I can’t even begin to tell you how happy I am right now.

We just got done telling Mackenzie that we are officially back together. She jumped off the bed and started jumping up and down screaming and clapping. I’m guessing she was happy, I could be wrong, but my gut is telling me she’s excited.

Justin keeps looking at me funny. I can’t quite figure out what he wants. It’s not a goofy grin, like I’m excited we’re back together. It’s not his sexy face, like he wants to fuck me. It’s not anything I’ve seen before. I can’t figure it out. This might just drive me insane. I hate it when I can’t figure something out. My brain dwells on it until I’ve figured it out.

“I think I’m going to go make dinner… Why don’t you two… talk.” He says, throwing me a wink.

Oh, boy… I figured out the face. He wants me to have the sex talk with her.

This should be interesting.

“Ok daddy… Can you cut up a banana. My bananas not yours… and put it with some of those almonds I picked out.”

“Ok so, what’s the difference between regular bananas and organic bananas?” He asks, looking genuinely confused.

“Duh, the Organic one is better for me.” she says, in a know-it-all voice.

“They are the same damn thing only yours costs 2 dollars more a pound than mine do and they come in a fancy plastic bag.” He says, shaking his head.

“They don’t cost that much more and they don’t have all the chemicals on them like yours do.” She defends.

“I’m willing to bet you couldn’t tell the difference between them if I switched them.” he says, getting that mischievous look on his face.

“Daddy, you wouldn’t do that to me… right?” She says, getting nervous.

“I don’t know… Maybe.” he says, laughing as he walks out of the room.

“He wouldn’t right?” She asks me with wide eyes.

I laugh, “I don’t know sweetie.”

“So daddy says we should talk… Does that mean we can talk about shoes?” She asks, wide eyed.

“Not quite…”

Ok so how do you bring this up to a six year old? So ever seen a dick? I mean seriously, how do I start this?

“Um… Do you… Did your mom ever… talk about… s-s-sex with you?” I jumble out nervously.

“Sex?” She asks with a disgusted face.

Well I guess that’s a good sign right?

“Yeah… Do you know anything about it?”

“Not really. I know that’s how daddy and mom made me, but that’s it.” She says and I’m a little taken aback by it. I guess I never really thought of Justin sleeping with another woman. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not delusional. I know he’s slept with other woman I just haven’t really thought about it. Until now…

“Yeah, well I uh… I guess I just wanted to talk to you about it.”

“Ok…” She says, sighing, staring at me wide eyed.

I take a deep breath, “Ok, well uh… Sex… errr love making…” I can’t figure out the best way to describe this…

“What’s the difference?” She asks.

Oh shit…

“The difference?” I play dumb.

“Between sex and love making.”

I’m not cut out for this…

“Well… Making love is more of an emotional… thing. Sex… Well sex is more of a physical… thing.”

“What?”

“When two people love each other… they sometimes want to show each other how much they love each other. This normally happens when a person is older. Nothing you have to worry about at your age… or in the near future.”

“What happens?”

Wow… really? I don’t think I can do this…

“Umm… well do you know anything about the male… body?”

“I know they have a penis and we have vaginas.”

“Right… Well… again when two people love each other they show each other by sometimes… making love. That… well that means that… the man. He uh… he puts his… penis in the woman’s vagina.”

“He just puts it in? that’s it?”

Holy shit I have to get graphic with the kid? I refuse to draw pictures.

“Well no… He then moves in and out… of the vagina.”

“Why? That’s stupid.”

“It does sound that way huh? Well normally when people make love they do it to make babies.”

Ok so that was a lie… I’m trying to get her to not have sex right?

“What about sex?”

Well shit… This little girl is just full of questions.

“Well sex is more for the… pleasure.”

“So it feels good when a boy puts his penis in you?”

I’m blushing… I’m pretty positive I’m blushing.

“Sometimes, yes.” not a total lie. Some guys don’t know the first thing about what they are doing and it doesn’t feel good.

