by Nikki Ashton
“Nope, that’s not an option, it’s a statement of fact. You need to talk to her Isaac, because as much as I’m here for you if you need me, truth be told, you hardly know me.”
“You’re my boss and my mum’s boyfriend,” he pleaded. “I can’t talk to them about it.”
“Yeah I know, but I’m your mom’s new boyfriend and your new boss. Plus, I’m not so sure your dad would like it if he knew you’d talked to me about these things. I’m pretty sure he’d want to be the one to resolve this with you.”
“Huh,” he scoffed. “Like he’d care.”
“Hey come on, I think you know he would.”
Isaac dropped his head and picked at the edge of his leather jacket.
“Come on,” I said, turning the engine back on. “Let’s get you home, I’m sure your mom is anxious to see you.”
With a sigh, Isaac nodded. “Okay, but thanks Dex for coming for me. I really appreciate it.”
“Anytime, Isaac, anytime.”
And I really meant it. I was more than happy to help Katie’s kids out, because if nothing else, it meant I was helping her.
Katie
I’d been waiting anxiously for Isaac to get home. From the second Dex had called me, my stomach had been in knots, worrying about my boy. Dex hadn’t known much other than Isaac had got into a fight, defending some girl. Well if that had got him arrested, I was bloody proud of him and I’d be complaining to the police in the morning about arresting someone doing something brave like that.
I was just about to pace the room for the millionth time, when headlights lit up the lounge.
Thank God, they were back.
I rushed to the hall and pulled open the front door, waiting impatiently for Isaac to unbuckle his seat belt and get out of the car. When he finally reached me, without giving me eye contact, I pulled him against my chest.
“Oh sweetheart, are you okay?” I asked, hugging him tightly.
“I’m fine, Mum,” he groaned. “Just a split lip, that’s all.”
“Well I’ll be going to that Police Station tomorrow to complain. How dare they arrest you when you were only trying to help someone?”
“Please Mum, don’t.” Isaac pulled away from me and gave me a pained look. “It wasn’t like they smashed me around the head with batons or shone a bright light in my face. They told me it was routine. They let me go as soon as the girl stuck up for me.”
“You sure they didn’t hurt you?”
“Honestly, ask Dex.”
He turned to look at the tall, muscular man standing watching us with his hands deep in sweat pant pockets.
“Thank you, Dex,” I said, giving him a soft smile.
“My pleasure darlin’, but now that he’s home, I’ll leave you to it.”
Isaac shook his head. “Stay, Dex. You deserve a cup of tea at least.”
“Yes, please Dex, come in.”
I hoped he would because I seriously wanted to hug him. He’d only known me and my kids for a few weeks, yet he’d gone to Isaac’s rescue without question.
“You sure?” he asked me.
“Yes, I’m sure.”
He nodded his head and followed us into the house.
“Oh sweetheart,” I gasped, cupping Isaac’s face with my shaking palms. “Why would you think that?”
My poor boy thought we didn’t want him, or moreover that Carl didn’t, which was totally wrong. I’d never seen a man so excited about his wife peeing on a stick and seeing the blue line appear, as Carl had been that day.
“You are so wrong,” I said. “Your dad was desperate to get me pregnant once we decided it was time to start a family. He ran down the street knocking on the neighbors’ doors telling them you’d arrived on the day you were born. Of course he wanted you.”
“But he left us, Mum. He left us and went and had Jessie. Why would he do that unless he didn’t want us?”
Isaac’s face was ashen and lined with tiredness as he sat next to me on the sofa. Blood had dried on his split lip, and it was looking sore and swollen. He’d been determined to talk to me though, despite me saying it could wait until the morning. He said it had to be now, or he might lose his nerve.
Dex leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees and my gaze drifted to his face. He was tired too – we all were, but Dex look shattered. I knew he’d been doing the accounts for the studio earlier, so no wonder his eyes were red and drooping.
