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Lyndi and Crew brought the sunshine back for Ward. I couldn’t be happier they found each other.
I didn’t think I needed someone like that, but ever since my mom passed, there’s an ache in my chest I can’t seem to fill. But it’s an ache I’ll have to learn to live with. I keep telling myself the harder I work, the more good I do in the world, the better it will erase the pain loneliness causes. Because I have no intention of ever settling down with a woman. My dad used my mom repeatedly, and I refuse to become like him. Only showing up when it was convenient for him, and only long enough to take more money, and break her heart all over again.
“Uncle Caleb, catch me!”
I glance around the house, searching for the voice belonging to a very rambunctious six-year-old.
“Crew?”
“Up here!”
I tilt my head back so far my neck cramps. He’s at the top of the tallest tree in the yard, standing on a very thin branch and waving with one arm.
“Crew!” I sprint beneath him ready to catch him if he falls. “What are you doing up there?”
“I climbed up with my spider webs.” He spreads his fingers like he believes he truly is Spider-Man.
“That’s pretty impressive buddy, but you better get down now before you give me a heart attack. Even Spider-Man has to be safe.” My voice wobbles when he steps onto a lower branch, and I hold out my arms, trying to anticipate his next move.
Crew pouts. “Ugh. That’s what Mom says too.” And then he leaps.
My heart leaps with him, relocating back to my chest when he falls safely into my arms with a thud.
I can’t have kids. This one stresses me out.
I haul him over my shoulders like a sack of potatoes and he giggles as I push open the front door.
“Hey guys, look at the cat I saved from the tree,” I holler.
“I’m not a cat.” Crew laughs, bouncing along on my shoulder.
“Crew?” Lyndi rounds the corner. “Ward! I thought you put the ladder in the shed.”
“I did.” Ward joins us.
Crew squirms in my arms so I put him down. “I did it all by myself, Daddy.”
I go still, taken back by Crew’s reference to Ward, but no one else is fazed by it. I knew it was only a matter of time before Crew called him Dad, but how long was I away? My best friend is a dad. And I’m—
“Hungry?” Ward interrupts my train of thought.
“Yes.”
“Well come on, stop standing there like a weirdo,” Lyndi says. I follow her toward the kitchen. “I didn’t slave over this meal all day for nothing.”
I stumble over a toy on the floor.
She turns around and shoots a smile at me over her shoulder. “I’m teasing. Ward told me.”
“Come on, man.” I glare at my friend.
“It’s okay, I only cried for a little bit,” Lyndi says.
Exactly what I was afraid of.
“She’s kidding.” Ward laughs. Actually laughs. “Did you forget how to take a joke while you were learning to save the world?”
Me? He’s one to talk. He was an emotional brickwall for five years. What kind of weird Marvel multiverse did I land in where the grump of all grumps is telling me to lighten up?