She smiled, looking back at the scan. “Can we get food on the way back?”
I laughed, feeling a little lighter again. “Let’s go out there and have it delivered.”
“This is Libbie’s room.” I opened the door and Amber peered through to the bombsite that was my eldest girl’s room. The carpet was strewn with teddies, a tea party that looked more like a three-day rave for stuffed animals clearly been had.
“Who does the tidying up?”
“She does. No tidy room, no park trip, or wherever it is she wants to go.” It generally worked, and to be fair to her, she was usually tidy. “Zara isn’t allowed in here. She wanted a sign that said ‘Zara is banned’ but when I reminded her that Zara couldn’t read yet, she got over the idea.”
“How old are they both?”
“Five and two and a half. In fact, Libs is nearly six, so she’d probably tell you five and three quarters.” It was important to be getting older when you were that age.
Amber rubbed her belly. I didn’t think it was a conscious movement. I’d seen her do it a few times since we’d walked out of the room at the hospital, copies of the scan in hand.
“How do you think they’re going to take having a baby brother or sister?”
We walked down the hallway to my bedroom, which was next, a large suite with a dressing room and bathroom that ran from the front of the house to the back.
“Zara isn’t going to think much of it. She’s too young. She’s really chilled for a kid.” Thankfully. Zara was affectionate and easy-going. She also adored Libbie. The point of obsession at the moment, which Libbie wasn’t handling too well. “Libbie will have a million questions.”
“Will she be okay?” Amber stopped outside my bedroom door.
“She has to be.” I put my hand on the door handle and paused. “The therapist who still works with the girls – Libbie at least – suggested they meet you a few times before I tell them. So they see you with me, as part of my life, which makes it a little more gradual. I don’t know how you feel about that.”
I opened the door to my room, feeling all sorts of strange as she walked inside. It was full of light and space, a huge bed in the middle of a long area, windows at either end and one next to the bed too, filling the space with brightness. I hadn’t put artwork up yet. In the old house, there were pictures up of mine and Chan’s wedding day, then Chan and me with the girls when they were new-borns. Those photos were now packed up and in storage, kept safely for the girls when they were older. They both had photos of their mum in their bedrooms and a memory box, which I knew would mean more to Libbie when she was older than Zara, who had once asked me who the lady in the photograph was.
That was when I felt horrendous. That had reduced me to tears that Chan wouldn’t see her girls grow up, and Zara never really knew her. Zara had only been a few months old when Chan started to be poorly, and the months after that had been difficult for her to even hold her.
“This room’s amazing.” She wandered down towards the dressing room. “Can I go through?”
“Of course. You know where the bathroom is?”
I followed her, my eyes on her ass that still looked tidy even in sweats. I was trying to work out exactly what I was feeling and resisting the temptation to give up on that, because it wasn’t straight forward.
Seeing her in my bedroom, the huge, brand-new, super king bed with its crisp white sheets, was making me fantasise about how her hair would look spread over my pillows. I could imagine finding her lying there, her eyes those pools of dark heat I drowned in.
I wished the scenario was different. I wished she’d been interested in me enough to give us a go at dating and hadn’t thought too deeply about the fact that I was a single dad, and somehow, this situation had evolved out of something other than necessity.
Chan had never been in this room. She hadn’t been in this house. I knew it wasn’t a house she would’ve chosen, although she would’ve loved the set up for her daughters, and all of that was a deliberate decision.
So I didn’t feel bad watching Amber’s ass as she walked down past the bottom of the bed and imagining a different reality where I’d be walking behind her, my hands on her waist, pressing a kiss to her neck that made her shiver – because I still remembered how to make her shiver – and whispering in her ear about all the things I wanted to do to her on that bed.
“This is the dressing room of dreams!”
I was staring at the ass of my dreams. “It’s decent, isn’t it?” I snapped myself out of my fantasies. “I have nowhere near enough clothes to fill it though.” Half the shelves were empty, and a couple of the clothes rails had nothing on them. When we moved, I’d given a lot of my wardrobe to charity shops because it was suits I couldn’t fit in any more or clothes I hadn’t worn since Libbie was born.
“So this is the bathroom.” She pointed at the door that was closed.
“It is. Have a look.” I watched her go through, my hands itching to touch her.
The bathroom was the room I’d had most interest in getting involved with. I wanted a big deep tub because baths were amazing for aching muscles and joints, and there were more of those now I was getting older. I also wanted a massive shower, with seats and jets, but I didn’t want a dark and dingy area that reminded me of hotel bathrooms where there was no natural light.
So the most had been made of the two large windows that allowed light to pour in, the bath in the darker area of the room, near to heated rails where big, fluffy white towels were draped.
“This is as big as my bedroom and bathroom combined.” She looked around, eyes spying the tub and I thought I heard her groan. “That bath. I don’t have a bath – there isn’t space.”
“You can use it any time you want.” And I was half hard, imagining finding her in that tub, bubbles barely hiding anything, a discovery like the three bears had with goldilocks, only not one that was suitable for children, and there was only one bear: me.
