Chapter Thirty-Nine
Cash’s POV
Closing the oven door, I smiled at the steak broiling over top of the veggies, as Devin was taking a virtual tour of the bigger units, three floors up from us.
We’d been pouring over them for the last few weeks, searching for the perfect one.
Two of them had four bedrooms, one had three bedrooms and they all had larger shared living spaces.
The one was basically a penthouse without being at the top of the building.
She was in the middle of asking questions about it when the front door of my apartment burst open.
Calen came storming through, huffing and puffing like he ran the whole way.
Devin and I were in the kitchen, having narrowed down our search to two units in the building.
We both stopped and looked at him expectantly.
Devin was already standing, worry on her face.
I was ready for whatever was chasing him.
“I got them! I got the text!” I didn’t know what he was freaking out about. I thought someone was chasing him, but here he was with a smile on his face and his phone in his hand.
What was he—The results! Oh shit! They’re in!
“Hell yeah!” I shouted, unable to erase the smile on my face.
I had been stressing and biting my nails the last few weeks about this after he agreed.
Calen had listened to the full story of how I found the rest of my biological family, how disappointed I was with who my sperm donor turned out to be.
But made it a point to tell him, so far my siblings were awesome.
He listened as I told them how I found my dad’s side of the family.
However, after talking to two of my siblings and all of us reaching out to our sperm donor, none of us had heard anything.
Not a fucking thing.
The woman I now knew to be my stepmom did call me though.
Last week. She had filled me in on the testing and investigating she’d been doing of her husband, and I put her on speaker phone and let her know my fiancé was on the call with us.
She apologized for how that pathetic man treated me, and I asked if she’d reached out to any of the other kids.
She was quiet for a long time before asking for their details.
Calen came home in the middle of it, and she joked maybe he was another stepson when we told her of his circumstances.
That was a whole other issue though, with his mom not signing over custody to us.
My stepmother was very pleasant and let us know that she was in the process of gathering information to divorce the man who was no more than a sperm donor to me.
When I informed her that I was the eighth affair child, she admitted she no longer wanted anything more to do with him.
She also told us she wouldn’t be surprised if there were more of us out there. Apparently he’d been about as faithful as a married prostitute. I felt bad for her, but she sounded like she was on top of the world with all the information we’d given her.
“I’m only in my fifties. I can still travel the world and find love again if I want. Don’t worry about me.” That’s the kind of strength I hoped to have when it came to facing any situation. But especially the one with Calen.
Devin quickly shut her laptop, snapping me out of the memories of the phone from the night before. She grabbed the tablet off the counter, unlocking it and pushing the tablet over to Calen so he could pull up the email to see what the results said.
Devin stood across from him, giving him her full attention.
I checked the timer on the oven. We had ten minutes left until dinner was done.
Calen quickly logged into his email and clicked on the link for him to see his results.
He looked at both of us, a slightly nervous excitement about him, before he read it to himself.
His face was impassive at first, then confused, then relieved, then excited.
“I have family,” he breathed out, the biggest smile on his face, as my heart shattered to pieces.
I tried to smile at the kid, but it fell flat.
Yes, I was happy he had a family. Of course, I was happy, who wouldn’t be?
But…at the same time, I couldn’t be happy at all knowing he was going to go live with them now.
I could feel the negative thoughts start to swirl around in my head, my heart thudding in my chest as it constricted.
He had another family, one he hadn’t known about, and he was excited about it. He probably didn’t want to stay with us anymore, more like wouldn’t be able to in the eyes of the law.
Why would he when there are people out there who are a part of him? Of course, he wants to get to know them.
I was a fucking idiot for letting myself get all excited for nothing.
He slid the tablet across the counter for me to look at it. I had to try and take a steadying breath, because I didn’t want to look, in all honesty. I didn’t want to see who his new family was. I blinked back at the tears that were trying to come out.
That shit wasn’t happening. Not today. I looked out the window, trying to gather up the courage needed to know the name of the person I might be losing Calen to.
I blinked and took a deep breath, grabbing the tablet off the countertop.
I slowly let out the breath I’d been holding, and looked at who the matches were.
Siblings. All siblings. Fucking eight half-siblings. And a father.
Clearly as massive a fucking piece of shit as mine was.
Fucking great.
He had a dad, no matter how shitty he seemed with nine fucking kids. He was someone who could take care of him. I winced, trying to recover quickly and not let him see how much this hurt.
And it did. It cut fucking deep.
I chanced a glance at Calen, and both loved and hated the ear to ear smile on his face. I was quickly losing the battle with my emotions as the first tear slipped down my cheek.
“Look at my oldest sibling's name.” He tapped his finger on the edge of the tablet.
Cash Johnston.
What?
He’s my real little brother?!
I looked at him, jaw on the fucking floor, heart jackhammering in my chest, and he was beaming.
