“Coming,” he says, grabbing his baseball hat and putting it on. “Are we fishing today?”
“That’s the plan,” I say. “Give Mom a kiss.”
He walks over to her and kisses her on the cheek and then walks out of the house. “What time will you be back?”
“Not late,” I say, and then I kiss her. “Love you.”
“Love you more,” she says. I walk out of the house and down the steps to the boat where Dylan is already getting in. I hand him the cooler and jump in with him. Starting it up, I pull out and make my way over to the spot where we always fish.
“Where is everyone?” he asks from beside me.
“Maybe running late,” I say and look over at him. “Gives us extra time to talk.” My palms are suddenly sweaty. “You doing okay?” Jesus, I sound like an idiot.
“Yeah,” he says, and I stop the boat in the middle of the lake and look over at him.
“You know that I love you, right?” I start at that part.
“Yeah,” he says and then smiles. “I love you, too.”
“And you know how much I love your mom, right?” I say, and he groans.
“I think you love her way too much. You really need to stop kissing all the time.”
I laugh now. “Never going to happen, buddy.” I look down and then up and reach into my shorts, taking out the ring box that I have had for the past six months.
“It’s okay. Michael says that Max and Allison are always kissing also.” He shrugs, and I think about how Michael and he are best friends on and off the ice, and I know next year is going to be a challenge for him since he’s moving up in level and Michael still has another year.
“Well, I love her so much that I want to make her mine,” I tell him. “Forever.” I open the box and show him the ring, and he gasps.
“That’s huge,” he says, looking at it. “She’s going to hate it.”
I laugh, knowing she will freak out, but hoping she’ll get over it and cherish it. “I want her to have my name and for the world to know that she belongs to me.” He looks at me. “I want you both to belong to me.” He looks at me. “I know you have a dad.”
“Yeah,” he says, and then whispers, “you.” It’s my time now to blink away the tears. He’s always said he loves me, always hugs me, but never once did I push the idea of me being his dad on him. He had a dad, a shitty fucking excuse for a dad, but a dad nonetheless. “You are my dad.”
“Dylan,” I say now, not sure what else to say, and he doesn’t give me the option.
“Andrew was never a father to me. He never brought me to practice, he never did homework with me, he never made sure I was okay, he never held my hand, he never put me to bed, or punished me because I played video games instead of reading. He only hugged me because he pretended that he liked me, and most of all, he never ever told me he loved me.”
“Everyone shows their love differently,” I try to defend him, and the words taste vile in my mouth even to me.
“Yeah, well, he has a shitty way of showing he loves anything except himself and his drugs.” My head snaps up, and I look at him. “I thought that is what he did, and then I looked it up online.”
“Dylan,” I say to him.
“I know that you want Mom to have your name”—he looks down and then up and he has to blink away tears—“but can I have the name, too? I know that I have Mom’s name now …” He doesn’t finish his sentence. I just lean over to him and grab him, yanking him to me.
“I don’t care what the fuck your last name is,” I say to him, my arms around him and his arms around me. My hand goes to his head, and I take off his cap and kiss his head. Like I do every single day that we’ve been together. Like I’ll be doing for the rest of his life. “You’re mine.”
“Thanks,” he says, and then he says softly. “I won’t tell Mom you said the F word if you let me call you Dad,” he says, and my eyes close, the tears now coming out. “And if it’s okay, do you think Cooper will be okay if I called him Grandpa? And Parker, can I call her Grandma?”
“I’m going to say that he’ll say yes, but you can ask him if you want,” I say, and I hear a boat approaching with Matthew and Dad in it.
“What do we have here?” my father asks when he parks his boat next to ours. “What happened?” He whips off his glasses and looks at both of us.
“Nothing,” I say while he ties his boat to ours. He then jumps into our boat with Matthew behind him.
“Why the tears?” he says to Dylan, and he turns to look at my father.
“Mom and me are going to be Stones,” he says. Matthew looks up to the sky, and if I didn’t know better, I would think he is crying.
“Is that so?” my father says, beaming.
“Yeah, and Justin is going to be my dad,” he says, and I swear it just makes my heart feel fuller, bigger, complete.
“Well, son,” my father says to me, “you’ve got a great family there.”
“So since he’s my dad, that kind of makes you my grandpa,” Dylan says and then looks down. “Is it okay? If you don’t want me to call you that, I won’t.”
My father gets down in front of him and holds his hands in his. “It would be my honor for you to call me your grandpa,” he says, smiling. “We are so proud of you in so many ways. And family doesn’t mean having the same blood,” he says. “Matthew and Allison are mine, and I will fight anyone who says they aren’t. Family means protecting them, and most importantly, it means loving them with everything that you are.” He nods his head at him. “My grandson,” he says, grabbing him by the shoulder and bringing him to his chest.
“Wait a second,” Matthew says from behind. “If you call him Grandpa and that one Dad.” He points at me. “I want to be called uncle number one Matthew.”
“You aren’t calling him that,” I say to Dylan, and the three of us laugh at Matthew. The rest of the crew gets here, and the day slides by with the kids swimming in the lake, then fishing, and when it’s almost sunset, we make our way back home.
Getting Dylan off the boat is like pulling teeth. After all the sun and excitement and the swimming, he’s already cranky and wants to go to bed. “What about dinner?” I ask, and he shakes his head as we walk up the steps to the house. I walk in, and the cold air hits me right away.
“Hey,” Caroline says, getting off the couch and coming to us. Her long, tanned legs in the short white shorts that she is wearing with her blue tank top. She spots Dylan first, who just waves at her. “Oh, boy.”
“He’s tired,” I say, dumping the cooler on the counter and emptying it, and then setting it outside to let it dry. When I come back into the house, Caroline is in the kitchen, putting away the things. I walk to her and wrap my arms around her waist and kiss her neck. “Did you have fun?”
“As much fun as one can have shopping for five hours,” she says, and I laugh. “Go take a shower. You smell.”
“Of what?” I ask, and she scrunches up her nose.