Extensive (A Single Dad Box Set)

by Claire Adams

  “I agree with you,” she said. “A child needs a mother, or mother figure in their lives. It is really important to growth and emotional stability. That being said, Christina is not a mother in my eyes. She put her wants and needs to be with another man over those of her husband and her child. She lost her privilege to be a mother to that child the moment she stepped foot out of that house without any intention of ever coming back.”

  “That is true,” I said. “It was really hard to believe that she actually cared about them when she begged Ryan to take her back. She was exasperated, and she seemed like she was looking for something, but it wasn’t the comfort of her child. I really couldn’t read her very well, but if I had missed all that time with my daughter, the first thing I would do would be to spend time with her and then approach that subject later, not standing in the living room in front of company.”

  “Well, I don’t necessarily believe that her intentions were truthful,” my mother said, closing the book.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I can see her crawling back to that life not because she wanted to, but because she got dumped,” she said, shaking her head. “When you have nowhere else to go, you pick the destination you can manipulate to your needs the best. If he does take her back, I can see her leaving again in the near future.”

  “I just don’t understand how you can fall in and out of love so quickly,” I said, frustrated. “I mean, it has plagued me ever since Dad left. When you love someone, it should take great acts to make you fall out of love with them. In my eyes, it’s easy to love, and it’s hard to walk away and get rid of the feelings. Anyone who has ever been broken up with knows that feeling all too well.”

  “Love is a tricky thing,” she said. “And let me just remind you, Alissa, Ryan has been divorced for quite some time now. It isn’t like you fell in love with a man that was off limits. It doesn’t make you being able to let go any easier, knowing that you didn’t do anything wrong in the situation. I can understand how being bested by that blonde twit could be extremely frustrating.”

  “It just makes it hard because fighting for Ryan means that it will effect Kayla in one way or another,” I said. “I don’t want to do that if I can manage to avoid it.”

  “Honey, either way, that poor girl is going to have some sort of feelings about the situation,” she said, patting my leg. “You would be shocked to realize just how intuitive little girls really are. Listen, if you want to fight for your man, then do it. You are not in any way, shape, or form in the wrong for doing so. Ryan was a free man when you started dating him, and any claim Christina had to him was left behind when she signed those divorce papers. If you fight for him and that beautiful little girl that you love so much, that does not make you a homewrecker. What it does do is make Christina a homewrecker for coming in and stealing what was not hers. She gave up on that man and that little girl when she abandoned them. You have to stop seeing yourself as the villain and realize that you just might be those two’s hero.”

  “I never thought about it that way,” I said, biting my nails and staring off into the distance.

  “That’s why I’m here.” She chuckled. “You sit here and ponder. I’m going to go make us some tea. I think I’ve had my fill of wine for the day. Otherwise, you might find me taking a nap in the garden later.”

  “Okay,” I said, nodding my head and focusing on the chair across from me.

  I was so confused about what to think, how to think, and what I should even do about all of this. On the one hand, my mother made a very good and perfectly valid argument. I was not in the wrong whatsoever for dating Ryan. On the other hand, I was still worried about what it would do to Kayla if I were to fight to stay a part of their lives. I knew that if he took Christina back, I would never be able to be around them again. It would change the whole dynamic of how I handled my family and the holiday gatherings we all loved so much. In the end, though, that wasn’t even my biggest concern. My biggest issue was that I loved him, and I felt deep in my gut that I should be fighting for him and making sure both he and Kayla knew how much I loved them, how invested I was in their lives, and how much I wanted us to be a family. Once they knew that, if they still decided to bring Christina back, I had done all I could do to win them back.

  It was a difficult decision, but I knew that I was going to have to make it, and sooner than later. The longer I allowed that woman to inch back into their lives, the less likely I was to get a good response when I went knocking on their door. I wasn’t even sure if it was already too late.

  Chapter 35

  Ryan

  Laughter bellowed from my chest as Kayla bounced out of the car and down the walkway to the house, wearing her new elephant hat and duck shoe covers that I got her at the gift shop at the zoo. I knew that this outing would be a hit for Kayla, since she pretty much loved the zoo with everything in her being. It was hard to do these kinds of things without constantly thinking about Alissa, but I tried to stay the course, not wanting to take myself backward into something that I wasn’t sure I had any control over anymore. It had been weeks now since Alissa and I had been together, and we hadn’t talked at all, not even through text. I tried to respect that, knowing how hurt she probably was.

  I reached the front door and unlocked it, letting Kayla run inside and waiting for Christina to catch up. I was assuming she wasn’t used to the energy level of an eight-year-old, but at least this time, she had worn jeans and a t-shirt with sneakers instead of traipsing around in high fashion next to the lion pit. She walked past me and smiled fakely with her lips tightly pursed together. I rolled my eyes and sighed, walking in behind them and shutting the door. Kayla raced upstairs to put away her stuff, and I looked over at Christina, not sure what to say to her.

