His voice almost knocks the cigarette from my fingers.
“I started again today.”
“That stuff will kill you.”
Your eyes, too, I think, are so intense, it’s like they’re piercing me. They’ll kill me even faster than the smoke. And your hands, too, I’m absolutely sure. Not to mention everything else. I can’t and won’t think of all the rest.
“Should I find another solution?” He asks me out of the blue.
“What are you talking about?”
“This thing… The two of us.”
Please, Seth. Don’t fantasise about this ‘us’ as if it were something real and wonderful.
“It makes you more nervous than usual.”
You make me nervous. And anxious. And hopeful and confused. And excited. You’re damn right I get excited in your presence. If I reconsider, I still get excited even in your absence. That’s because I can’t control my thoughts, which are all the same kind, all unspeakable out loud.
“As if that were possible!” I play it down, or at least try to.
Rowan barely smiles. “The kids haven’t taken their eyes off me the whole meal.”
“They’re worried.”
“Are they afraid they’ll find out about us and take them away from you?”
They are worried about me. They know I’ll kid myself that we’re together and then get my heart broken when I’ll realise there’s no room for me in your life.
“Is it possible? Find another solution?” I do not answer his question. I don’t want to start lying in advance.
Rowan sighs. “Not where we are.”
“I suspected that.”
“The judge will want to see us.”
“What… when?”
“Soon, I suppose. He’s waiting for a date.”
“A date?”
Rowan sighs again. “He expects the two of us to make it official.”
“Official in what sense?”
“In that sense, Seth.”
“Oh my God!”
“He wants proof of commitment. And I don’t think we can give him anything other than our wedding date at the moment. I was thinking about getting more proof, but that would take time, and we don’t have any. He wants to make sure that the children…That they…”
“That they are not left alone with me.”
“Only for a while, while we find a way to convince the judge that you are the father these children need.”
“What if that never happens?”
