Again, I choose not to correct him. He was not childless as far as I was concerned, and I knew that was something Mase and I agreed on. We were children of divorce and had watched our mother remarry four times and yet, none of those men were ever our fathers. They were our mother’s husbands, but never our dad because we had one of those already. A loving, attentive and present father.
This conversation was beginning to irk me. “Nigel, I get it. You made a new family and loved the children as if they were your own, but those children, Anita, is no longer a child. She is a grown woman.”
He fidgets in his seat; he’s getting pissed off again.
“I will apologise again for the way I entered your house and for the position you believe you found me in with your daughter, but I won’t apologise for being with her. I love her and she loves me. We are together and plan on remaining that way.”
“You’re not good enough for her,” he snaps.
I fight the smile threatening to curl my lips. “You will get no argument from me on that score.”
He looks startled by my response. “I don’t like you.”
I do laugh now. “Can’t say as I blame you, but Anita does.”
He gets to his feet and offers me a single nod. “Don’t hurt her.”
Before I can respond he has turned away and is heading towards the exit.
I release a long, loud breath and decide that went much better than I might have hoped.
Anita
“He’ll get over it.” My mum leans against the countertop near to where I am mixing frosting.
“Will he? He didn’t look like it was something he’d get over too soon.”
She shrugs. “Anita, it was a shock for him. He knows you’re an adult, but he doesn’t like it so when he sees you and Dec all wrapped up together, he has no choice but to face that fact head on.”
What she’s saying makes sense. He has always been protective. Overprotective, but he needs to accept my status as a fully-fledged adult.
“Where is he, anyway?” The silence of my mother’s reply makes me suspicious. Turning to face her, I use her name in question. “Mum?”
“He didn’t want you to know.”
“Mum!” My voice is more insistent and filled with more than a little angst.
“Fine! He’s gone to see Dec—to talk to him—man to man.”
I don’t whether to laugh or cry at the notion of either of them being capable of acting like a man rather than a boy.
“Un-bloody-believable! When is he going to accept that I am a grown woman?”
“When you stop sneaking boys into the house.” The sound of my father’s voice draws my attention to him entering the kitchen. “And in case you were wondering there were no punches thrown or insults hurled.”
I look across at him slightly disbelievingly but before I can say anything my phone buzzes on the kitchen counter I am standing next to. Dec.
Our plans turn out to be me going to Dec’s for dinner and a plan for me to stay over. He meets me at the door and unlike his usual reaction of dragging me in and devouring me is replaced with a gentler approach that consists of a warm embrace and a gentle kiss to my lips.
“Come in, dinner is almost done.”
We sit together in a comfortable silence eating pasta with peppers and cheese. I take a sip of the wine Dec has poured and look across at him. He suddenly looks nervous.
“Are you okay there, Stud?”
He smiles and I reciprocate, loving that he still enjoys my use of his nickname.
