Fall at your feet

Round 21: Winter 2013

Nicholas's last update/last update/Nicholas's next update/next update

Caleb Moretti is 31 and Nicholas is 10.
(Abigail is 30)

Narrated by Caleb Moretti

I don't know why all the nice women I meet are married or otherwise taken. If Naomi wasn't married...well, I think we might have something.


I don't know why I torture myself when there are other (cheaper!) places I could get Nicholas's hair cut. I guess I just like seeing her even if I know nothing will ever happen with us. It's been a long time since anything has been going on in my love life!

Nicholas is good company but half the time, he's with his mother. Lately, he's been talking non-stop about Abigail's boyfriend Jesse and his job in video games. Nicky wouldn't understand why Jesse might not be someone I'm interested in talking about so I just have to grin and bear it.

I do get out and try to meet people, for all the good it does me.

The conversation usually goes well for a while and then when I try to ask them out, they'll tell me they're not interested. Like Cara here. She told me she was spoken for - dating some college guy.

I am occasionally successful in finding a date. Caryl and I had an early dinner at the Blue Lion and it was nice. Good food, good conversation.

I knew pretty early on that things with Caryl wouldn't be going very far. I'm 31 and a single dad. I want to settle down and Caryl made it pretty clear that wasn't she was after.

Like I said before though, it's been so long so I invited her back home with me anyway. I felt bad sleeping with her knowing I didn't want to continue anything with her but at least I knew we were on the same page with that. Caryl spent the night but I had to quickly usher her out in the morning.

I think what I really feel guilty about in all this is Nicholas. I want to set a good example for him and sleeping with a woman I barely knew was not a good example. So I've made up my mind that from now, I'm going to try extra hard to make Nicholas my number 1 priority and to not take up with any other women unless I really think it could lead somewhere serious.

Something else that's been on my mind is my relationship with Abigail. She was wondering why I had her come all the way out from Exeter to see me. I'm sure she thought I was going to chew her out about something.

She was pretty relieved when I told her I just wanted to talk and maybe make steps towards being friends again. It's not healthy for Nicholas, or for either of us, for there to be so much animosity between us.

I hope he understands that this doesn't mean we're getting back together but I think Nicky was really happy to see both of his parents in the same room together. Abigail ended up staying for dinner and I'm glad I asked her over. It wasn't nearly as awkward or difficult as I thought it would be. Besides, there's no way I would have been able to avoid seeing her forever.

I ran into Cara at a coffee shop near the triplex the other day and we got to chat for a while. She's not with her boyfriend any more. He just stopped calling her and she got sick of waiting around for him.

We ended up talking for a couple of hours, so I thought I'd try my luck again and ask her out and to my relief, she said she'd love to.

Our first date (yes, we've actually been on more that one now!) was drinks at the Ball & Biscuit in Exeter. One good thing about Mum being such a nag about me getting married is that she's only too happy to babysit Nicholas if I say I have a date!

There was no awkwardness at all, like you'd normally have on a first date. I guess the coffee shop was kind of like a pseudo first date - kind of an ice breaker.

I really like Cara. I haven't really liked someone since Abigail, when we met in high school.

After we'd been seeing each other for about a month, I went ahead and introduced Cara to Nicholas. I wasn't sure about it but when it came down to letting them meet or hiding her from him, I decided it was best to just be open about it. It seemed to go well, so that made me smile.

And it was weeks before she spent the night, as opposed to hours, like it was with Caryl. I know it's early days but I want to be in this for the long haul with Cara and I guess I can only hope she feels the same.

Notes:

• I don't know when but Caleb has somehow developed a crush on Naomi. They must have kissed or flirted at some point but I missed it!
• Caryl is Romance and I didn't want to do that to him again, so I let Caleb fulfill his "woohoo in bed" want with her and sent her on her way.
• Up until now, the only women he's had good chemistry with have been Romance and other Pleasure Sims. This round though, I changed his aspiration to Family. He hasn't been acting like a Pleasure Sim recently anyway (or ever, come to think of it), so I figured I might as well change his aspiration to reflect that.
• Abigail has had the want, on and off, to be friends with Caleb for a long time but it wasn't until now that Caleb rolled it too. It makes sense to me that she would have been waiting for him to give her some sort of sign that he was ready to not be completely furious at her any more so I like how it worked out.
• Cara's ex-boyfriend is Luc. Last time I played him, he rolled zero wants for her, despite the fact that she was apparently his "One". When he fell in love with Asha, she became his "One" so I remembered that while I was playing Caleb and teleported Luc in so Cara could break up with him. In my head, she's 4 years older than Luc, so she's 24 to Caleb's 31.
• I'm 99% sure that Cara will move in with Caleb. They've got very good chemistry (3 bolts, 101 raw, 206 total) and she's a Knowledge Sim, which suits Caleb's new direction in life. I had considered pairing him with either Ione or Lia but a) I don't think either of those girls are ready to be stepmother to a kid who's less than 10 years younger than them and b) the chemistry between them is not good enough for me to ignore the pretty significant age difference. I think I'd mentioned before that I was considering those two girls as match-ups for Caleb but I keep thinking he's a lot younger than he is! I get him mixed up with his brother Evan. Now Evan...Evan is still in contention for Lia or Ione. I'll have to keep an eye on their interactions, should they happen to meet!
• Random want weirdness: Caleb rolled the want to marry Madelyn who a) is already married and b) broke up with him when they were teenagers. I'm writing that off completely, because it's such a silly random one but I thought I'd share anyway!