Page 57 of Pelvic Flaws

“You want a drink, darlin’?” Dex asked, turning to me and putting his big hand against the small of my back.

“Please. I’ll have-.”

“You want that Californian white wine you like or a bottle of beer?”

My mouth gaped a little that Dex remembered not only the wine I’d been drinking when we went on our date, but that I’d told him towards the end of the evening that I was more of a bottled beer girl.

“A bottle of beer please.”

Dex gave me a beautiful smile and leaned in for a quick kiss. “You guys?” He pointed between Sophie and Carl who both shook their heads. “Okay, be right back.”

As Dex went to the bar, I pulled out a chair at the table, choosing the one opposite Sophie. It was a toss-up between Carl potentially snarling at Dex for the next hour, or Dex getting a prime view of how beautiful Sophie was. At the last minute, I felt awful for not having faith in Dex and moved to the one opposite Carl.

“How’s Jessie?” I asked, looking at Sophie.

“She’s great, thanks.” Sophie beamed as she spoke of her cute two-year-old. “She’s started to scream when she has a wet nappy, so we’re potty training at the moment.” She looked at Carl who rolled his eyes and then smiled.

“You’re helping?” I asked Carl.

“Yes,” he replied indignantly. “I’m in charge in the evening after work.”

I gave him a small smile and nodded. He’d evidently forgotten that he didn’t want to have anything to do with it when Annie and Charlie were potty training. Isaac, he’d helped with, but once was obviously enough for him.

“He seems nice,” Sophie said, nodding her head toward Dex at the bar.

“He is,” I replied, feeling a tightening in my chest. “Really nice.”

I reached for a beer mat and started to pick at the corners, peeling back the top layer.

“How’s Charlie feeling?” Carl asked, just as the silence started to become a little oppressive.

I looked up from my beer mat and smiled. “He’s much better. He went to school today, so he should be okay for the weekend.”

“That’s good. I’m going to take him Go Karting with Ben and his son, James.”

“Oh, he’ll love that.”

Ben was Carl’s best friend and had a son a couple of years older than Charlie. The two boys got on well and the four of them often did boys’ things together.

“I was going to ask Isaac, but couldn’t get hold of him. Do you think you could ask him? Annie already politely declined.”

I knew Isaac’s answer would be no. My excited son had told me over dinner that he was going to spend the weekend at Heaven & Ink to try and get settled in before he actually started his job the following week. I was just about to tell Carl when Dex came back with our drinks. He placed them down on the table and sat in the seat that I’d already pulled out, the one opposite Sophie.

“Thanks.”

Picking up my bottle, I eyed Dex, watching to see what he did. He angled himself in his chair towards me, gave Sophie a quick smile, and then looked directly at Carl.

“I just want to say I get why you wanted to meet me,” Dex said, his tone sincere. “Your kids are the most important things in your life and you need to be sure I’m no threat to them or their safety.”

Carl cleared his throat and glanced at me. “I trust Katie’s judgement, but in this day and age you can’t be casual about strangers who come into your kids’ lives.”

“Sure, I agree, so any checks you wanna make, you go ahead.” Dex reached his arm around the back of my chair. “This thing with me and Katie is real new, but I’d like to think it’s going to go somewhere, so I want you to be happy with me being around them.”

Carl nodded and looked at Sophie, who was watching Dex carefully. “Sophie will tell you, I didn’t let her meet the kids for quite a while when we started going out, and when I did it was pretty gradual – an hour here and there.”

I squirmed in my seat, desperate to say something. I knew he was having a dig at me for letting the kids be around Dex already, and for the fact that I had insisted on meeting Sophie first. Okay, so maybe I was a bit of a hypocrite, but I hadn’t planned things this way. When Dex had taken me home after my car had broken down, I hadn’t thought for one minute we’d end up going out together. The night of our date, Charlie wasn’t meant to be there and the older kids were in bed. It was going to be one quick cup of coffee; it wasn’t like he was going to stay overnight.

“Yep, I totally understand,” Dex replied, stopping me from opening my mouth. “It’s just the way things happened, we weren’t able to do that. I met them before me and Katie were even a thing.”

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