Jack

 

“Yo ho ho, he’s baaaack!” Ah, the sweet trills of Trini’s voice clanged in my ears.

 

“Watch it, Treens. I sign your checks.”

 

“No you don’t. I have direct deposit.”

 

I side-eyed her, and continued to the back of the shop.

 

“Jack-o, check this out.” I redirected to Grath’s station to see his latest masterpiece, a full-sleeve free-hander of spiral-wrapped text in some seriously old-school font. I couldn’t make it out for my life.

 

“What is that?”

 

The happy but pain-dazed client garbled, “‘To be, or not to be…’ in secretary han’. Izin it fabuloush?’” It was fabulous, but her own speech wasn’t.

 

“Nice work, man.” And I tipped my chin to Grath, who tipped his back at me and continued wiping her arm down.

 

Finally, I got back to my desk, and collapsed into it.

 

What a fucking crazy twenty-four hours: the fire-drill, the rock, the Brian story, the Peter story, the crazy grandmother trust fund, the marriage thing, and the sex. I couldn’t decide which I should be thinking about more. I wanted to focus only on the sex—by far the best part. By far. But the other issues, they each warranted some heavy-duty mind time.

 

I figured, first things first. Peter, the most vulnerable individual on the spectrum, had to come first. The test results were due to be available online at any time now. It had been more than a week since we sent them in, so I pulled up the website to check again.

 

Bingo! They were there. I clicked on the link and held my breath, praying they came out positive. I was actually nervous about it—my palms were a little sweaty—so I was glad to be doing this alone. Sure, maybe I should have waited so Ellie could see them, too, but this really wasn’t about her so much as it was just about me and Peter. And Keith. I needed to do this alone.

 

When the page opened, it was filled with graphs and metrics, and it took me a few minutes to comprehend what it was saying. Finally, though, I got it. Over 99% likelihood of avuncular relation. That was as close to certain as they could get.

 

I was Peter’s uncle. Peter was my brother’s son. I had Keith’s son—in my home, in my life. My eyes burned and felt a little wet, and I rubbed them down until the dust particles cleared out. I must have been just starting to fight a cold, too, ’cause I had to blow my nose a couple of times. Wow. I was an uncle. For real.

 

I suddenly knew how the Grinch felt on that hill, when his heart grew however many times bigger in a flash. It was all I could do to not go running back up to the front of the shop and jump up and down and run in circles and yell out my excitement.

 

But I was cool. I got it together. I couldn’t sit down, I couldn’t stand still. So I took off through the shop, filled with so much emotion I couldn’t look anyone in the eye, and made it outside without interruption. I started walking down the sidewalk, just to burn some energy, try to get my head straight again, when Grath caught up to me. He put a hand on my shoulder from behind, and I whipped around, backing up, needing space from everyone and everything.

 

He knew me well, and only put his hands in the air, like he was calming down some feral beast. Which, I guessed, I was.

 

“Whoa, dude. Chill. What’s up? What just happened?”

 

I took a few deep breaths. “I’m an uncle. Peter’s mine. No—Peter’s Keith’s son, man. Peter’s Keith’s son. I got Keith back. Peter’s mine.”

 

Grath’s eyes grew about twice as big, and a smile spread wide on his face, and he grabbed me in a bear hug I had no idea I needed. I felt awesome. As close to what I could guess a new daddy might feel. I felt incredible. I allowed the hug for a moment, then pounded his and backed up.

 

“Congratulations, man! Uncle Jack! We need cigars, man. So it’s official. Keith has a baby. You got Keith’s baby. That’s fucking beautiful.”

 

“Yeah. Right? It is. It’s fucking incredible.” I was still wrapping my head around it.

 

“It’s amazing. And you know for sure? How does that work?”

 

“Took a test last week, sent it into a lab, results posted online. Just saw ’em, right now. More than ninety-nine percent positive match between us. As sure as they can get.”

 

“Wow. That’s…I don’t even know what. Awesome.”

 

“It is.” I was nodding and smiling at him. “It is awesome.” And we laughed.

 

“You gotta go home, man. What are you doing here? Today, you just found out, you gotta go home. Spend the day with your nephew, and his mama.” He side-eyed me with a smirk. “I know that’ll be really tough on you. Painfully hard.” And he laughed at his own fucking joke.

 

I punched his arm, none too gently, and agreed. I should spend the rest of the day getting to know Peter better. Even though they’d been living in my house for over a week, and Ellie and I already planned to get married—soon, I reminded myself—I still had not really allowed myself to believe that Peter was Keith’s. I had wanted to, but at the same time I didn’t. Like, it was too much to hope for.

 

But now it was real. It was true. And I wanted to hold him in my hands, to feel his weight, and his little body warmth. I needed to connect with him. Priority one. Everything else, for the moment, fell away.