  Everything still seemed so stressed, almost forced from her, and I couldn’t figure out why. By now, I would have figured she would be back in the flow of things with Kayla at least. She was very distant from Kayla and was doing things in a way that was “expected,” and not just relaxed and with the flow of the moment. She also seemed to forget that Kayla was old enough to do things like wipe her own nose and tie her own shoes, which had led to an embarrassing moment for Kayla at the zoo in front of the monkey cages. I was no longer going to sit by and just let it continue like that, not if this was supposed to decide whether I let Christina back in our lives or not. She had to either let me know what was going on, or things needed to change, because at that moment, we were at a complete standstill.

  Christina sat down on the couch and leaned back, closing her eyes, which gave me the message that she wasn’t going to be putting Kayla to bed that night. I shook my head and headed upstairs, picking up one of Kayla’s lost duck feet and laughing. When I got inside her room, she was already in the bed with the covers pulled up to her chin. She reached up as I leaned over and wrapped her arms around my neck, kissing me on the cheek.

  “I had a really good time, Daddy; thank you,” she said sweetly.

  “You are welcome, my sweet,” I replied. “Get some sleep, okay? I’ll see you bright and early for some yummy breakfast.”

  “Okay.” She yawned, turning over and clutching her baseball doll.

  I left the room and turned out the light, pulling her door almost all the way shut. I went back downstairs and gently sat down on the couch next to Christina, folding my hands in front of me. She opened her eyes and looked over at me with a smile. I couldn’t let this go on anymore without saying something about it.

  “Christina,” I said, turning slightly toward her. “I can’t help but notice, and I’ve noticed this since the ball game, that things seem really strained. You are acting like you are being forced to interact with Kayla. What is going on? I feel like there is something that you aren’t telling me. If you are trying to make this work, then you need to be totally upfront and honest with me.”

  “I don’t know.” She sighed.

  She sat there for several minutes, her eyes moving back
and forth as she thought about her words. Slowly, she pulled her hand over to my knee and squeezed my leg, turning her head toward me as it rested on the back of the couch. Her eyes changed, and it was an all too familiar look. She seemed to forget that I was married to her for a long time and knew what the sultry stare meant. Immediately, I felt uncomfortable, almost like I was doing something wrong.

  “I miss you,” she whispered. “I miss your strong muscles, your hot naked body, and all the wild things you used to do to me in bed. It’s been a long time, Ryan, and I think I might just be a little pent up.”

  She started to move her hand farther up my leg, and I grabbed it, staring her in the face. There wasn’t a single bone in my body that was even considering sleeping with Christina. I hadn’t even reached the point where I was the least bit attracted to her. Beyond the way she mothered, or didn’t mother, Kayla, there was still the issue that she was fucking my best friend behind my back for God knows how long. The last thing on my mind was screwing my ex-wife, no matter how long it had been since I got any.

  “I know that in your mind this is a package deal,” I said, laying her hand back in her lap and pulling away. “For me though, it’s a bit different than that. This little plea for our family is twofold for me. I am not, in any way, focused on you and me right now. Right now, I am focused on whether or not you can be a mother to our daughter, something that you haven’t shown you are really interested in doing. Motherhood doesn’t give participation trophies, Christina. You have to actually put something into it. If, and that is a big if, you can show me that you can be a loving and adequate mother to Kayla again, then we can start discussing the possibility of the two of us rekindling anything that may have been there before. If you haven’t forgotten, you didn’t just leave Kayla, you were fucking my best friend for months and then left us both for him.”

  Her eyes lightened again, and a pout moved across her lips like a child that had been scorned. I knew this story all too well and had dealt with it in our marriage over and over again. Only then, I gave into it. Anytime that Christina was coming under the knife for anything she may have done wrong, she tried to use her sexual prowess to get herself out of it. The difference now was the fact that I wasn’t interested in sleeping with her. Before, I was in love, or at least I thought I was, and didn’t want to give up a chance to have hot sex with my then wife.

  “Right,” she said, picking up her head. “I forgot that you’ve spent the last who knows how long screwing that dumb, frumpy interior designer, Alissa. I think it’s hilarious that you go from this to a rebound like her. Talk about dating down after a divorce. What was wrong? You couldn’t find anyone outside of your own family to date, so you decided that dating your own sister was a good idea? You want to sit there and pass judgment on me, but I wasn’t playing house with my father’s wife’s daughter. I can see that when I left, I took all the class right out the door with me. I mean, God, does she even get jobs with the kind of skills I am staring at in this house? Taupe and earth tones? Gross.”

  She stood up and stomped over to her bag, pulling it over her shoulder and searching for her keys. Everything in me wanted to tell her to get the hell out and never come back, but I knew that my little girl was just above our heads, snugly tucked into her covers, happy from a day spent with her mother and father. I took in a deep breath and unclenched my teeth, realizing that I had just probably embarrassed Christina a bit, and she was lashing out because of that. Still, I didn’t want to look at her face anymore that night.

  “You are too much.” I laughed. “You don’t get your way for one night, and all of a sudden, you turn into this vicious bitch that has the audacity to put me down for my choices after you walked out on your baby girl. You, the woman who ran away with her husband’s best friend and then came crawling back here, begging for forgiveness, have the balls to sit there and try to make me feel bad for moving on with my life and having a relationship with someone that actually gave a damn about Kayla and me. I want you to leave for the night. I’m sick of looking at your face. I’ll call you tomorrow, and maybe we can continue what we have been doing. I need some time to think.”

