Unmatched Wife: Not His To Claim Anymore novel Chapter 199

Chapter 199

Chapter 199

Chapter 199

MATTHEW

I heard them before I saw them.

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Theo’s voice first, coming from the hallway, talking at the speed he talked when he had a lot to say and not enough patience for the normal pace of conversation. Then Marcus’s voice, lower, making the sounds of someone responding at intervals without necessarily being given room to actually speak.

I was in the kitchen going through the week’s meal plan, which had become a more complicated exercise since Callahan had taken up residence in my bedroom. Not because he was demanding – he wasn’t but because he had opinions, and the opinions had a way of emerging at relevant moments. He had mentioned, once, that he found heavy meals in the evenings made the healing process slower. He had mentioned this in the way he mentioned most things, which was as a factual observation rather than a request, and I had adjusted the evening meals accordingly, and now apparently this was just how we ate.

The front door opened.

“—and then Mrs. Patterson said we had to go inside but Daniel said we could finish our game at lunch and I said that was fine but actually I wanted to keep going because I was winning and it wasn’t fair to stop when I was winning-”

Marcus appeared in the kitchen doorway with the expression he had been wearing more frequently in recent days, which was the expression of a man who found something funny and was professionally obligated to contain it but was doing so with diminishing success.

Theo appeared under his arm, still talking.

“-and Sophie said the rule was whoever was winning when the bell rang got to claim the win but that’s not a real rule, that’s a rule she made up, so I didn’t agree-

“Theo,” I said.

He stopped. Looked at me. “Hi, Dad.”

“Hi. How was school?”

“Good. I won the game even though Sophie said I didn’t.” He dropped his bag by the door with the thump that I had stopped commenting on and went toward the stairs. “Is Cal awake? I want to show him the thing I drew in art.”

“He might be resting,” I said. “Check before you go in.”

“I always check,” Theo said, with the mild offense of someone whose standard practice was being questioned, and disappeared upstairs.

I looked at Marcus.

He was still doing the contained-funny expression.

“What?” I said.

“I’ll tell you in a moment,” he said. “I need to enjoy it for a few more seconds first.”

I put down the meal plan. “Marcus.”

“His teacher called the school office today,” Marcus said. “While I was there for pickup. I overheard the beginning of the conversation and then Mrs. Patterson saw me and included me, which I think she found helpful.

“Why did his teacher call?”

Chapter 199

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“She wanted to discuss something Theo had been telling his classmates,” Marcus said. He paused in the way of someone selecting the correct starting point for a story. “Apparently, over the past week, Theo has been telling various people at school about a man who lives at your house.”

I looked at him.

“A man called Cal,” Marcus continued, “who sleeps in your bed, eats your food, and has strong opinions about what gets cooked for dinner.”

I stood very still.

“Mrs. Patterson wanted to flag it,” Marcus said, the contained-funny expression now requiring visible effort to maintain,” because she initially thought Theo had invented an imaginary friend. The details were very specific and the situation as Theo described it sounded-“He paused again. “It sounded like a domestic arrangement of a particular kind.”

“Marcus.”

“She was very tactful about it,” he said. “She said Theo seemed happy and settled and she just wanted to make sure everything at home was-“He searched for the word. “Appropriate.”

I sat down at the kitchen table.

I thought about Callahan in my bedroom for the past six days. About the adjusted evening meals. About the way Theo had taken to going upstairs every afternoon and staying there until dinner, which I had been glad about because it meant Theo was occupied and Callahan was less alone, and I had not thought carefully enough about what Theo was making of the arrangement or what he was saying about it to other people.

“What did you tell her?” I asked.

“I explained that you had a security consultant staying in the house while recovering from an injury,” Marcus said. “She was very understanding.” He paused. “She apologized for the misunderstanding and ended the call fairly quickly.”

“How quickly?”

“Very,” he said.

I pressed my palms against the kitchen table.

From upstairs, I could hear Theo’s voice, already talking at his normal speed, and the lower sound of Callahan responding Something about the art project, from what I could make out. Something about whether the colours were accurate.

“There’s more,” Marcus said.

I looked at him.

“On the way out,” Marcus said, “I was walking behind Theo and two of his classmates. They didn’t see me.” He straightened slightly, composing himself, which was the tell that what came next was going to require composure from both of us. “They asked Theo if he had ever seen you kiss Cal.”

The kitchen was very quiet.

“What did he say?” I asked, carefully.

“He said no,” Marcus said. “But that maybe after Aunt Mia tried to take him away and was the reason his mum died, you were being very careful about who you spent time with.”

I looked at the table.

“He said it very matter-of-factly,” Marcus added. “Like it was a reasonable explanation.”

“It is,” I said. “From his perspective.”

Chapter 199

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“It is,” Marcus agreed. “It’s just-the combination of the two pieces of information, in the context his classmates now have-

“Sounds like I’m being careful about a new relationship because of what happened with Mia,” I said.

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“That’s a fair summary of how it reads,” Marcus said.

“And Theo doesn’t see anything wrong with what he said.”

“He was explaining,” Marcus said. “He genuinely seemed to think he was being helpful.”

I sat for a moment with this.

Upstairs, Theo was explaining something about the specific shade of green he had used in his drawing and why it was the scientifically correct shade for the type of dinosaur he had depicted. Callahan was asking a follow-up question. The conversation had the settled quality of something that happened every day, which it did, because it had been happening every day for six days and was now, apparently, a fixture.

I thought about the first time I had come home from the pack house to find Theo sitting on the floor of my bedroom showing Callahan the full dinosaur collection in order of appearance in the fossil record, which was a specific organization I hadn’t known Theo had developed. I had stood in the doorway for a moment watching Callahan look at each one as it was presented and ask the relevant questions, and I had thought this is fine, this is actually good for Theo, and I had gone to start dinner and had not thought about it much more.

I had not thought about it enough.

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