“So if you just want to feel good you have sex, but if you want a baby you make love?”

“No!” I respond rather quickly.

“No god… ummm… Sex is kind of the same thing. You can still make babies when you have sex, it’s just not on that emotional level that love making is on.”

Oh hell, what do I know? I shouldn’t be talking about this. I’m just making this shit up as I go… I hope I’m making some sort of sense. Maybe I’ll just confuse the hell out of her so she wont want to do it. Nah, that would back fire and she’d get curious.

“Like I said, this is for grown-ups. You shouldn’t even have to think about this until your at least 18.” That’s a good age right?

“Then why are we talking about it now?”

I haven’t the slightest idea…

“Well, I guess it’s because not all people think they should wait until they are old enough to figure all of this out on their own. Some people do start early, but that’s kind of why I wanted to talk to you about it. I don’t want you to start early and get pregnant before you graduate from high school. I just want you to know if you have any questions about any of this or anything that has to do with this, you can talk to me about it.”

“How old where you?”

Wow, didn’t see that one coming… Ok so honesty is the best policy right?

“Well, see… I was uh… I was 16... It’s one of those things that I wasn’t mature enough to realize I was doing the wrong thing. I regret it to this day. I know I should have waited, but I didn’t and it’s something I’ll always regret. Life shouldn’t be filled with regrets and I’ll always have that one with me. I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I did… or your father.”

“How old was he?”

I scrunch up my face in thought, “I… I have no idea, actually. I’ve never asked.”

“Hmmm…So how many people have you had sex with.”

I’m pretty sure my eyes just bugged out of my head.

“Wow… uh… ummm wow… That’s a little too personal.”

“I thought I could ask you anything about this.”

“I did say something like that huh?”

Damn… now what… topic change.

“I think dinner should be ready… do you want to go check?”

She just stares at me.

“Do you and Daddy have sex or Make love? And how often?”

What the hell have I got myself into now? Holy shit.

“Dinner’s ready.” Justin all but yells, barging into the room.

I puff out a sigh of relief and turn towards Mackenzie, “We’ll uh… We’ll finish this another time ok?”

“Ok.” She says, skipping out of the room.

“Ok like in 20 years.” I mumble.

Justin laughs, “Well that went well.”

“I hate you.” I say, glaring at him.

He laughs again.

“This is not at all funny… Be ready for her to ask you all the questions she just asked me. I can’t wait to see how you respond to them. Oh and don’t worry I’ll be snickering behind the door listening to you.”

“You could hear me?”

“Yeah, Thanks babe.” I say, shaking my head.

“I saved you though.”

“I could have handled it.” I lie.

“Right… you could just keep saying… uh… well…”

I smack his arm, “Shut up. Seriously that was that hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. She wouldn’t stop asking the most horrid questions. I can’t believe she asked some of them… Oh by the way, how old were you?” I ask, laughing.

“Too young.”

“Well she’s going to ask, so you might want to come up with a better response than that.” I say, walking out of the room.

************************************************************************

“Dear god I hope this parenting thing gets easier.” I say, plopping down on the couch beside Lauren.

She laughs, “Is she sleeping?”

“Yes, finally. She wouldn’t stop asking questions. I broke out in a sweat!” I say, bug eyed.

She laughs again, “I tried to warn you.”

“Please tell me it gets easier now that we’ve gotten that part out of the way.”

“Sweetie I hate to be the one to break it to you, but parenting never gets easy… I think with each year it just gets a little more stressful. But hey, what do I know. I’m the one with no parents right?”

I run my hand up and down her thigh, “I’m sorry.”

“For what? My dad dying and my mom leaving has nothing to do with you.”

“I know, but I just can’t imagine what it’s like…”

“It’s really, really hard… especially lately. I’ve had absolutely no one to talk to. I’ll always have Livy, but sometimes a person just needs to talk to a parent and I don’t have that option.”

“What about Ryan?”

“He’s not talking to me remember?”

