“Are you going to be okay with that?”
“Yep. I’m not forcing her to do anything she doesn’t want to. If she wants to stay home with me, great. If not, then I’m going to be the best dad ever. Better than my father was.”
He wouldn’t put his career before his child.
He’d be there for special events, happy milestones, and fearful first crushes.
He’d be the confidant that he’d never had.
Not from either of his parents.
Though his mother was around more, it wasn’t the same.
Too many years spent listening to his mother tear down his father instead of seeing her son. His needs, his wants, the emotional chaos he was trying to make sense of.
All those mistakes he’d witnessed growing up, he’d make none of them.
“It’s easy to improve on what you went through.”
“My thought exactly. Are you happy? You’re going to be a great-grandmother?”
“I’m always happy if you are. But there are bound to be hiccups a few months in together.”
“I expect that. We had one already. She’s a neat freak. But we got that taken care of.”
“You’re lazy, Arik. You’ve always been when it came to cleaning.”
“I admit it. There have been cleaners in my life for longer than I can remember.” Thankfully Natalie never saw his dorm room or she would have gotten a better idea of it back then.
“And you’ve been in hotels for years. Did you find a cleaner on the island?”
“I did. All set. It’s working out great. I can handle picking up the little things.”
Because he was trying. Natalie was making compromises so he was doing the same.
“Have you brought up living together yet?”
“I’m working on it. This place is temporary. It’s not a house I want to stay long term. There isn’t much reason for her to move her stuff in to only move it out again. I’ll purchase a place before the baby is born.”
The laugh from his grandmother told him sarcasm was going to follow. “Does Natalie get any say inthat?”
“If I bring it up she’ll get her panties bunched up. I’ll look around and take it out of her hands. No reason for her to stress about it.”
“You’re too used to getting your own way, Arik. Relationships don’t work like that. Look at your parents.”
“I’d rather not. No good examples there. But you and Grandpa were married over fifty years.”
“That’s right, we were. It can happen. Does that mean you’re going to marry Natalie?”
“That’s my plan,” he said. “Just need to get her on board with it.”
He hung up with his grandmother after that, then walked around the house picking up anything he might have left behind in the past few days.
As much as he wanted Natalie to spend the night, she hadn’t done it once when she had to go to work the next day.
He got it. Her clothes were at her place. She had a routine she followed and he was in the way.
The front door opened just as he was laying the folded blanket on the back of the couch.