At me. Tears in both our eyes. I felt myself getting choked up as I smiled at him, the kid who I already thought of as my little brother, for the last five years.
He really was my little brother. I set the tablet down, moving my wobbly ass feet towards the kid who was my brother, feeling a steady stream of wetness on my cheeks as he and Devin and the rest of the kitchen and tablet got blurry.
I wrapped him in the tightest hug I could muster, sobs racking my body as his arms encircled me.
He’s my little brother. He’s mine.
I held the tablet out to Devin, having not said a single thing reading I was his brother.
She had been watching us, curiosity covered her face as she took the tablet from me.
She was about halfway down the screen when she started jumping up and down, screaming and squealing, looking from the screen to us back to the screen, then to us.
She finally jumped into us when her emotions reached their peak, crying happy tears as she gleefully shouted loud enough for the whole floor to hear.
“We can keep you! We get to keep you! You’re ours Calen!
Oh! Oh! Calen! Cash!” She was sobbing happy tears as we all group-hugged, squeezing tightly unwilling to let go.
Ready to be a little family of three. With this information, I was practically guaranteed guardianship of my little brother.
I smiled so big I swear my face was cramping.
I was probably going to be stuck with my face like this forever.
I was going to look permanently, terminally happy.
I knew it ruined my image, but now I was officially a big brother to my little brother. Biologically. To multiple brothers and sisters.
Wow.
Life had a funny way of working out like that. My little brother had already been in my life for five years and I never knew just how true the statement was, that we were truly brothers.
“I’m going to call the case worker now,” I excused myself, wiping tears and snot off my face as I made my way to the balcony, trying to stop fresh tears from falling as I clicked her contact info.
“Belinda? Cash Johnston.” Deep breath. Professional time. Put the ridiculously happy away, just regular happy. If I could manage that.
“Hello, Mr. Johnston. What can I do for you? Has Calen gotten his results back?” She sounded distracted, and I couldn’t help but wonder if there was something more important than a phone call with someone with an open case?
Some cases are worse than you would even be comfortable knowing, is what Devin had told me when all she would say was, ‘Hard night’ one night.
I knew there were still a few more months to go til his mom’s trial and the guardianship hearing, but this needed settled.
Belinda, his caseworker, needed to know he was already with family. I pushed my annoyance at her aside.
I had found my little brother.
“Yes, we have his DNA results. Just got them actually,” I let out a chuckle, that awkward-awed kind of chuckle, “He’s my little brother.”
I felt my chest puff out with pride as I told her. I could claim him for real now. I was still in shock from it all, I thought to myself, but it was a bit more real now that someone outside of our little bubble knew.
“Yes. I know, through the program—” Still distracted.
“No, ma’am,” my tone dropped, serious. “I don’t mean to cut you off from whatever has you distracted from our conversation, but we got his DNA results.
Today. Less than ten minutes ago. They emailed him the results.
Devin and I just went through them with Calen.
He is my little brother. Ma’am, he’s my biological half-brother, twenty-five years apart, on our father’s side.
Seems he didn’t want either of us, nor any of our six other half siblings.
Only one made the cut, and that was the son he had with his legal wife.
Calen is my little brother, biologically. ”
Silence.
“Excuse me? W-wa-wait. He’s your half-brother? You said you have the results, correct? Could you email me a copy of them? I will make sure to file this with the courts first thing in the morning.” Fully focused. There we go.
“I can forward them to you. My lawyer will be using this to push for a quicker court date. He’s already with family. He doesn’t need to go anywhere else.” I was all business now. I wasn’t going to lose Calen because of an overworked, underpaid caseworker.
“I was just on my way out of the office when you called. Great timing. I can grab a guardianship file, that is still the plan, right? I don’t mean to be rude; I just want to make sure you’re okay taking in your brother?
” I almost scoffed, but realized she was just trying to do her job.
This was at least one case off of her workload.
“Yes, Belinda. He’s been my little brother through the program for five years. This is no different, just that he’ll be living with us now. And we’re looking for a bigger apartment within the same building so he doesn’t have to change schools.”
“Okay. I’ve got the file. I’ll get it all filled out and have it at the courthouse tomorrow at eight a.m. Sorry, I’m on my way to do a couple of home visits. I’ll text you my email.” She sounded rushed.
“Sounds good. Thank you.” I smiled and walked back over to my little brother. My little brother, the words still felt foreign, but familiar too. In a way that settled something deep within my chest. Putting my arms around him and Devin, I smiled at them.
“I’ve always wanted a little brother,” I felt the tears coming again. These two were turning me into a big old softie. He smiled up at me. I’ve got my brother and I had already been taking care of him for years. I had proof. I knew there was nothing that could stop me from getting him now.
Fuck. Yeah.