Chapter 20

Kids are going out tonight and I’m coming over for a chat.

I staredat the screen on my phone at Gillian’s message and recoiled. She was going to chew my balls off for having defiled her son, and I knew it. A simple ‘okay’ was all I replied and started to think about what was coming my way later.

* * *

About ten minutesafter Liam 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 Liam.”

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 lad.”

Her lad. 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.

“I honestly didn’t know you liked men.” She eyed me over her glass.

“Always have. I had boyfriends before Phillipa, but you know, I thought she was the one and didn’t see anyone else. I’ve seen a few men since while the kids were in uni.”

“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 him, doesn’t it?”

Gillian nodded. “And if he wants a happily ever after?”

I tried not to smile at the thought of being able to give that to Liam. Lord, I knew I wanted to. If he would have me forever, I would happily be there for him.

Gillian read my face all too well and sighed. “And if he wants to walk away? If he decides the age gap is too much and he needs to move on with his life, are you going to be able to handle that?”

I drank down the refill of my rum. 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 he wants a full life, Rich? What if he wants kids, and the white picket fence, and the career, and everything the world has to offer him right now? Do you really think that’s something you can give him? Do you want to be fifty and doing the school run?”

Those thoughts pulled me in two directions, between being able to give Liam the happy ever after he might want with me and the thought of being able to have a child with him. And would my child want an old codger picking them up from school? Would people think Liam was my son 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 to give you, but I think the only thing I can do here is be honest. I want to give your son whatever he 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 he wants the happy ever after, I will do everything in my power to make sure that happens for him. If he wants to walk away, I’m not going to lie, it will devastate me, but I love him enough to walk away if he needs me to. I’m not going to stand in the way of him having the fullest life he can. It’s what he 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 him or fuck up his life, you will disappear. Don’t doubt me on that. I will make it happen. But I can see how much you care about Liam, and I can see how much he cares about you. I can either support him or alienate him, and given that I think you’ve both got enough trouble ahead with how Annie will handle all this, I choose to support him.”

I sighed. She was right. I knew it. She knew it. Liam 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.