“Isaac,” Dex said quietly. “Just because your dad has Jessie, doesn’t mean he didn’t want you. You’re still his kids, you’re his first born and always will be. You know, he asked your mom not to let me be around you just yet?”
“No,” Isaac said, a little surprised. “Why?”
“Because,” Dex said, “he loves you and wants you to be protected and safe. He wants to be sure I’m not someone who is gonna put you in danger. He’s only doing that because he loves you more than anything.”
Isaac’s shoulder relaxed a little and I breathed out a sigh of relief.
“Really?” Isaac asked me.
I nodded. “Yes, I think he’s actually getting the FBI to check Dex out.”
Isaac gave me a tired smile. “He still left.”
“Yes, sweetheart, he did,” I replied with a sigh. “But it was me he left, not you. It was me he didn’t want to live with any more – don’t get me wrong, I didn’t want to live with him either – but it certainly wasn’t you three he was leaving. You remember when he first went he still came for breakfast on a Sunday?”
Isaac nodded, remembering as I did our traditional cooked breakfasts that we had every Sunday, something, I realized, that we hadn’t done for a while.
“Well that was him keeping a little bit of his family together.”
“So why did he stop?” he asked defiantly.
“Because I asked him to. It was upsetting Charlie when he left every Sunday, and he’d met Sophie and I didn’t think it was fair on her.”
Isaac looked up at me and then glanced at Dex. “I guess you wouldn’t like it if Dex still had lunch with the hugger, would you?”
He eyed Dex warily, wondering how he’d take his little joke about Debbie.
“No way,” I scoffed, with a mock frown.
Dex laughed and rolled his eyes. “You obviously get the jokes from your mom.”
“What can I say,” I replied. “We have naturally funny bones.”
We fell into a silence for a few moments, me holding Isaac’s hand and Dex leaning forward, his eyes drooping with long awaited sleep.
“Dex, you can’t drive home like that,” I said. “Why don’t you stay?”
Dex’s eyes widened a little, but he was so tired the quip I expected about staying over never came.
“Yeah, you can have my bed,” Isaac offered. “It’s the least I can do.”
I bit my lip at my son’s attempt at cock-blocking, but he needn’t have worried, there wasn’t going to be any hanky-panky going on. For one, our first time wouldn’t be with all three of my kids in rooms next to us and for two, it was almost four in the morning and I didn’t think neither Dex nor I had the energy to even get our clothes off, never mind shag for hours – which we most definitely would our first time, well at least I hoped we would.
“It’s fine,” Dex said. “The couch will be great. At this point I’d sleep on a park bench.”
God love this man, he always knew what to say and do and it just made him all the more attractive to me.
“Are you sure,” Isaac said. “I feel bad for getting you out of bed.”
“Not a problem, Isaac, I told you that before.”
Smiling softly at him, I sighed inwardly knowing that the time was close where I wanted to sleep with him. Bloody hell, who was I kidding, it wasn’t close, it was banging on the door of my boarded up vagina.
As if sensing what I was thinking, Dex gave me a little wink before pushing off the chair.
“Okay, so I think you and I deserve a morning off tomorrow,” he
said to Isaac. “But we still need to get some sleep, so you get on up to bed while I have a quick chat with your mom.”
Isaac grinned as he stood up and then bent to kiss my cheek. “Night Mum and don’t chat for too long.”
I smacked at his leg. “Go to bed,” I said with a hint of a smile. “And never forget I love you.”
“I won’t. Love you too.”
Once he’d gone, I got up and stood in front of Dex. “Thank you, again, for helping one of my kids. There’s just Annie now and then you’ve got a full set.”
He laughed quietly, rocking slightly on his feet. “I think he really needs to speak to Carl though. You don’t want any of this festerin’ darlin’.”
“I know, I’ll sort it in the morning. Anyway, what did you want to chat about?”
“We’ll talk more in the morning too, but safe to say I’m done with staying clear of your kids, darlin’. I want in and we need to tell Carl that my probation period is over. You okay with that, Katie Cat?”
