I nod.
“Good,” he says. “Do you feel up to going to the party at Marianne’s and Jack’s?”
I wrinkle my nose, but I’m not going to tell him I don’t want to go. Mom and Josh are best friends with Marianne and Jack Williams. I don’t really get it, but the Williams now have kids living with them.
I guess a lot of neighbor kids are going over to meet them. Friends aren’t really my thing, so I’m not sure what they expect me to do.
“Marianne bought those mini-corndogs you like,” Josh says.
“Okay.” I toss the long grass and fall into step behind him. At the edge of our gravel driveway, I pause. “Josh?”
“Yeah, pal?”
My throat feels like I swallowed a rock, but I’ve got to know. “Remember when . . . when you said you could make it so you’re my real dad?”
“The adoption talk we had?”
I nod, swallowing the thick goop that keeps trying to close my throat. “I think . . . I think I like that idea now. Would it . . . would it bug you if I started to call you Dad?”
He pauses, and I feel like I might throw up. Why did I ask? What if he says I can’t? What if he changed his mind and it does bug him?
Then I realize Josh’s eyes look wet. Almost like—holy cow—almost like he’s trying not to cry. Josh doesn’t cry. He was amarine.
“No.” His voice is weird. Sort of rough. He ruffles my hair. “It wouldn’t bug me, pal. I’d love that.”
My shoulders don’t feel as heavy, and the words Uncle Dan said don’t ache as bad. They hurt, but I don’t know, there is something awesome knowing Josh wants to be my real dad. I already use his last name since Mom does and it doesn’t make a lot of sense not to use the same name as the rest of my family.
Mom told me once that it wasn’t that my real dad didn’t want me, they were just really young and he had other plans.
I get it. I don’t like changes in my plans either. I’m glad Mom kept me in her plans, though, because she’s my favorite. I love Mom even more than my art teacher who brings caramel filled chocolates on Fridays.
That’s why I’m glad she met Josh. He’s always been around for as long as I can remember, but I always knew he was only my stepdad. Kids at school told me that means he doesn’t evenhave tolove me. He just needs to love my mom and deal with me.
But I believe him tonight. He wants to be my real dad.
I smile and let him keep an arm around my shoulders as we walk inside the house. I’m happy enough I don’t even mind if I have to go to a weird party.
* * *
I changed my mind. Parties with this many people are the worst. It’s noisy and busy and cramped.
I only breathe when I sneak out to the backyard with a plate of mini-corndogs. All the kids from school were shoved in the massive game rooms upstairs.
Marianne and Jack are rich. Their house is huge, but now the whole upstairs has things like air hockey and ping pong tables. They bought a big TV with a game system, and a mini fridge with real drinks inside. The coolest thing was the nerf gun arsenal.
Rows of hooks with all kinds of different guns and foam bullets.
A bunch of kids from my class at school started the war. I hesitated long enough I only had the choice of a tiny pistol. It was too wild and loud, so I snuck out to the in-ground trampoline to eat alone.
I turn on the iPod I got for my birthday, pop in one earbud, and let the mix of musicals fill my brain.
It’s calm out here. The sun is starting to set, the breeze isn’t like an oven, and Mariannedidbuy the exact corndogs I like. She’s the best. I wonder if she’ll be different now that she and Jack took in kids.
Kids whose heads I’ve only seen from the back so far. I lost track of them when we went to the game room. No one else seemed interested in the new kids, more that they finally got to go inside the Williams mansion.
Mom says I need to stop calling it a mansion, but what else am I supposed to call it? The place is huge.
Maybe I’m a little jealous the Williams have kids now. Since they’re friends with my parents, they’ve always kind of spoiled me. Now what happens?