“It was my fault. I pushed him. I knew if I pissed him off he would break and he did. I didn’t mean for him to stop talking to you.”

“I know. I’m sure he’ll be royally pissed that I’m back here… with you. I’m sure he’ll be happy, but extremely pissed at the same time.”

“Do you uh… Do you want me to take you home or… or do you want… to stay?” I ask, hesitantly.

She turns towards me and smiles, “If I stay we aren’t having sex.”

I scoff, “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“mmm I’m sure you wouldn’t… seriously though, I want to take this.” she motions between the two of us, “Slow… a lot slower than we did the last time.”

“That’s probably best.”

“Yeah, and it’s probably best I go home.”

“Why’s that?”

“I’m not so sure we know how to keep things… slow.” She says laughing.

“I give you my word, I wont touch you unless you want me to.”

“That’s the problem.” She says, leaning in to kiss me.

I pull away, very… very reluctantly, “Why don’t we watch a movie.”

She nods, “Ok… Do you have the Thomas Crown Affair? I was watching it on TV the other night, but it cuts out the best parts and I’ve been wanting to see it ever since.”

“Yeah, I think Trace got it to see Rene’s tits.” I say laughing.

“I should have known.” She says, laughing.

I popped the movie in and sat back down, pulling Lauren against me. She laid her head on my shoulder, eventually falling asleep and landing in my lap. I slowly lift her head up enough for me to sneak out from under her, laying her back down gently. I grab my phone and walk out to the back yard.

“What the fuck do you want?”

“Hi to you too Ryan.” I say shaking my head.

This is going to be harder than I thought.

“What the fuck do you want?” he repeats with a little more venom than the last time.

“I want you to talk to your sister.”

“What makes you think I’m not. She’s actually sitting here with me now and you interrupted us.”

“Huh, that’s funny because I could have sworn she was a sleep on my couch.”

He was silent for a minute before he exploded, “Wait she’s WHAT?”

“She’s asleep on my couch.” I repeat, taking a seat in one of the lawn chairs.

“Why the fuck is she there? What did you do to her now?” he yells.

“I didn’t do anything. Your sister, the woman you refuse to talk to, took my daughter shopping today. She came back, we talked and we’re taking things slow, but we’re together again.”

“Why the hell would she take your daughter shopping? How the hell did that even happen?”

“That doesn’t matter, what matters is that you abandoned her when she needed you. Why? Why would you do that to her?”

“That’s none of your goddamn business.” He barks.

“Yes it is my business. She’s your fucking sister Ryan. You’re all she has left for family and you abandoned her when she was coping with my stupidity. I don’t understand the logic behind that?”

He sighs, “I fucked up and I knew she was angry with me.”

“So you decided to stop talking to her? That’s the dumbest, shittiest thing I’ve ever heard… Ryan what happened was my fault. I know that and she knows that… I wanted you to hit me and I made it happen. Again, I know that and she knows that. You did what any good brother would do, you stood up for your sister. She’s not angry with you. She’s upset you wont talk to her more than anything.”

“I shouldn’t have hit you.” he says quietly.

“I’m glad you did, Ryan. I deserved it.”

“No you didn’t.”

“Ryan, I hurt your sister. I’m sorry, but I deserved a lot more than just a few bruises and a busted cheek.”

“Fuck, man I’m sorry. I don’t know what got into me. It was like I was someone else.”

“I pushed your buttons Ryan. I knew what would happen and I made it happen… Look I know you love your sister, but I think you need to show her that you do.”

“Why don’t I stop by in the morning and surprise her. That way if she really is upset with me, she’ll at least be able to be there with you.”

“Why don’t you bring breakfast… Say 8?” I suggest.

“I’ll be there.”

“Hey, there you are.”

I look up to see Lauren walking out towards me. I toss the phone on the chair next to me, patting my lap for her to sit.

“Important business?” She asks, straddling my lap.

“Very.” I say, locking my arms around her waist, leaning in to kiss her.