I nodded and reaching on my tip toes, kissed him gently.
“Yep,” I replied. “Definitely.”
“Good,” Dex sighed. “Now go to bed before I pull you onto that couch with me.”
“I have a spare duvet upstairs, I’ll get it for you.”
Dex shook his head and grabbed the now clean of vomit, wooly throw from the chair. “This is fine. I’ll keep my sweats on. Now go.”
“I just need to say something.” I took in a deep breath as I looked Dex up and down.
“What is it darlin’?”
“You look so bloody hot in that outfit.”
Dex grinned and rolled his eyes. “You’re fucking killin’ me, Katie Cat. Go to bed.”
One more kiss to his cheek and his large palm smoothing over my hair, and I left the lounge, giving him a last look as he settled down before I went upstairs and had a few hours of blissful sleep.
Katie
Carl took the news about Dex not staying away from the kids much better than I thought, especially when he heard how he’d gone to pick Isaac up in the early hours of the morning. Also, that Isaac told him that Dex had said he should speak to his dad, made Carl realize that Dex was actually a good man.
“I feel like shit,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “How the hell could he think I didn’t want him, want any of them, but him especially?”
I sighed, passing Carl a cup of tea. It was early in the evening after Isaac had been arrested and Carl had called around to see him. They’d talked for ages and by the time Isaac left to go and meet his friends, he looked much happier. Carl, on the other hand, looked devastated.
“That’s what divorce can do to your kids,” I replied. “It puts all sorts of strange thoughts in their heads.”
“So you think we were wrong to split up, too?”
“God no,” I huffed out on a laugh. “We definitely did the right thing there.”
“What, so you could meet Mr. Perfect?” Carl rolled his eyes, taking a drink of his tea.
“And so you could meet Sophie.” I replied, ignoring his sarcasm about Dex. “Don’t tell me you’re not happier with her.”
Carl shrugged. “No happier than when we first married.”
I rocked slightly on my stool at the breakfast bar, because that was probably the nicest thing he’d said to me in years. Don’t get me wrong, Carl had never been cruel or horrible to me, he was just indifferent.
“Come on Carl,” I replied. “She’s gorgeous, she’s young, she’s sweet, and Jessie is adorable. You have more money than when we first married and you’re secure.”
“Wasn’t that half the fun though,” he said, looking at me with a wistful expression. “Living on beans on toast and cheap minced beef because we couldn’t afford anything else?”
“Wasn’t fun for me, your farts were hideous.”
We both laughed and reached for the biscuit packet at the same time. Our fingers touched and as I snatched mine back, Carl looked at me in a strange way. I couldn’t pinpoint what the look meant, but it was a mixture of melancholy and shit…love. It was all too weird.
“How’s the potty training going?” I asked, quickly changing the subject.
Carl shook his head, as if banishing thoughts from his brain and smiled. “Really good, she’s a natural. I think we’ve pretty much bagged it.”
“That’s good.”
I took a biscuit and crunched it, probably a little too loudly, but it was better than the odd silence that had fallen between us. Carl’s look had unnerved me because I had an inkling he was feeling some regrets and I really didn’t want to talk about them. Discussing our past with that look on his face, was all too strange.
I wanted him to leave, but suddenly he seemed to have the largest and hottest cup of tea known to mankind, it was taking him so long to finish it. Then, when I heard the doorbell chime, I could have shouted for joy.
“Sorry, I’ll just get that.”
I hastily dropped down from my stool as Carl nodded and took another biscuit.
When I opened the door to see Dex standing there, I was even more overjoyed.
“Hiya,” I said brightly. “What are you doing here?”
“Wanted to see you,” he replied, leaning in to kiss my cheek. “Plus, I noticed the faucet…sorry, tap, in the bathroom was dripping, so thought I come and fix it for you.”
Dex held up a small tool box and grinned.
“Oh God, thank you. I’ve been meaning to fix it for ages, but I kind of got used to the drip, drip, drip.”
