Page 34

When he showed up with her—smelling a little worse for wear and in desperate need of a good meal—I’d been the one to suggest we let her stay the night in one of the extra bedrooms.

I’d meant only for the night. I mean, Amy was a runaway. I was pretty sure we could get in trouble for not reporting her to the authorities.

But one night turned into two, then a long weekend. And before we knew it, she was part of the family.

Not long after Amy was living with us full-time, there’d been a frantic knock on our front door at three in the morning.

When Coast went to open it—gun in hand, telling us to stay back—Grayson had fallen into Coast’s arms.

Bloodied and bruised, he’d barely been able to move, eat, or speak for days.

When he finally could, we learned that his gang had heard a rumor about him being a snitch, and had beaten and left him for dead.

We’d asked about his foster family, only to learn that his foster father and his biological sons were in the same gang.

“We have another room,” I reminded Coast when he’d looked ready to storm across town and do something that would etch more tally marks into his skin. “Make a deal with his foster family. He lives here. They get their check. Everyone’s happy.”

And so, we had another teenager in the house. Only, a boy. Who seemed to have hollow bones, because there was no other way to explain how he ate so damn much and still looked like a beanpole.

Ryland, well, Ryland was the newest addition.

He’d been released, as expected. He’d gone straight from juvenile hall to a group home. Where he was forced to keep to a rigid schedule and intense chores from his house parents and subjected to constant room searches and unreasonable curfews.

Basically, he felt like he was still being treated like a prisoner. Only worse, because where the corrections officers on the inside generally just left him alone, the house parents were constantly breathing down his neck.

Eventually, one night, there was another knock on our door.

Then there was Ryland.

A recent runaway who didn’t have anything but the clothes on his back and the sketchbook Coast had given him when he’d learned he was into art.

According to Ryland’s record, he was a frequent runaway in previous foster homes, so while his house parents had to report his disappearance, he was marked “AWOL from placement.” Which was a fancy way of saying that no one planned on looking for him.

Things could get sticky when he turned eighteen and needed to do all the things adults did. Get a job, drive, file taxes. He didn’t have his birth certificate or social security cards. He was a shadow kid. He existed, but not to the outside world.

We figured we could cross that bridge when we got to it. Help him rebuild his life the “right” way. Or, you know, hire Arty to give the kid a whole new identity.

There were options.

Ever since I’d heard Coast’s story about being a foster parent as a teenager himself, I’d felt this strange tug to become one as well.

When I’d confessed that desire to Coast, he’d given me a bit of a sad look before informing me it wasn’t going to be an option. Because of the club. Because of his work.

But the universe had a quirky sense of humor—tossing three needy teens at us, knowing we would feel compelled to raise them.

We were a big family these days.

Two parents, three teens, Lainey, and our little newborn son.

Our grocery bill was insane.

But our hearts were as full as our home.

And judging by how much Coast and I were enjoying being “new” parents again, I had a feeling we were nowhere near done.

Coast - 10 years

“Where’s my old man?” Ryland’s voice called from the front of the clubhouse.

“I swear to fuck, if you tell me you dinged your car again, I’m gonna lose my shit,” I called, my voice calm despite the edge of my words.

“Dinged? No,” Ryland said, appearing in the doorway with dried blood around his nose and a nasty gash down the side of his face.

“The fuck?”

“Yeah, I totaled it this time,” he admitted, wincing. “In my defense, a fucking eighteen-wheeler cut me off and rammed me into the guardrail. I flipped twice.”

“The fuck? Why didn’t you call me?”

I was out of my chair and across the room in a blink, reaching out to tilt Ryland’s head this way and that, then yanking up his shirt to check for any other injuries.

“Did you get this checked?” I asked, gesturing toward the bruise blooming across his chest.

“Yeah, spent the last five hours in the emergency room.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“I called Ma,” Ryland said, shrugging.

I couldn’t pinpoint exactly when he, Grayson, and Amy had started to refer to us as their parents. But I could say that it never failed to make my heart do that fucking swelling thing when I heard it. Even now when they were adults.

“And why didn’t Zo call me?”

To that, Ryland shot me a smirk. “Where’s your phone?

” I reached to pat myself down, but it was nowhere to be found.

“She did call you. Three times. I’d gird your loins before you get home tonight.

She was ranting and raving about how she could have been knocking on death’s door and you wouldn’t even know it. ”

Zoe was an easy-going partner. But she had one rule: always have your phone on you. She said we had too many kids to not be reachable in case of any sort of emergency.

“Did she drop you here?”

“No, I had Velle scoop me up. Ma had to get back to the dance studio. She had the class for ten-year-olds.”

Including Lainey.

Who maybe wasn’t as technically good at ballet as her mother had been at her age, but she sure made up for that with her enthusiasm.

“Where’s the baby?” Ryland asked, glancing around.

