Page 15 of A Little Thankful

What the fuck?

I was the only alpha male in this trio, so did I fit in? Or would they try to pin that toxic masculinity bullshit on me just because I run towards a fire when everyone else was running away from it?

That would be the problem.

I guzzled my beer down and opened another. Then I grabbed another slice, folded it in half and went to work on it.

“What are we talking about here? Are we talking about moving in together? Like all four of us?” Forrest asked, looking shell shocked by the whole idea of it. He held onto his beer bottle like it was some kind of life raft in a storm.

“Yeah, I guess we are,” she said. “Or maybe just me with Autumn’s dad. That would work as well. Or not. Maybe this is all coming at us too fast and none of us knows how to handle it. I know I don’t know how to handle it and I’ve had months to try and figure it out.”

I agreed that we were moving too fast, but maybe I had a solution.

“How about we just get to know you first, Sage,” I suggested. “You spend some one-on-one time with each of us, after we take the DNA test. Then if we truly don’t mesh, well, then…”

“Then we’ll sort that out in the coming days,” Mace told us. “And speaking of the DNA test, I’ve been texting Dr. Charles and she’s not busy tonight, so she can stop by in about thirty minutes to take a sample from each of us. Said that because of the holiday, the sooner we can get our samples to the lab, the better our chances to get the results before Thanksgiving.”

“Holy shit!” Sage said. “This is moving faster than I’d anticipated.”

“That’s the thing about Cricket. Everything moves faster than in a big city because everything we need is right here,” I said. “Are we all in this thing?”

“Damn straight, we are,” Forrest said.

“All in,” Mace said.

“Here we go!” Sage said. “Tell the good doctor, the sooner the better.”

Mace stared at his phone for a moment, then he said, “She’s already on her way.”

Sage 5

“Let me get this straight, I need five DNA tests?” Dr. Charles teased, already knowing why she was there and how many tests she needed to perform.

“I told you that in the text,” Mace said.

“You sure did, but I just wanted to see the look on everybody’s face when I questioned it.” One thing about Dr. Annette Charles, our local GP, she loved to tease, even though she rarely laughed, which only made her teasing even more frustrating. You could never tell when she was serious or not. “I take it everyone in this room is involved in this paternity test. Are we missing anybody? Any more possible baby daddies?”

“No,” Sage told her, with a straight face. “Just these three.”

“Great! And where’s the baby?”

“In the main house with my family. She’s asleep. Will that be a problem?”

“Not at all. Makes my life easier. Is she a good sleeper?”

“Yes, the best.”

“Then, most likely, she won’t wake up. I’ve got the touch,” she said, and I caught a slight grin on her glossy lips.

Dr. Charles had to be in her mid to late forties, had a couple kids of her own, was in love with her adorable husband, wore her black hair in big natural curls that surrounded her lovely face, and hardly wore any makeup on her flawless, mocha coloredskin. She was our only local doctor, made house calls, delivered babies, and tended to more cracked bones and bloody noses than any country doctor ever could. Plus, I knew she had to be familiar with this kind of situation from some of the other group relationships living in Cricket.

The best thing about Dr. Charles, she never judged. She simply took care of the problem and moved on to the next one.

We all loved her, including me, who now depended on her to be discrete about this until we figured out what we were going to do.

As soon as she pulled out one of the long swabs, Forrest cringed, and backed away. “I hate these things. Reminds me of COVID. Where you putting that thing?”

“I’m just going to swab your inner cheek. Nothing up your nose or down your throat. Now open wide,” she told him.

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