Page 21 of Pelvic Flaws

“Yeah, I do know how old she is,” I snapped back. “It was my vajayjay she was pushed out of.”

“Katie, please,” Carl groaned.

“Oh stop being such a prude.”

I grinned, loving that Annie talking about Dex had wound Carl up. I knew Carl too well and the thought of his daughter eulogising over another man would have pushed his buttons. He was vain and despite what Annie thought, Carl adored her. If there was even a hint of another father figure on the scene, he would hate it.

“Listen, Carl,” I said with a sigh. “While we’re talking about Annie, maybe you should think about having a daddy-daughter day with her. Show her that you’re the best man in her life, despite the fact that you’ve got a beer belly and no tats.”

I grinned and silently chuckled.

“I don’t have a beer belly,” he protested.

And he really didn’t. He was in good shape, not as good as Dex, but he looked okay. I suppose you had to put the effort in when your wife and all her peers looked like they should be on ‘Love Island’.

“You’re right though,” he replied. “I’ll take her out, just me and her.”

Feeling thankful, I closed my eyes. Annie missed having her dad around, and if truth be told, she was a little jealous of her sister having Carl’s time and attention.

“Thanks Carl, she’ll love that and maybe a call to Isaac, too, congratulating him on selling his designs?”

I held my breath hoping that he didn’t go off on a rant about Isaac working in the record shop.

“Yeah, of course. Maybe he can supplement that shit wage he earns at the record shop.”

Yep, too good to be true. “Don’t say that to Isaac, okay? He needs you to be supportive.”

“Fine,” he sighed impatiently. “And don’t let any more men hang around my kids without finding out more about them first.”

“Seriously Carl, there won’t be any more men, but even if there was, I wouldn’t put the kids in danger. Dex didn’t mean any harm. He was just chatting with the boys.”

He paused and then cleared his throat. “Okay, but if he’s going to be around them, I want to meet him.”

I let my head drop back and roared laughing. “There’s no chance I’ll be seeing him again, not like that. No chance at all.”

* * *

“So that was it,” Mandy asked breathlessly as we ran forward, waving our glow sticks in the air. “He drank his coffee and left?”

“Yeah,” I gasped. “He rang later that night to say he’d got a mechanic friend to sort my car out and that he’d bring it back for me the next day. That was it, the last I heard from him, two days ago.”

“Okay ladies, let’s see you jump back.” Natalie, our Clubbercise teacher, cried above The Lisa Marie Experience’s ‘Keep on Jumpin’.

Mandy and I started to jump back amongst the group of yummy mummies and tanned, toned twenty-something women. As we did, my head shot around to face Mandy.

“Have you just peed?” I cried above the music and whoops of excitement from Natalie.

“Yeah. You?”

I nodded. It was inevitable – the flaws of a forty-five-year-old pelvic muscle, ergo we no longer had one.

“I forgot to put a pad in my knickers,” I groaned.

Mandy winced. “Take it you don’t want to do half an hour on the bikes after this then.”

I grimaced and shook my head.

With sweat dripping down every crevice on my body, I swigged back the rest of the water from my plastic bottle and picked my hoodie and keys from the floor.

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