I hadn’t planned to have sex with her the first night she stayed, but I certainly planned on doing it a hell of a lot more. So, when I don’t see Halle for a few days due to her work commitments, I begin to feel like a whiney and needy teenage girl.

Are you avoiding me?

As soon as I’ve hit send on the text, I internally berate myself. If any of my brothers knew how pathetic I was behaving, I’d never hear the end of it.

An hour later, she still hasn’t responded, and with Ivy nagging to go in the pool, and Arty fussing because he’s cutting more teeth, I feel more on edge than I have for months.

Is it possible that after using her that first time, she’s turned the tables and repaid the favour?

No. I refuse to believe that. She poured her heart out to me, and I think her past isn’t something she shares with others, so why would she lay her demons before me, if all she wanted to do was get her own back.

Besides, Halle isn’t calculating or malicious. There’s something else going on here.

“Daddy, it is pool time yet?”

I palm my phone, wanting to call Nate and ask for Rachel’s number to check on Halle, but, instead, I slip it back into my pocket and face the little girl before me.

“Yes, Princess Ivy. I’d say it’s definitely time to go in the pool. Can you go and grab your swimmers and I’ll get your brother ready?”

“Don’t let him poo in the pool again,” she orders before skipping off to grab her swimsuit and armbands.

Once, I didn’t put a swim nappy on him once, and she hasn’t let me forget it.

“C’mon, little man. Let’s get you all cleaned, and your bottom wrapped up before your big sister has my guts for garters,” I say to the dribbling little boy who currently has his entire fist in his mouth. His cheeks are rosy with teething, his temper borderline psychopathic. Yep, I went there. He laughs at me one minute, cries at me the next and then screams like he’s possessed. Then again, toothache is a bitch, so I have nothing but sympathy for my little boy and the four teeth he’s cutting all at once.

I’m just pulling up Arty’s swim nappy and trunks when the doorbell rings and Ivy shouts, “There’s somebody at the door.” Like I didn’t hear the same bell she did.

With Arthur on my hip and Ivy at my side, eager to see who is at the door, I unlatch the lock and pull it wide to be confronted with a giant, blow up broccoli, complete with a smiley face and a bow tie.

“What’s the difference between broccoli and snot?” The comedy broccoli asks in a high, squeaky voice that sounds suspiciously like Halle.

Ivy looks at me, then back to our visitor, and says to the broccoli with a straight face - like a giant vegetable knocks on our door every day - “I dunno, you tell us.”

The broccoli wiggles a little and squeaks, “Kids’ll eat snot but won’t eat broccoli.”

I snort out a laugh, but Ivy scrunches her brow, looks at me briefly in annoyance and then responds. “You’re silly and not in a good way. Girls don’t eat snot, monsters do.”

Stumped, Halle wiggles her giant broccoli a little more and then confesses, “That’s the only line I’ve got. Can I put the broccoli down now?”

“Halle, is that you?” Ivy asks, her voice filled with confusion and a little bit of wonder, like the broccoli produced Halle out of thin air just for her.

Halle pops her head around the side of the blow-up veg and says, “Hello, Princess Ivy. Yes, it’s me. I was just coming over to see your daddy.”

“And me,” Ivy corrects.

“And you,” Halle amends, her smile wide, her eyes finding mine.

“Can I come in?” she asks sweetly. “I’ll leave the broccoli outside, I promise.”

“Can you swim?” Ivy asks her before I can respond.

“I can.”

“Do you have your swimmers with you?”

“I don’t.” She shakes her head sadly.

“That’s okay. I have spares. You can borrow one of mine.” My little girl declares before happily skipping away to fetch them.

That leaves the three of us on the doorstep.

Arty is still chewing his fist oblivious to everything going on, while I am transfixed by the woman stood before me, shyly biting on her lip and waiting for me to invite her in.

“I’ve been trying to contact you for days.”

Nice opening line, Josh.

“I know, I’ve been avoiding you.”

“Why?”

“Can I come in?”

Flustered by her forthrightness, I’ve kept her on the doorstep, when all I want to do is take her inside and make sure she never leaves.

“Of course, sorry… I, uh-”

Halle stands up the broccoli, so it rests against the front wall of the villa, and steps inside, placing a lingering kiss on my cheek and halting my rambling in its tracks.

“No, I’m sorry,” she begins. “I let my insecurities get the better of me, but I’m here now, and I’m hoping there’s still an opening for a broccoli or a friend or a…”

“Here it is,” Ivy calls as she rushes towards us. “I’ve got you the mermaid swimsuit because it’s green and I know how much you like green.”

“I love green,” Halle replies, taking the tiny pair of bathers from Ivy’s hand, but keeping her gaze on me.

“Come on, Daddy. Let Halle get changed and we can all go in the pool together. It’s more fun when there’re four of us.”

“You’re right, Princess Ivy,” I reply never breaking eye-contact with Halle. “I love it when it’s the four of us too.”

Ivy tugs Halle towards the bathroom to get changed, and while laughing at her exuberance, Halle calls over her shoulder to me, “You have some shorts or a tee I can wear, right? I’m not sure skinny dipping is appropriate in this circumstance.”

“Can we discuss what circumstance would be acceptable in the future?”

She winks at me before she’s tugged forcefully into the room out of my sight, and calls, “When you say words, like ‘future’, I think I want to say yes to anything you ask.”

I swear my face might split from the smile on my face.

With Arthur on my hip, I make my way to my bedroom to grab something suitable for the woman that has turned my previously pained world upside down.

She may have needed a few days to get her head around everything that’s happened between us, but she’s here now, and if anyone believes in giving second-chances, it’s me.

As I’m tugging clothes from my dresser, looking for a pair of boxers that won’t be too big for Halle’s slender hips, I think about the last year or so of my life.

I kissed the love of my life goodbye and just eight hours later, I lost her.

I left my life behind, and just eight hours later Halle walked into my world.

Life is a series of moments; some that bring joy and some that bring immeasurable grief.

Living is when you learn to accept those moments, and when you choose to love and not hate or when you choose family over being alone.

Where there is death, there will always be life.

Where there is love, there will always be family, be that by blood or by choice.

And where there is an end, you will find another beginning.

It’s the circle of life.

An imperfect infinity.

A sideways figure eight.

Laura Smiles.