Chapter 6: Lay Bare The Inner Feelings

The early morning confrontation with his teenage daughter still made Lief feel uneasy.

He knew she disapproved of this relationship, but he was still at odds as to what he should do.

Lief knew he could ask Josefin, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to put a damper on their date.

But then, he was also curious about how Arvid felt about it. That is, if Josefin had told her boys at all yet.

In the end, Lief decided to just cross that bridge if he came to it tonight.

But until that point, he was just going to have a nice little time with Josefin.

And being the hopeless romantic he was, Lief came prepared.

"You like, you like~?" A verbal answer would have been a tad gratuitous. The look on her face told Lief everything.

"I love, I love!" Clearly, Josefin was already impressed with Lief's efforts to please his partner.

Perhaps flowers were a tad cliche, but it wasn't like he had to visit the city of R'lyeh and punch out Cthulhu.

Their date wasn't anything fancy, just chatting about their day by the lake. The rain basically made it impossible to do anything else.

"Mom, the toilet's clogged up." Then, as if on some unspoken cue, Arvid appeared from the bathroom.

"Oh, right! I forgot to tell you I brought Arvid along." Josefin seemed embarrassed to admit this to her date.

"Nah, I don't mind him at all. Though, seeing him reminded me of something that happened this morning."

"Really?" Josefin seemed to become worried at Lief mentioning this.

"Um...Can I go home, now? I think Edvin's off work in a couple of minutes." Arvid seemed to note the tension, and he was worried something might be off about Karen.

Even if he was involved in some way, he wanted to be somewhere far away in case it was bad.

"Go ahead, sweetie. It's almost curfew anyway."

"Thanks, Mom. See you later, Lief." After he left, Lief breathed an internal sigh of relief. It would seem Arvid held no hostility toward the older man.

"So what happened this morning?" Josefin asked the question, not entirely sure if she really wanted to know the answer.

"Oh...Apparently, Karen's not too happy about us dating." Lief remembered how infuriated his daughter was that morning. "She says it's creepy and weird."

"Well, I don't blame her." Josefin was taking this oddly well. "It's a bit of a hard concept to grasp. I mean...have any of your ex-wives had children from other marriages? Besides with you, I mean."

"No, they haven't." Lief looked off to the side, then had to ask. "Speaking of children, did you tell the boys we're dating now?"

"I have. Arvid was initially upset about it, and said it was weird to think about. But...I guess he's warmed up to the idea. And Edvin, well...I'm guessing from his one word answer that he didn't mind."

"So your boys are okay with us dating?"

"I'd say so. Chances are though, with us dating as well as our children, that it'll make things complicated later on."

"But for now? I'd say don't worry too much about it. Though I do feel bad for you."

"You mean with Karen, right?" Lief felt happy that Josefin was willing to keep dating him, despite Karen's objections. At his question, his lady friend simply nodded.

He still felt bad, though. Something told him that the longer he stayed with Josefin, the angrier his daughter would become.

But he really did feel a connection with Josefin. If Lief did say so himself, he never completely felt it with his three exes.

Lief was still between a rock and a hard place, but he was willing to take a chance.

(End of Chapter 6.)