On The Edge

Thirty Two

Jason’s POV

I could feel the tension between my dad and David, it was so thick you could cut it with a knife and I had no idea what kind of tension it was, but the reunion with my dad was surprisingly easy to bear, Cailen had loved him on first sight, the little idiot should really learn to buffer his feelings, he couldn’t just go falling in love with every guy that came his way, we were all sitting at the very long dining table in a bit of an awkward silence. Jasmine and Arlena seemed to have whatever they had between them going on because my twin was blushing (I’m stunned but at least Arlena looks enamored) and Karina looked as if she’d resigned herself to whatever was going on between her and Aunt Stevie and, Blaine had not come down for breakfast yet, I left him in the shower (regretting that now.)  And my son and dad were talking while Altair picked her food, this was going to be a very long one, everyone looked wary and ill at ease, this was certainly unnerving, really unnerving.

‘’do you paint granddad?’’ Cailen asked my dad, ‘’dad said you did, I draw like dad and I paint too, like aunt Jaz.’’ Cailen’s innocent blabbing looked to be the crack that was needed to break the ice.

Aunt Stevie butted in, ‘’ everyone in the family does one artistic thing or another.’’

‘’you draw too?’’ Cailen looked fascinated.

‘’yes, but the one aspect of art I excel is carving, wood, stone, ivory, jade. I was quite an artist when I was young.’’ My aunt was really the most humble person I know, seriously no sarcasm but she was also the bluntest person I know, she states facts and even if it seems arrogant or conceited, fact is fact and I’ve seen her work, she’s got skill.

‘’I’m good at painting,’’ my dad said with a warm smile on his lips, ‘’drawing was never my strong point but I am also good at mosaic, I’ll show you some of my work someday. And you can show me yours.’’

Cailen turned to Jasmine, ‘’are you and Arlena together now?’’

Jasmine looked at Arlena, ‘’maybe, maybe not, we’ll see how that goes.’’ He looked at aunt Stevie with a knowing look but he didn’t ask anything, I picked at my perfectly good and tasty Spanish omelet, this was awkward and I had a very tight feeling in the pit of my stomach as I watched my son look at my aunt, did he know something I didn’t? ‘’so, I thought it would weird to have two dads.’’ Cailen said suddenly.

‘’but you love Blaine.’’ I said, I could tell my eyes were widening in alarm, I had never considered the possibility that Cailen wouldn’t want to have two dads, did he mind?

‘’Sure I do, but you two might get confused with me saying ‘dad’ all the time so I decided to call Blaine ga.’’

‘’Ga?’’, my jaw dropped faster than … (I’d rather not complete that.) ‘’what does that even mean? What’s Ga supposed to be in English? ‘’

Jasmine was laughing, ‘’Ga, nice one kiddo, it sounds like baby food, open up Jason have some ga.’’

‘’okay, that’s it.’’ It was Karina who spoke there was an edge to her voice like she didn’t like being left out of the loop, ‘’could the five of you please speak in English?’’ I looked at her confused as did the rest of my biological family.

‘’you do realize you’ve all been speaking Korean for the past ten minutes, right?’’ Arlena looked a bit pissed as well as did Altair, the only one with an amused look on his face was David.

‘’oh sorry, I didn’t realize.’’ I apologized, we tended to do that when it came to our family speak our native language, eat our native food? God, I badly want some kimchi bokkeumbap right now, I Miss Korean and I’ve only been there what four or five times. I found myself looking at my dad wondering if he missed it too, the sad wistful look in his eyes told me he did, I found myself smiling at him as Blaine walked in, hair still wet from the shower he had taken, I swear he does that cause he knows I love it, or a part of me does, a very hard part of me, he paused to place a kiss on Altair’s forehead and hesitated when it came to Cailen, then settled on ruffling his hair, ‘’good morning kiddo.’’