Hands Up – Daniel 61

[For a quick guide go here: Quick guide.]

[Old back story is here: Story so far at 30 Nov 2020 and read more recent Daniel episodes especially this one.]

[Other back story through in-links.]

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Daniel was a bit freaked out. Actually Daniel was very freaked out. To be honest, he couldn’t remember a time when he was more freaked out. There again, had there been a time when he was more freaked out than he was right now he didn’t want to remember it because that would have been severely freaked out. And maybe he couldn’t remember it anyway because his brain would have blocked out the experience.

It had all started innocently enough. It just so happened that Chrissy was going to pick up Daisy from Daniel’s house that day, after school, have her overnight and let Daniel, well, let Daniel do what he wanted. The concept of having a night without Daisy at the moment was so entirely left field and unthought of that he really wasn’t sure what he was going to do.

“Well,” said Chrissy, at the time, “Even if you just sit there staring at the TV it’ll be something. Let your head rest and remember what it does when it has time off.”

Daniel thought this was probably a good idea and wondered to himself whether him and his head would do anything different if they were left to their own devices from 5pm or so compared to the usual 10 or 11pm or whenever it was Daisy consented to let him leave her bedroom. (And sometimes that was ten minutes after she was actually asleep - “Just to make absolutely sure Daddy, because I don’t like waking up when I’m trying to sleep and you’re not there.”)

And then Chrissy turned up early. Like three and a half hours early, meaning she was there on Daniel’s doorstep with loads of time before he needed to go and get her from school. But that was OK because they could go up to the school together and get her and that would be quite a Thing. Imagine how Daisy would enjoy that. 

So Daniel worked over a few emails and ideas on his laptop while Chrissy sat on his sofa, flicking through a couple of coffee table books and commenting on how good Daniel had been not to hit the roof when Daisy had cut out a few of the arty pictures inside in order to stick into her school book for project work. Daniel murmured some kind of acknowledgement that he had been good, but was also covering for the fact that he didn’t really have any work to do right now but really didn’t want to let on and just hang out with Chrissy.

And then at school there was another whole layer of interest that the two of them were there. Gordon was particularly interested to see them ‘together’ - “Well, sort of,” said Daniel. “But more together… apart.” And the smile on Mrs Chistlehurst’s face was over doing it somewhat, to the point where Daniel really wanted to just tell everyone very clearly that they weren’t together, that he was a single parent – OK, OK, sort of, most of the time, but come on – and that he could just have a straight forward conversation with his ex-wife and it would mean nothing rather than this spiralling confusion.

With some relief they exited the playground and wandered back home, discussing what precisely was going to happen next, how Chrissy was still going to take Daisy back to her place, and how Daniel really didn’t want to discuss what he would or would not be doing that night and therefore would tit actually be nice if they all just stayed together and hung out rather than Chrissy and Daisy going off.

Despite everything the sun shone and Daniel made himself feel happy with Chrissy and Daisy walking either side of him. 

And then Chrissy said “I could stay over at your house some nights, couldn’t I? You know, just so there’s less dashing around and everything? I could babysit Daisy in her usual bed and you could still go out if you want to.”

Alarm bells started ringing in the distance. “I’m not rearranging the furniture for you,’ Daniel blurted out.

“You wouldn’t need to,” said Chrissy, already rearranging the furniture in her head. “Daisy, would you like it if mummy stay with you at your house some times?”

“Oh yes,” said Daisy, “Of course why wouldn’t I?”

And then a hand slipped into his and Daniel felt the warmth of love though the contact. He relaxed.

For a second.

And then looked down and saw the hand was actually Chrissy’s.

And then he got a bit freaked out.