Page 2 of Scoring Chances

I open the door ready to tell off a pushy salesmen but instead I find a pretty Latina woman in wide-legged pants and a vest. She looked all business.

Pushing her glasses up her nose, she said, "Hello! I'm looking for a..." she looked down at a folder in her hand. "Mr. Joshua Anderson-Hicks?"

That was the first time I had ever been addressed that way.

"It's just Hicks. No, Anderson," I said dryly.

She looked at me up and down before opening her folder, "Right."

"What's this about?"

"Well, Mr... Hicks. My name is Priscilla Hernandez. And I'm sorry to inform you that your father, James Anderson, has recently passed." She held the folder against her chest and looked at me solemnly.

My father?

"I have a father. And that man, ain't it," I scoffed.

"Oh,” she looked surprised. “Well our records indicate that he's your biological father. According to a DNA test you took back in–"

"That was just a moment of weakness,” I cut her off.

The truth is—I never met the man. Couldn't care less what became of him.

"So, Old Jimmy kicked the bucket, huh? That's too bad. Why should I care?" I cocked my head at her, casually sliding my hands into my pockets.

The universe was going to have to do much better than killing off my estranged biological sperm donor to get a rise out of me.

“You should care because he's left you something." She waved to her dark SUV still idling in the driveway.

A second later, the door opened and out popped a little brown-haired girl holding a green frog stuffed toy.

She was followed by an emo looking teen wearing jeans too baggy for his own good. The teen then reached back into the vehicle and pulled out a younger boy and set him down on his feet, he grabbed his hand.

The three of them all stood there just staring at me.

I looked around to make sure I wasn’t on some kind of celebrity prank show. And the next words out of the woman’s mouth were so absurd that my brain struggled to keep up.

“As the only recorded next of kin of legal guardian age–the state appoints you the legal guardian of Cole, Maddie, and Parker Anderson. Should you refuse…”

She kept talking, but I lost track of what she said after the words legal guardian.

Legal guardian?

I could barely make it out of bed in time for practice, and now the state expects me to drop everything and be solely responsible for three kids?

It had to be a joke. One big freakin’ joke.

All I could do was laugh. And I think I did. Out loud. Like a total asshole. Because all at once my half-siblings all looked at me like I was some kind of alien species they never expected to see in their lives.Three pairs of confused, pissed off eyes.

To be fair, I felt the exact same way about them. According to my mom, their father–our father–James Anderson was a man with no future who left her alone and pregnant with me when she was just a teenager.

How is it possible that he went on to have more kids? How irresponsible was this guy?

But there was one glaring thing that I couldn’t overlook. The sun hadn’t quite set yet so I could see it clear as day… we all shared my James' signature eye color.

And that was all the proof I needed to know that this wasn’t some sick prank. Not a human prank anyways.

But of the universe? I see you, stupid universe.