I woke up curled around Megan's naked form. Her slow breathing telling me she was still asleep. I carefully extracted myself from her and admired her naked form again. I went to the toilet and cleaned up. Putting on a pair of jocks and a t-shirt I went out to the kitchen to put the kettle on and perhaps think about making some breakfast. As I walked around the corner I nearly jumped out of my skin. There was Dad sitting at the table drinking a cup of coffee.
"Jesus Dad! You scared the shit out of me."
He smiled up at me.
"Not literally I hope."
I laughed, I really enjoyed the silly banter when it was just the two of us.
"Nearly, it was a close call."
After the initial shock wore off and my heartbeat returned to a somewhat normal level I noticed there was something different about Dad. It took me a moment to put my finger on it but once I did it really surprised me. He looked relaxed. He wasn't looking around him as though he was about to get into trouble for something.
"You got here early, you must have left in the middle of the night."
"Yeah I left pretty early but I wasn't sleeping anyway and I figured what better things have I got to do?"
"I'm sure Mum would find something."
"Hmm yeah well."
I sensed I had hit a nerve but didn't push it and Dad didn't immediately elaborate. There was a strange sort of silence as I made breakfast. As I sat down Dad turned to me with a serious look on his face.
"Nate, we need to have a serious talk about something."
"Okay, Dad. Is everything alright?"
"Well, not really but it will be okay."
"What's going on?"
"Well you know things haven't been happy at home for a while and I just got to the point where I couldn't take it any more. I couldn't stand what it was doing to you, or me."
There was a pause as he took a deep, steadying, breath. A part of me already knew what was coming though. The strange thing was that I wasn't at all upset about it.
"Nate, I have decided that I want a divorce from your mother and I have moved out."
The silence in the room that followed that sentence was deafening.
"Oh ... okay. Are you alright?"
"I'm okay. Are you alright though? This must be a shock for you."
"Actually it's not really Dad. I'm kind of happy for you to be honest."
His eyebrows nearly hit his hairline in surprise.
"Oh. Okay. Alright then. Are you sure you're alright?"