‘The baby’ was three now. But since she was the last for Zoe and I, we all still called her that.

We figured that three ‘adopted’ and four bio kids were more than enough for us. Though we remained open to any of my former foster kids needing a place to crash.

“One of Huck’s kids is babysitting,” I told him.

That was another huge perk to having so many damn teenagers around. Everyone wanted to babysit.

There was a hacking cough coming from the front of the house, making Ryland and me share a look.

“I got my pills in my pocket. Where are the half-naked dames at?”

“Frank, the last time you tried to get it on, you threw out your back for a week,” Ryland told him.

“It was worth it. That woman had a plastic hip and removable teeth,” Frank said, wiggling his thick gray brows.

So, yeah, at some point, they finished building that fifty-plus community across the street.

And that ‘mixed use’ part in the back? Yeah, that turned out to be a fucking assisted living place.

Things have certainly been lively ever since.

From the noise complaints and old ladies hooting at us when they caught us shirtless, to the old men who wanted to come party and relive their glory days, we’d developed an interesting love/hate relationship with all the old folks.

“Gross,” Ryland declared, looking a little green at the idea of a toothless blowjob.

“Don’t knock it ‘til you try it, kid,” Frank said, shuffling over toward the fridge to grab a beer that I was almost sure he wasn’t supposed to be mixing with his medications. But, fuck, if I lived to his age, I didn’t want to hear shit about what I should or shouldn’t eat.

“One thing about ladies with a few years on them,” he said, pausing to chug half the beer, let out a hacking cough, then wipe his mouth on the back of his sleeve before continuing, “they grew up in a different time. They were expected to be good little housewives who gave it up on Saturday night while they thought about their grocery list. They’re making up for lost time now.

Where are all the girls?” he asked, looking around.

“It’s three in the afternoon, Frank,” I reminded him. “The club girls aren’t going to show up until eight or nine.”

“Isn’t that three hours past your bedtime?” Ryland teased.

Before Frank could clap back, footsteps rushed down the steps.

And there was Grayson, his prospect vest on full display.

“The fuck happened to you?” he asked, looking at Ryland.

“Crash.”

“Well, it had been six weeks. You were due. Pops, did you see this?” Grayson asked, thrusting his phone out toward me.

And right there on the screen was a vaguely familiar face. One I’d once looked up when Zoe was asleep next to me, and Lainey on my chest.

Travis Butler.

Lainey’s biological father.

He was ten years older and seventy pounds heavier. And his hairline seemed to be engaging in a long-distance relationship with his eyebrows.

But there he was.

In a mugshot.

“What’d they get him on?” I asked, wondering if Zoe had heard the news yet.

“Tax evasion and racketeering,” Grayson said.

“Oh, he’s going away away.”

“That’s a good thing, right?” Ryland asked. “Ma was always worried he might try to come and take Lainey.”

“It’s definitely a bit of a load off. Though I’m not looking forward to explaining all this to Lainey one day.”

“Hey!” Amy’s voice barked through the clubhouse. The clomp of her combat boots moved across the floorboards. “What is with this text?” she asked, shoving her phone screen at Ryland. “‘Almost died. Haha,’” she read off. “And then no answer to my fifteen follow-up texts?”

“My phone died.”

“There are these things called chargers. And if you stick one in—”

She was cut off by yet another voice.

“Coast?” Zoe called, rushing through the house with Lainey and our son in tow. “Did you hear?”

“That Ryland finally killed his car? Yeah, heard that.”

“No. The other news,” she said, eyes bright, glancing down at Lainey.

“Oh, right. Yeah, I just heard. How are we feeling about that?” I asked.

“Like we should go out to celebrate,” she said, shooting me a big smile.

There’d been a scare a few years back when Lainey innocently moved into the frame on one of Lainey’s live videos on one of her socials. She’d been a huge hit—the little mini-me of her mother. And a certain sperm donor showed up in Zoe’s DMs, talking about them monetizing their daughter.

We’d both been firmly against that shit.

And Travis had started to push.

Until I showed up at his doorstep to remind him to back the fuck off.

“I mean,” Zoe said, lips curving up in a wicked little smile, “I was the one to tip off the feds a few years back. I just didn’t realize they’d actually been building a case.”

My woman.

A constant fucking surprise.

Yeah, we definitely needed to celebrate.

“Casa Nostra?” I asked, knowing her spot. Ever since that night she met Tony Barelli—our friendly, local mob boss—we’d been going there for just about every life event. And often just because.

“What are we celebrating?” Lainey asked, looking up at her mother.

Zoe’s gaze slid in my direction.

“The end of one chapter,” she said.

We would tell her the beginning of her story one day. Just not quite yet.

“And the beginning of the best one yet,” I agreed, pulling Zoe close and pressing a kiss to her temple.

XX