“Well for the price of a cup of coffee, I’ll make sure you don’t have to hear it any longer.”
He leaned in for another kiss, just as Carl decided to appear in the hallway.
“Oh hi, Dex.”
“Hey Carl, how ya’ll doin’?”
“Okay, thanks. I was just going up to the toilet.”
I stood to one side to let him past. “No problem.”
As he ran up the stairs, Dex gave me an enquiring look.
“He’s been to see Isaac,” I explained. “But he’s stayed for a cuppa. You fancy your coffee before you mend my tap?”
Dex’s eyes looked up the stairs and then back to me. “Yeah, sounds good.”
When Carl came back into the kitchen, he nodded at Dex’s tool box on the floor. “What’s that for?”
“The leaking tap,” I answered, pouring Dex’s coffee into a mug. “Dex is going to mend it for me.”
“You should have said, I’d have done it.” He sat back at the breakfast bar and reached for the pot of tea, refilling his cup.
“It’s fine, I don’t mind,” Dex replied, turning his lips into a half smile at Carl. “I noticed it this morning when I was takin’ my shower, so I thought, no time like the present to fix it.”
Carl swallowed and shifted on his stool before reaching for the milk and pouring some into his tea. As he did so, I passed Dex his coffee, and as I did, he took my free hand and lifted it to his mouth and kissed it.
“You tired darlin’?” he asked, still holding onto my hand.
“Hmm, a little, but I’ll be fine. Maybe get an early night tonight.”
Dex lifted his mug to his mouth and snorted out a little laugh and Carl cleared his throat. I helped myself to another Ginger Nut.
“I’d actually like to thank you, Dex,” Carl said after a few moments of silence. “Helping Isaac out like that.”
“Like I told him, no problem at all. I bet you’re real proud of him though, sticking up for that girl like that?”
Carl nodded and I could see in his eyes that he was being honest. “I am. We’ve brought them all up to know that abuse of any kind isn’t acceptable, haven’t we Katie?”
“Yes we have. I’m so proud of him. I just hope the girl sticks to her guns and presses charges.”
“So many don’t,” Dex replied. “My mom worked with abused women and there were times she came home in tears because some girl who’d given her abuser a second chance h
ad ended up dead. It’s heartbreaking.”
“Well it was good of you,” Carl replied. “I’ve had a good chat with him tonight and I think he realizes he’s had it all wrong about things.”
“That’s good, real good.” Dex nodded and took a drink. “Good coffee, Katie Cat.”
I grinned, full of pride. I’d been and bought some of the strong stuff, just for Dex. Not to mention the American Coffee Maker I got from Amazon that was delivered Prime.
“I got it just for you.”
“Well thank you, I love it.”
The look between us was sweet, but it still made my body go onto high alert. Dex was so bloody handsome, I defied any woman not to get excited if he only smiled at them.
“Do you remember that coffee we bought on that holiday in Mexico,” Carl said, a little too loudly. “We loved the stuff in the hotel so much, we asked for the name of it and when we got it home it was awful. We decided they’d been using instant in the hotel and didn’t dare admit it.”
Carl started laughing, which surprised me because at the time he’d gone crazy, complaining about the total waste of money and blaming me for whining about buying some.
“Hmm, not sure I remember you finding it funny at the time,” I commented.
He waved a hand at me. “Oh you know me, all bark and no bite. Things are funny when you look back on them, and let’s face it, there’s a lot of stuff for us to look back on.”
Okay, now he really was being weird.
“Yeah, well it was a long time ago,” I replied, swiping his half-empty mug, emptying the dregs into the sink and sticking it into the dishwasher. “I’d better get some dinner sorted. Annie will be back with Charlie from swimming soon, they’ll be starving.”
Wrong thing to say.
“I might wait and see them,” Carl announced.
I muttered a curse in my head and smiled at him. “When I say soon, it could be another hour or so yet. The pool does a swimming disco on a Friday night, so they often stay for that.”
I must remind myself to get my children to lie for me if their father asks about the swimming disco.