  She looked up at me in shock that I actually had the guts to tell her to get out. When we were married, she pretty much ruled the roost, and she wasn’t used to me being so assertive. I had grown a lot since she left, and whether she wanted to admit it or not, I was not the same man that she was married to before. She could thank herself for that. I was no longer going to sit by and let her push me around and say things that were meant to be hurtful. This was my decision, not hers, and she needed to start understanding she was no longer in control.

  She dropped her hands down to her sides and looked at the floor, taking in a deep breath and closing her eyes. She stood there for several moments, thinking about what had just happened. That was the first time she had come at me like that since she had arrived, and it was obvious there was a lot of bad blood between us. She slowly raised her head and stared at me, her face now thoughtful and saddened.

  “Ryan, I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m not used to you turning me down, and it hurt my ego. I flew off the handle, and I shouldn’t have done that. I will admit that I am jealous of the relationship that you, Alissa, and Kayla have built up since I have been gone. But I am back now, and I am trying for my family, something I want back more than anything because I love both of you so very much.”

  “You need to try harder,” I said calmly. “If what you say is true, then you really need to try harder.”

  “I understand,” she said meekly.

  “Go back to the hotel, get a good night’s sleep, and I’ll call you in the morning,” I replied with exhaustion. “Nothing is going to get solved tonight. We are both exhausted and angry.”

  She nodded and walked out of the house, quietly shutting the door behind her. Nothing about what she said made me feel bad, but it definitely calmed me down enough to think straight. This was a way more difficult situation than I originally had realized.

  Chapter 36

  Alissa

  My feet were propped up on the coffee table, and I was holding my glass of wine to my lips, not actually drinking it at all. My eyes were fixed somewhere in the distance, but my mind was raging all over the place. I couldn’t get Ryan and Kayla off my mind. Ever since I had that conversation with my mother, I kept thinking that I had made a huge mistake not fighting for the two of them.

  Everything was so hazy in my mind, but I knew for certain that I was still madly in love with Ryan. Even just the thought of Christina being in that house with them made me sick to my stomach, and the thought of Kayla was breaking my heart. That little girl deserved so much better than what she was being offered. I cared so much for her, just as I always imagined I would for my own children. She deserved to have a mother that loved her, cared about her, and never abandoned her. I knew that if I didn’t fight for them, I would be doing the same thing that Christina did: walking away from them and leaving them on their own. Just thinking about Kayla thinking I had abandoned her brought tears to my eyes, and I could barely handle the emotion.

  I sat on the couch, thinking about them for quite a while, trying to understand why Ryan would even consider letting Christina back in their lives. I had to understand that Christina was, whether I liked it or not, Kayla’s mother, and that meant that she had the right to be there for her daughter and care for her how she saw fit. That being said, there was no reason why I couldn’t provide Kayla with love, support, and caring right alongside her. It was obvious from her actions before that she didn’t love Ryan, so there was no reason that this couldn’t be a normal, divorced family situation. I knew that kicking Christina completely out of their lives would be hurtful to Kayla, but it didn’t have to be that way. She could have both.

  Christina was only after Ryan because he could provide stability and a good life, but she didn’t care about him more now than she did the day she left him. I couldn’t just let him make that mistake and l
et her back into his life like that. It was one thing to foster a relationship between Kayla and her mother, but it was completely different to go all in and have another terrible relationship between Ryan and Christina. I just couldn’t let that happen. I loved him too much. I had spent my life hoping to find someone that I cared about as much as I did for Ryan, and now that I was losing it, I was frantic to not let that happen.

  I stood up from the couch with a burst of energy that came out of nowhere. I set the wine on the table and pulled my shoes on, deciding that it was now or never. I grabbed my purse and keys and walked out of my house, locking the door behind me and heading straight for my car. I put the keys in the ignition and drove out of my neighborhood, knowing that if I slowed down for even a second, I ran the risk of losing the confidence I had surging through me at that moment. I didn’t want to go one more night without letting Ryan know just how I felt about him. Hopefully, Kayla would be in bed because I wanted to be honest with him without hurting her in any way.

  As I drove, I thought about all the things that my mother and sister had told me and realized now that they were right. I wasn’t the homewrecker here. Christina was. If I really loved Ryan, I needed to not give up until it was blatantly obvious that I had lost. I pulled into the neighborhood and around the corner, parallel parking in front of their house. The downstairs lights were on, but the top floor was dark, making me assume that Kayla was fast asleep already. I left my purse in the car and walked quickly up the walk, knocking hard on the door and standing back, feeling my heart beating out of my chest.

  I could hear footsteps walking toward the door, and I took a step backward, not wanting to be seen through peephole. As the door opened, I saw Ryan’s face, and I had to push down the urge to jump into his arms and feel his warm embrace. He tilted his head and smiled, a welcoming gaze staring out at me.