no romantic feelings towards Blaire. Now I can’t stop thinking about it. How do I actually feel about her?
“How do you feel about her?” Calvin asks me.
We are in a sunny spot at a coveted table. It’s my favorite Italian place for lunch, and Calvin is a convert too now.
“Blaire?” I ask, and he raises his brows at me.
“Who do you think we’re talking about here?”
“I feel like I want to fuck her,” I reply, and we grin at each other.
The waiter comes over, and we order our main courses. I haven’t had a chance to catch up with Calvin for a while now. Work has kept us both busy. I have filled him in on what’s been happening with Blaire.
I know he’s surprised, even though he’s trying not to show it. He wasn’t expecting us to have slept together.
“Besides that? Other than the whole sexual aspect of it,” he continues, and I breathe in deeply.
“It’s funny that you’re asking me this. Anya asked me the same question a few days ago.”
Calvin nods. “I didn’t want to mention it, but yeah, how do you think this will affect her? I get the feeling that the two of them get along.”
“Yeah they do, and the more time passes, the closer they get. I’ve thought about not wanting to hurt my daughter.”
“Does it have to hurt her?”
“If and when this comes to an end, yeah, it will.”
“You don’t see yourself having a future with Blaire?”
I can’t help but grin at that.
“Have you met her?” I say sheepishly, and Calvin shrugs.
“Yeah, she’s a firecracker.”
“We clash. We argue. We almost never see eye to eye. This thing has disaster written all over it.”
“So why are you even pursuing this? Why don’t you just find someone else to fuck? I mean, she can’t be that good!”
Calvin stares at the expression on my face. I’m pretty sure he can tell exactly how good she is.
He sighs and rakes a hand through his hair.
“You don’t think I’ve tried to keep it in my pants around her? And the trouble is that she wants it, too. She knows exactly how good it is between us. It’s fuckin’ undeniable.”
I don’t know how else to make him see what I’m seeing.
“But at some point, man, you’ve gotta choose what is best for Anya. She has lost a mother.”
“I know that!” I growl, banging my fist on the table. I rub a hand over my face to calm down.
“I know that,” I hiss in a lower voice while Calvin sits back and shakes his head.
“This is going to be a problem for you,” he says. “I can see it already.”
“You don’t need to remind me of it. This is going to be a huge problem for me.”
And, as if on cue, I return to my apartment tonight and see Blaire sitting in the living room. Rachel is cooking dinner, while Anya and Blaire are having a pretend tea-party with her dolls.
I recognize the tension in the room the moment I walk in, and it’s all because of me. Blaire is avoiding my eyes. This is the first time since we slept together that we are in each other’s presence while Anya is around.
“Dinner will be ready in fifteen minutes, if you want to join us,” Rachel says to me. I’m glad to see she is a lot chirpier these days, and I will always be grateful to Blaire for pushing me to have that chat with her.
“That’s my cue to leave,” Blaire declares, standing.
Before Anya can even protest, I speak up. “You don’t have to leave. Have dinner with us.”
She finally turns to me with her blue eyes on fire. She can’t believe I’ve extended this invitation.
“I really don’t want to intrude on family time,” she says and gently brushes Anya’s hair with her hand. Anya clings to her side, looking up at her with nothing less than complete devotion.
“Please, Blaire, stay for dinner. You are a part of our family. Isn’t she, Daddy?” My daughter turns to look at me with pleading eyes. This is twice in a span of a week that she has put me on the spot like this.
I don’t enjoy the feeling of not having control of situations.
“Yes, Blaire, stay for dinner,” I say. I have decided to leave out the part about family. We don’t need that kind of talk around here. The concept of family is pretty complicated in our household already.