Canon (Klein Brothers 2)

I knew my brother well, and I also knew that this funk he was in would likely be gone by the time I saw him again. That wasn’t always a good thing. It was too much like burying your head in the sand and ignoring the problems until you couldn’t do it anymore.

For that reason, I called, “Just think about what I said, okay?”

The carefree guy we all knew and loved grinned back at me. “Always. Have a good day.”

It wasn’t until later that afternoon that I remembered Mrs. Gallagher had dropped off some brownies to say thank you, and the only reason it happened was that Bond eventually spotted them.

“Yo, who made the brownies?”

He was married to a master baker, Heidi, so it didn’t surprise me he’d sniffed the triple wrapped chocolatey goodness out.

“Mrs. Gallagher. She dropped them round earlier.”

Before either of us could say anything else, the door opened and our other brother, Jarrod, walked in, looking like a zombie.

Getting up, I helped him over to a seat as Bond closed the door, giving us some privacy. Apparently, it was Klein drama day.

“You okay, Jarrod?” I asked, sitting on the edge of my desk.

He opened his mouth and then shut it again as he sniffed the air. “Are those brownies?”

Picking the package up, Bond brought it over for Jarrod to see. “Yeah, you want one?”

He grabbed the biggest square and bit into it. “Never say no to Heidi’s baking.”

I managed to snag one as Bond passed on his way back to his desk and bit into it as he explained, “They’re not my wife’s. Mrs. Gallagher brought them in earlier.”

The gooey chocolate chunk of heaven made me groan, but after I swallowed the first mouthful, I noticed something different about the aftertaste. I just couldn’t put my finger on what it was. Still, they tasted fabulous, and Mrs. Gallagher was well known for her brownies, so I didn’t stop until I’d finished it all.

Seeing that Jarrod was still staring into space, I exchanged a look with Bond and then clapped my hands in front of our brother’s face. “Yo, wanna tell us what’s up?”

“Katy’s pregnant.”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Jarrod was up and moving quickly back over to where the brownies were on Bond’s desk.

Shoving another chunk in his mouth, he mumbled, “Went to get a viability scan ‘cos her blood test showed a weird number—some sort of fuckin’ pregnancy blood math shit—and it’s twins.”

Bond whistled to get my attention and held out the brownies for me to take another one. I cheated and took two, but this situation warranted more.

“Are we eating these in celebration, or is this news bad?” I asked, breaking Mom’s rule and talking with my mouth full.

Listen, it was just the three of us, and we’d done way worse than this at some point, so who the hell cared?

“Remember how big we were when we were born?” he asked, rubbing his lower lip.

“Not personally, no,” Bond snorted before shoving more in his mouth. “But we’ve all heard the stories from Mom, and I remember hearing her screaming at Dad when she was having Reid.”

We were all tall, but Jarrod was the tallest of us all at six-foot-nine.

“Right,” Jarrod nodded. “We were huge babies, so imagine my little wife having two of them. Oh, and she says she’s naming a boy Anakin.”

Somewhere in my brain, I knew I should be wincing or showing concern, but for some ungodly reason, I burst out laughing. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. The only consolation I had for the hilarity of the situation was that my brothers were doing the same thing.

“Why are we laughing?” I gasped, catching the brownie Bond threw at me.

Wiping under his eyes, Jarrod reached for another one from Bond’s desk. “I dunno, but my lips feel like putty. Like, if I just go brwrwrw”—he rubbed his lips as he made the noise—“they’re gonna melt.”

“Do my ears look like Dumbo’s?” Bond asked, leaning heavily on his desk.

“A bit, but my legs are like Inspector Gadget’s. Look!” I held them out in front of me and then did the same with my arms. “I swear I can grab that drawing off the wall.”

That’s basically how the conversation went for the next twenty minutes or so, all of us laughing as we became aware of how weird our limbs felt.

“I’m hungry,” Bond complained, rubbing his stomach. “I haven’t eaten in forever.”

“Oh,” Jarrod said, his eyes almost bugging out of his head. “I know where we can get some food.”

Spoiler alert: we owned a restaurant, so we had a kickass kitchen full of the shit only feet away from where we were sitting, but when Jarrod walked us into it, it was like we’d never noticed it before.

“Why does it smell so good in here?” Jarrod groaned, rubbing his face against the steel refrigerator. “I wanna bottle it up and then just roll around in it.”