If it takes just a little while

 "This is just crazy!" But Cori didn't think he could stop his thin body from shaking. First, he read it in a letter then he called the lawyer and finally he got ahold of Melvin's old uncle. The pizzeria was Cori's.

"Well, he would have wanted it that way," his Uncle Vic told him. "He talked about you a lot in our phone calls this past year. He said he'd never stayed in Omaha if it hadn't been for you."

Cori didn't want to cry but tears trickled down his face, anyway. He couldn't help but melt into emotion. He didn't know if he could really talk about Melvin.

"I'm..I'm just sorry.."

"What are you sorry about, kid," the man's voice was gruff. It sounded as if he knew Melvin very well. "He was a hopeless romantic, that's what he was." Vic then mentioned how he himself started the pizza place decades ago with an old Air Force buddy. "God, it was sad back then. Those folks didn't even know what pizza was." He said he couldn't stay out in the midlands forever because New Jersey was his home so he'd sent Melvin out here to learn the ropes. After all, it had been a thriving business for decades. "God knows, he wasn't doing anything else to keep going." Evidently, Melvin had been in rehab and all sorts of things with his troubled youth. 

Cori listened to Uncle Vic talk of Melvin's troubles, but he was grateful that Cori had been there for him. 

"I'm giving you the pizzeria, but there is one condition," Uncle Vic finally said.

"A condition?" Naturally, Cori should have known there was a catch. He really wasn't sure he even wanted to know.

"I'm sending Mel's cousin out to you. He needs you just as much as Melvin ever did."

Cori grimaced. His teeth practically clenched. What the hell had he gotten himself into?

"Cyrus will be there in a few days," he said. "I'm so glad you called me. Don't you worry about things, boy? We'll help out as much as we can."

Cori was ready to pull his hair out when he got off the phone. He thought he might be going crazy. Had he been adopted into an Italian family he didn't even know?

"I think you need a haircut," he thought he heard Megan say. She was holding the scissors in her hand as if she'd do it herself.

He only winced, hoping he woke up from this crazy dream.