Unmatched Wife: Not His To Claim Anymore novel Chapter 200

Chapter 200

Chapter 200

MATTHEW

I moved my hand from my face and looked at the table.

“He doesn’t see anything wrong with it,” Marcus added. “I want to be clear about that. From Theo’s perspective, he simply provided accurate information in response to a question. He was not being dramatic. He was just explaining the situation as he understands it.”

“Which is that I am in a relationship with my injured security consultant.”

“Who sleeps in your bed and has opinions about soup,” Marcus said.

The phone on the table lit up. I looked at it. Unknown number, which I would normally ignore, but there had been too many unknown numbers with actual importance recently.

I answered.

“Mr. Morrison?” A woman’s voice. Professional, pleasant, with the slight careful quality of someone about to say something awkward. “This is Mrs. Hendricks, from Greenbrook Primary. I’m one of the support teachers in Theo’s year.”

“Yes,” I said. I was already looking at Marcus, who had heard the voice and was now entirely composed again, which meant he had been waiting for this call.

“I wanted to reach out because Theo has been talking to some of his classmates about his home situation,” Mrs. Hendricks said, “and we wanted to make sure we had the right picture so we can support him appropriately.”

“Of course,” I said.

“Theo has mentioned someone called Cal,” she said, carefully. “Who is apparently staying at your home. And he’s described this person as–well, as quite a significant presence. Sharing your room, being involved in daily routines, spending a lot of time with Theo.” She paused. “Some of the children have been asking questions and we wanted to check in with you, since it’s–well, since it sounds like there may have been a change in your family situation.”

There was a specific way she said family situation that I had to breathe through.

“Cal is real,” I said.

A brief pause. “Oh, of course. I didn’t mean to suggest-

11

“He’s a security consultant,” I said. “He was injured while working for us. He’s been recovering at the house temporarily.”

Another pause. Slightly longer. The pause of someone reconfiguring a picture they had already assembled.

“I see,” she said. “So he’s not

that is, he’s a professional contact rather than a

“He’s my security consultant,” I said. “Who is recovering from an injury. In my house. Temporarily.”

“Of course,” she said. The professionalism had returned fully, along with the specific warmth of someone trying to cover a misunderstanding gracefully. “I’m sorry for any confusion. Theo does seem very fond of him.”

“Yes,” I said. “He is.”

Chapter 200

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“He mentioned that Cal is teaching him about first aid,” Mrs. Hendricks added, apparently deciding that this information would help restore normalcy to the conversation. “He told Mrs. Patterson that he wants to be a doctor because of his mum, and that Cal is helping him practice.”

I thought about the events of yesterday morning, when I had made the mistake of leaving Theo and Callahan alone in the bedroom for forty minutes while I took a call. When I had returned, Callahan had been sitting on the edge of the bed with his shirt off and his wound being very carefully – and not entirely incompetently four–year–old who had apparently located the first aid kit and decided to make use of it.

rebandaged by a

Callahan’s expression had been the expression of a man who had tried to prevent this and failed and had decided that supervising it was better than watching it happen unsupervised.

Theo’s expression had been the expression of someone deep in important professional work.

“Great,” I said. “Yes. He’s very interested in medicine.”

“He’s a lovely boy,” Mrs. Hendricks said warmly. “Very clear communicator.”

This was, I was coming to understand, both a compliment and a source of significant complications.

We finished the call. I set the phone down.

Marcus was looking at the window with the expression of someone exercising very deliberate control over their face.

“Not a word,” I said.

“I have nothing to say,” Marcus said.

“Good.”

“I’m simply sitting here.”

“Marcus.”

“The soup thing,” Marcus said, and that was apparently all he could manage before the control broke and he laughed, properly, which was something I had not seen from Marcus in a genuinely long time, and which was so unexpected that I found myself almost doing it too despite everything.

I didn’t. I was the father in this situation. I had standards.

“I need to talk to Theo,” I said.

“Yes,” Marcus agreed, composing himself with visible effort. “You do.”

I gave it an hour.

An hour because Theo was currently upstairs with Callahan and I had heard, through the ceiling, the sounds of an involved conversation about the Triceratops horns that I didn’t want to interrupt. Also because I needed the hour to figure out what I was going to say.

The situation had layers.

Layer one was the practical problem of Theo having described his home life to his classmates in a way that had produced a very specific impression. That needed addressing, gently, in a way that helped him understand why context mattered without making him feel bad for simply saying true things the way he always said true things.

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Layer two was the thing underneath the practical problem, which was the reason it had happened in the first place.

Callahan.

in the years

Theo had been a child who kept himself reserved around new people. It had always been true before Bianca died, he had been cautious with strangers, needing time before he extended toward someone. In the months after, it had deepened. He had built a careful perimeter around himself that only a few people had gotten through, and getting through it had required consistent presence and the specific quality of trust that was built slowly over time.

Callahan had been in our house for five days and Theo was following him around asking questions.

Something about that deserved my attention beyond the soup and the bandaging and the car park conversations about kissing.

I went upstairs.

Callahan was propped on the bed in his usual position and Theo was on the floor at the foot of the bed, cross- legged, with a book open in front of him and the Triceratops in one hand. He was in the middle of explaining something about horns.

“–but the one in the middle is actually the longest,” Theo was saying, “which I didn’t know before Daniel’s book, so I had to update my previous information.”

“It’s important to update information when you get new data,” Callahan said, which I had learned over five days was entirely characteristic of him – he responded to Theo’s information sharing as if it were a professional briefing, with appropriate seriousness and the occasional request for clarification.

Theo looked up when I came in. He did the quick assessment – Dad’s face, what kind of conversation is this- and apparently concluded it was not a trouble conversation, because he relaxed.

“Did you know about the middle horn?” he asked me.

“I had heard that,” I said. “Can I borrow you for a minute?”

–

He closed the book with the care of someone returning borrowed property to its correct condition. “I’ll be back,” he told Callahan. “Don’t forget we have to finish the patrol formation review.”

D

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