Chapter 9

So, we made sure to leave Becca a great tip ... and to let Wayne be the one to have the first-time experience of actually giving it to her. Her eyes really bugged as she saw it, too. A twenty percent or twenty-five percent tip was one thing, but a FIFTY PERCENT TIP? Hot damn, she was impressed by it. He was definitely her hero by now, and luckily for him, she didn’t know his horrible past with waitstaff. Not yet. There were still restaurants that all but banned him for life for past awful conduct.

“Wow, that feels good! I can’t believe what a difference ... most waiters avoid me like the plague and I swear that sometimes, cooks have spat in my food and drink. I just couldn’t prove it. This is a helluva good feeling! And I got at least a date out of it. A first date, no less. I’ll just have to go to a place where my reputation isn’t trash. Getting rid of the stench of being a bad tipper will take a while, won’t it?” Wayne had the decency to look embarrassed at his past behavior.

“You were running out of places to go by yourself and started to only go in groups, weren’t you?” I teased him.

“Yeah, about like that ... and going out of town, too. That gets to be pricier than the tips once gasoline is factored in, you know. What Dad likes to call petrol sometimes, because Grandpa used to call it that,” Wayne alluded to his family’s Anglophile ways brought over from Hong Kong.

“And it spreads your ill repute even further. Yeah, my brother, we’re gonna have to work on your rehabilitation, but it can be done,” Cassidy told him now.

“So it seems, but it’s a worthy cause,” Sofia added.

“Indeed it is,” Vicky declared.

“Very much so,” Kara chimed in now.

“I’m a lot prouder of you now, son. You’re becoming a man at last. Men aren’t supposed to be that hung up on status. That’s a preppy, not a real bloke. Someday, and hopefully soon, I’ll send you a copy of a verse by Rudyard Kipling about maturation and manhood. I should have taught it to you years ago. It’s very sage wisdom in that poem.

“Especially the line that reads, ‘and walk with kings, nor lose the common touch.’ There’s more to life than status. I wish that I had taught you better about that, but at last you’re learning it, anyway,” Mike assured Wayne with a bear hug.

“Well, now that you’re less hung up on that, you can date a real catch like Becca. Just bear in mind that she’s eight years your senior, so that could lead to issues. And you would be an instant dad ... but I think that you can handle that. You’ll be surprised at how easy it can be to love someone who isn’t flesh and blood,” Mom kissed Wayne on the cheek now as we left the diner.

“So ... how are we gonna make this work with the whole ... five-way relationship dynamic you have? Assuming that you five make it last ... which I actually think more possible than others would believe. You always had ... that very affectionate side to you. I just didn’t know how far it would take you. Also, what will you do about Sofia’s pregnancy?” Mom wondered now in the van.

“Well, here’s a thought. I would marry Sofia, since that’s legal. I would claim paternity by virtue of default, as the husband of the baby’s mother. No one else needs to even know that it’s not mine. That’s different from being tricked into this, which is paternity fraud. I am knowingly claiming another dude’s brat because I want to do so. As for the others, they can do what they want ... I just want to be with them. All four of them,” I explained with a wink for each of my ladies.