“You said I need to treat my children better.”
She said it, but she said it months ago. “Okay.”
Mick exhaled. “Up to some company this evening?” he asked her.
Roz hesitated. Her heart began to pound. “What kind of company?”
“I thought I’d invite my children over for dinner.”
Roz looked at him. “Really?”
“We’ve been together for what? Nearly six months now? I think it’s time they meet you.”
Roz felt a sense of awesome happiness, because it would only help solidify Mick’s commitment to her, but she felt an awesome burden too.
“Would you like to meet my children tonight, Rosalind?”
Roz smiled. “Yes, I would. Absolutely. But are you going to be able to get them all together on such short notice?”
“What do you mean? They all live here in Philly.”
Roz was astounded. “Every one of them?”
Mick nodded. “Yes.”
Then why didn’t he introduce them sooner? “I thought they were scattered across the country.”
“They were. But as they all became adults, they decided they wanted to live where I lived. So they all moved here. They all have different mothers, but they’re very close.”
“You’re the odd one out?”
Mick hated to admit it. “Yes,” he said.
“But yes,” Roz said, “tell them to come over. I would love to meet them tonight. But even though they all live here in Philly, it’s still very short notice, Mick. You’re certain they’ll all show up?”
Mick knew they would. They would love nothing better than to spend time with him. They weren’t the problem. He was. “Yes,” he said. “I’m certain they all will.”
Roz was in a battle with her emotions. On the one hand, she was overjoyed to meet Mick’s children for the first time. That was a positive piece of meat no matter how she sliced it. But she was worried too. And it was a worry that cut to the heart of the matter, and could be devastating if it turned out the way she was hoping it would not. But worrying that it could was her greater emotion. She was sitting in an open bathrobe on the bed, putting lotion on her legs, while Mick was just getting out of the shower. When he stood in the doorway of the master bathroom, drying off his gorgeous body, Roz looked at him, and addressed her concern.
“What if they don’t like me, Mick?”
Mick smiled, and looked at her exposed breasts beneath her robe. The idea that anybody not loving his sweet Rosalind was ludicrous to him. “They will.”
“But you say that so easily. Children don’t generally like their father’s girlfriends. They may view me as a threat.”
Mick looked at her with a perplexed look in his eyes. That word was a loaded word in his world. “A threat?” he asked. “What kind of a threat?”
“A threat to take your attention away from them. A threat to someday become more than a girlfriend to you, and take away their inheritance.”
Mick laughed, and continued to dry off.
“I’m serious, Mick! The love of money is no joke. It changes people. They may want to hire a hit man to knock me off.” Then Roz had an idea. “Maybe you should tell them that if we ever were to get married---”
When she said that word, an almost distressed look appeared on Mick’s face. He stopped drying off and leaned against the bathroom’s doorjamb. Roz felt an immediate need to clarify herself. “I’m not saying we’ll ever get married,” she quickly said. “I’m not advocating for it in any way, shape, or form. I know we’re nowhere near that.”
But it wasn’t about any advocating, or even the fact that she used what Mick called the m-word. It was the fact that Mick knew, if they continued down this path, that one day they would get married. That one day Rosalind Graham would become Rosalind Sinatra, his wife. It was a beautiful thought. It would be a dream come true for Mick.
But it was a sobering thought too. Because as long as she was his girlfriend, all of those ghosts of his past could continue to underestimate his devotion to her. He’d never been devoted to any of his other women before, they could argue, what was different about this one? But once he put a ring on it, he knew that was going to flip the script. She was going to be fair game. They were going to believe that getting Rosalind would be the same, if not better, as getting Mick himself. And that thought, that painful thought, was the distress Roz saw on his face.
But Roz was still dealing with her own haunt: how to curry favor with his kids. How to do everything in her power to ensure she doesn’t further strain an already fractured relationship between a father and his children. “Perhaps you should tell them that should we get married one day, that I’ll sign a pre-nup. That way they’ll know that I’m not in it for the money.”