Best Friends Forever

“Grandma is mommy or daddy’s mommy, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well she called Mick my daddy, so that means she’s my grandma.”

Ayla felt herself go pale.

“She did?”

“I was eating shrimp, the crispy ones, just like Mr. Mick, and she said ‘Your daddy loved shrimp when he was a boy, too. He liked biting the heads off.’ And she watched us eating them, just the same way. Is Mr. Mick my daddy?”

Ayla was startled. She never expected Preston to unravel the truth on his own. “How would you feel about it if he was?”

Preston clapped his hands. “It would be awesome. He’s cool. And strong!”

Ayla sighed. The crushing weight of having to deceive her son for so long was gone.

She had money in the bank for the first time in her life. Real money, not just enough to hopefully make it to the next paycheck. She was desperately in love, and madly in lust.

A life that just a week prior seemed to be spinning inexorably down the drain, no matter how much she scratched and fought, was in a better place than her wildest dreams dared to imagine.

Mick got his mum back to the condo and tucked her into the spare bedroom.

He sat in the living room with a glass of his favorite Scotch, swirling it in his hand as he replayed the events of the past few days in his mind.

The longer he thought of Ayla, the more his cock strained in his pants. He was obsessed with every inch of her body, and longed to be alone with her again.

He took a burning sip and his thoughts turned to Preston and the joy with which he filled Bev’s soul. Preston’s spirit and exuberance were contagious, and Mick found himself imagining the adventures they’d share.

In his pocket, he felt the box with the ring in it, and he wondered if it would be absolutely insane for him to propose to Ayla. He could count the days they’d known each other since their serendipitous reunion on one hand, but it didn’t matter. This was love. True love. And he couldn’t bear the thought of risking losing it ever again.

The next time he saw Ayla, he’d propose to her. If they were married, the whole “How do we explain all this to Preston” matter would be, in a way, resolved.

Mick finished his glass and walked over to the Strip, watching the cars and people go by, far below. He wondered if, in a trillion multiverses, alternate timelines, and abstract realities, everything had ever converged so perfectly to have him fall so deeply in love with Ayla Murray. He decided it was impossible.

His phone rang, and Ayla relayed the news regarding Preston’s happy discovery that he had a Dad. And a grandma.

Mick poured himself another glass and lifted it into the air, toasting his father, his brother, and nearly seven years of what he thought had been an unhealthy obsession with the mysterious blonde in the blue dress.

Epilogue

Mick Merryweather held up the newspaper his mother had mailed them from Sheffield. The headline said:

Yank Nephew of Fallen Local Star is Sporting Legacy

“I hate that term, ‘Yank,” Ayla said. It sounds crass. Sexual.”

?

??That’s just in your dirty mind, my love,” Mick said to his wife as he wrapped his arms around her from behind and pressed his hips forward, against the ass he’d spent two decades mesmerized by.

“You’ve made me this way,” Ayla said, reaching behind her to squeeze Mick’s cock through his pants.

“Careful, or you’ll wind up with a baby younger than your grandson,” Mick teased.

His union with Ayla, the marriage following their whirlwind reunion nearly twenty years ago, had produced five younger siblings for Preston, four girls and one more boy.

All six had, or were in line to, graduate from Oasis Academy.