I can’t bring myself to be annoyed. He’s quiet and minds his own business. He’s also the only adult in my life who hasn’t insisted I need to forgive my dad at every turn. Like, fuck. I know I do. I get it. I’ve been force-fed the scripture since birth. I can feel the guilt and fury burning through my esophagus like acid. I know I have issues.

But I don’t want to.

I sigh, reaching for a rag and scrubbing my face before standing and stretching my arms over my head and glorying at the pull in my cramped biceps. “I don’t know how you could tell,” I say. “No way I could keep up with the dude.”

“I doubt even Jimmy could keep up with Jimmy on an off day. You did it justice, and besides, I know your routine by now.”

I smirk, annoyed, but also not. Mostly because my adrenaline has been spent and I could use a nap. “More like you talked to Brian.”

James doesn’t deny it. He and my stepdad have been friends since they were college roommates. They’re like brothers, which makes James the cool uncle I never had. I like talking to him because he doesn’t have the burden of being in love with my mom. “He felt like he handled things badly.”

I shrug it off, gathering up my things and heading for the stairs. James stands and joins me in the climb. “He’s only looking out for my mom,” I admit. “He’s always been stupid for her, and this whole thing is … uncomfortable.” I grimace at the understatement. I seem to be camping out in the gray area of understatements lately.

“Brian’s a big boy. He can handle uncomfortable.” James gestures toward his small, air-conditioned office. One of James’s seventeen jobs is part-time youth group/worship team leader at the church my mom and Brian attend. It’s a small gig, so he also takes on all sorts of handyman jobs, fixing up people’s houses and businesses or whatever suits him.

“I can, too,” I say. I sit down in one of the guest seats. After getting me a Gatorade from the stash he keeps under his desk, James sits next to me, forgoing his office chair.

He smiles. “I’ve no doubt, kid. You’d done it for years. Which is why I’m sure you could handle facing your dad at his hearing.”

“But?” I ask. There’s more to James’s tone.

“But,” he continues, “you’re nineteen. In all the years I’ve known you, you’ve done right by your mom and your siblings and the church … out of some misguided sense of guilt or shame or restitution, I think. And I wonder if maybe for your own sake, you should not do that, for once.”

“Who’s to say I was going to?”