropped a huge bomb, like they’re both going to scream and cry and threaten to never speak to me again.
But in actuality, neither of the kids really reacts.
Benjamin’s eyes widen as if he’s surprised I admitted to it, but otherwise, he isn’t all that annoyed or mad or interested.
Angie just nods, not seeming bothered one way or another about this.
“Okay,” she says, shrugging.
“Okay,” I agree, relief setting on my shoulders.
Ben picks his fork back up and Angie begs for her brother’s help cutting her meatball. I finish eating as best as I can, on the edge that something is going to explode.
The rest of the night is a blur of homework and bath time and subtly, sweetly suggesting that Benji needs a shower before outright bribing him. By the time the kids are asleep for the night—or in Benji’s case, reading in bed and pretending not to be texting some girl he met on this trip with his mom and Lewis, which we’ve decided to pretend to not to notice for the sake of self-discovery and his current openness—I’m exhausted.
These kids really are the light of my life. I love them, far more than I ever thought it was possible to love kids. I’d been afraidwhen Jessi and I first got pregnant. After all, I knew what it was like to grow up withmydad. And I’d seen how he’d been with his own father. The idea that I could be a good dad, an involved dad, seemed almost far-fetched.
But Jessi hadn’t taken that as an answer, and she’d sent me to enough parenting classes that I had a pretty good handle on it. Of course, everything was changing all the time, and knowing Benji at eight had not prepared me for Angie at eight, and absolutely nothing in this universe had prepared me for a teenager.
But… Overall, I really do think Jessi and I are doing a good job.
Or, at least, we were.
Jessi was head over heels in love with Lewis before he was introduced to the kids as anything more than my co-worker. And he was perfectly age-appropriate and ready to be a stepdad.
Laura was nothing I had ever expected.
I would not have wanted it this way.
I sigh, running a hand through my hair. The kitchen is a total warzone, and there are enough broken crayons littering the house to constitute an emergency. But I ignore it all and head to the bar tucked away in the living room.
Pouring myself an admittedly heavy hand, I plop onto the couch.
I’m dialing Laura’s number before I even think about it.
I lean forward, putting my head in my hand, as the line rings.
“Hello?”
She sounds… sad.
My chest feels tighter.
“Hi, Laura,” I clear my throat.
Have we spoken on the phone before? I don’t think so. A text message here and there, yes, and once over the intercom at work when she answered a question, but that was a group setting.
This is…
Intimate, maybe.
“David, hi.”
