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Jace shook his head no.
“Looks like he wants to take a minute to figure it out himself.”
Jace bent his neck to check for footholds and Alex saw the moment he noticed the yellow foothold. “Yes!” he hissed.
Jace managed another ten feet before signalling his readiness to come back down. He sat back in his harness and walked down the wall, bouncing lightly onto his feet when he hit the floor.
“That was awesome!!!” He grinned at both of us. “My arms are shaking!”
I chuckled. “Yeah, buddy, it’s tiring.”
“Can you do it, um, Uncle Vander?”
I loved hearing that. As an only child, I had no nieces or nephews. I swallowed my grin and answered. “Yeah, buddy, I can do it.”
“Can you show us?”
“I don’t have a belayer right now, but I’ll tell you what. There’s boulder climbing at the other end of the gym. I’ll climb whichever one you want me to. That’ll give you a bit more time to rest and then you can do another climb if you want.”
Alex, the little shit, immediately went to the most advanced climb. “Can you do this one?”
“I can, but I’ll need to warm up first.” I hopped on the wall on an intermediate climb and pulled myself along the rockface to the top.
“Wow, that was fast!” Jace stood with his hands in his pockets, his eyes trained on me like beacons.
“Can you do the other one, now?” Alex asked.
The advanced climb Alex chose, required the climber to move horizontally to the floor at two different points, and although I had experience, it was still a difficult climb.
“Let’s give it a try.”
At the top, I looked down to see both boys grinning and cheering. I laughed out loud. They were great kids.
And one of them was mine.
They climbed a total of three more times each before their arms and legs gave out. Jace reached the top before Alex, but on the last climb they both reached the top.
I grabbed bottles of water for both. They slumped on the bench and sucked them back.
“Hungry?”
“Just thirsty,” Jace replied.
Alex didn’t speak. Alex didn’t move. Climbing might be good for him, help him to expel all that extra energy.
It expended a lot of calories, too. As soon as they replenished their fluids, the hunger would hit.
Back in the car, they compared notes on their climbs, and I turned the car towards Spuds to feed them and see Ruby.
“Uh, actually, I am starting to get hungry now,” Jace said from the backseat.
I realized either he didn’t know what to call me or wasn’t ready to call me dad. I swallowed my disappointment. It was too much to expect him to call me dad right away.
“Yeah, agori mou, I thought you might be. You want to go eat at Spuds? See your mom and pick up treats at Shop the Parthenon?”
“That sounds good. What do you think, Alex?”
“Yeah. Does Minnie work today?” Alex responded.
