Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
RICH
Kids are going out tonight and I’m coming over for a chat.
I stared at Gillian’s message and recoiled. She was going to chew my balls off for having defiled her daughter, and I knew it. A simple ‘okay’ was all I replied and I started to think about what was coming my way later.
About ten minutes after Lucy and Annie had left, there was a knock on my front door. I steeled myself for the rightful blasting I was about to take in the light of everything that was going on.
Gillian glared at me and walked past with a bottle of rum in her hand. “Get glasses,” she demanded.
I obeyed and returned to the living room, setting two glasses on the coffee table and parking myself on the opposite side of it from her. She stayed in complete silence, poured out two shorts of rum, and handed me one of them.
“So, you and Lucy.”
I nodded, playing with the glass in my hand.
“It’s serious?”
I looked at her. My mouth opened, but the words wouldn’t form, and she just nodded and knocked back her drink in one mouthful.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Christ Almighty, Rich. It’s written all over your face how much you feel for my girl.”
Her girl . Ouch. The reality of the age gap hit me like a slap in the face. I knocked back my own rum and let the burning in my throat distract me from the sting in my cheeks.
Gillian refilled both glasses. “Have you truly thought this through?” She shook her head at me.
“I know how I feel.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
I sighed. “As much as I can, but a lot of it depends on her, doesn’t it?”
Gillian nodded. “And if she wants a happily ever after?”
I tried not to smile at the thought of being able to give that to Lucy. Lord, I knew I wanted to. If she would have me forever, I would happily be there for her.
Gillian read my face all too well and sighed. “And if she wants to walk away? If she decides the age gap is too much and she needs to move on with her life, are you going to be able to handle that?”
Downing the refill of my rum, I shook my head – no, I wouldn’t honestly be able to handle that. I would cross that bridge if I ever had to, but I didn’t know if it was something I could handle gracefully.
“What if she wants a full life, Rich? What if she wants kids, and the white picket fence, and the career, and everything the world has to offer her right now? Do you really think that’s something you can give her? Do you want to reverse your vasectomy? Do you want to be fifty and doing the school run?”
Those thoughts pulled me in two directions. The first between being able to give Lucy the happy ever after she might want with me children included. And the second, would my child want an old codger picking them up from school? Would people think Lucy was my daughter instead of my partner? Damn, Gillian was good at this. I shook the confusion from my head and knocked back my rum again, preparing the words in my head to say.
“I know you’re here for answers, Gillian, and I wish I had them, but I think the only thing I can do is be honest with you. I want to give your daughter whatever she lets me.”
In my mind, that didn’t sound as perverted as it did when I opened my mouth. I cringed a little at the double entendre.
“What I mean is,” I explained further, “if she wants the happy ever after, I will do everything in my power to make sure that happens for her. If she wants to walk away, I’m not going to lie, it will devastate me, but I love her enough to walk away if she needs me to. I’m not going to stand in the way of her having the fullest life she can. It’s what she deserves.”
Gillian knocked back her rum and stared off into the distance, mulling over my words.
“Okay,” she said finally.
Is that it?
“Don’t get me wrong, Rich, if you do anything to hurt her or fuck up her life, you will disappear. Don’t doubt me on that. I will make it happen. But I can see how much you care about Lucy, and I can see how much she cares about you. I can either support her or alienate her. Given that I think you’ve both got enough trouble ahead with how Annie will handle all this, I choose to support her.”
I sighed. She was right. I knew it. She knew it. Lucy knew it. Annie wasn’t going to be happy about the fact her dad was shagging her best mate, and there was nothing I could think of that was going to get around that fact.
Gillian clearly knew what I was thinking. Her hand squeezed my shoulder. “I’m here for you all. You know that.” She smiled at me warmly. “Now, are we going to order a takeaway to soak up some of this rum or what?”
I laughed, pulling my phone from my pocket and opening the Deliveroo app.