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I woke up with my head on his shoulder and a difference in my heart that was abundantly clear. This time, I didn’t want to flee. I didn’t question the feelings I had. Instead, I held on to them, as I held on to him. Wrapped my arms around this man with everything that I was.

Sweat. Blood. A small tear in the corner of my eye.

I was a sappy old thing, but I suppose maturity had brought gifts.

The ones where I simply stopped caring about things that had no importance.

Like what other people thought. The labels cast at us.

Where Us would be something we would have to defend.

I knew, because my son lived this life, and thus I had too.

Had I been jealous? No. Not in that way. Had I yearned for what he had? Of course, but in a way where I felt so incredibly grateful that he had Gray, and he was loved and cared for. That his heart would never be broken and that he walked around with that smile on his face.

And Gray. The messy, messy boy who had burst into our lives with nothing but a smile on his face and a backpack slung over his shoulder.

I loved that boy. I had from the first time I noticed how he looked at my son.

His eyes glittered, and his lips cracked into that blinding smile.

The once-anxious boy had turned a corner and come out of his shell, and I had been honoured to witness it all, and it had made me happy.

And now I had this man. This incredibly beautiful man. I didn’t care about the scars. The past, the incredible amount of excess baggage he would forever carry on his shoulders. I would help him; the weight of it would be a small price to pay to make his life bearable.

I wanted it. This. All of this. Where he slept soundly in my bed, where his skin was against mine. Where I could smell the scent of him, the skin on his face now rough under the fingertip I traced down his cheek, his neck, over his collarbone.

Dylan Scotland. Who would have thought?

I wondered what other people would see, perhaps colleagues from my former life, had I strolled in through those workplace doors with this man’s hand in mine.

The thought was ridiculous but made me smile.

Because I would have proudly done just that.

Wrapped him up in a hug and placed a kiss on his forehead.

Shown him off, my chest puffed out in pride.

Mine. He was mine.

“What you laughing about?” he murmured, stretching an arm over his head. My fingers again found his scars. They were mine too. Because without them, who would he have become? Someone else who hadn’t found his way to me. Right here.

“Just thinking about how I would love to show you off. Take you out for dinner sometime. Just be…a normal couple.”

“Can’t quite afford that. Not yet.”

“We can afford to go down to the pub, which is what I had in mind. A Sunday roast perhaps? Tomorrow?”

“It’s Sunday tomorrow?” He sounded genuinely surprised. I didn’t blame him. I lost track of the days too when my life no longer had structure.

“I think so.” I smiled and pressed my lips against his shoulder, shuffling further up the bed until we were face-to-face, his nose pressed against mine. Morning breath. I didn’t mind. I kissed it off him.

“What was that?” He sat up suddenly, and my heart jolted out of my chest. A loud crash upstairs. Bloody cats. Then footsteps running across the kitchen floor above as my blood froze. Dylan stared in horror at the door at the top of the stairs.

Perhaps I was just imagining things, but my heart actually stopped as the door was flung open and two overexcited small children burst down the stairs screaming at the top of their voices.

“Granddad! Granddad! Surprise!”

Followed by Reuben, whose smile was wiped off his face in an instant.

“Oh!” he said, stopping dead halfway down.

My son, wearing a ridiculously long coat and a stylish new haircut, looking so incredibly handsome that for a moment I wanted to get up and run up and hug him. Swing him around and kiss his hair and…

I was naked. And had two children crawling all over me as I tried to protect my modesty. And Dylan’s.

Dylan who just sat there.

“Granddad, Daddy said we could surprise you, and I brought you my drawings and…” Jasmine stopped mid-sentence and stared at me the same way Jay was doing. And then at Dylan.

“Stranger danger,” Jasmine proclaimed loudly. “Granddad, there’s a stranger in your bed. You should shout for help.”

“We learnt about it at tutoring, Granddad. In America. You shout for help because strangers are bad,” Jay chimed in, pointing at Dylan with his little finger while I tried to figure out how I could get up and find some pants without baring either of us to my grandchildren.

Dylan said nothing.

“Dylan is not a stranger. He’s my friend,” I said, only now realising Reuben had turned around and walked back upstairs, slamming the door behind him .

“I assume that was your son,” Dylan said quietly, still frozen in place.

“Stranger danger,” Jasmine repeated, nodding her head to emphasise her point.

“No, Jasmine. Yes. Yes, of course, you are absolutely right. You don’t know Dylan, so yes, stranger danger.”

Fuck. I never really used crude words, not even in my head, but now I did. Loudly.

“I should leave,” Dylan suggested, still not attempting to move. Well, I didn’t blame him because he was stark naked under that corner of the duvet, and my two grandchildren were sitting on the bed, pointing. Jay was bouncing on my ankle.

“I want to show you what I brought, and Dadda is making waffles. We didn’t have a waffle maker in America, so we couldn’t make waffles. Waffles are essential,” Jasmine continued as Jay nodded enthusiastically.

“We brought maple syrup. It’s from Canada.”

“Oh, lovely.”

“Do you like maple syrup? Which do you prefer? Pancake syrup or maple syrup? Dadda says pancake syrup is bad because it has corn stuff in it. Corn stuff is bad, but corn on the cob isn’t. I don’t understand why. It’s corn.”

“It is.” What was going on here? I grabbed poor Jay and hugged him hard. I hadn’t seen him for so long, and God, I’d missed these two.

“Why are you here? You’re supposed to be in America.”

“I don’t know. I’m a child.” Jasmine. Far too clever with her snarky little laugh.

“I’m ten now,” Jay said. “Did you know that?”

Of course I did. He was a big boy. So grown up. Where had my small babies gone?

“I know. I sang to you over the phone, and you had a blue cake, remember?”

“It didn’t have corn syrup in it. But then corn is a vegetable.”

“Yes, it is.” I smiled. So very much Jay.

Full of questions and impossible answers.

My handsome young man. So gorgeous, just like his little sister with her hair in perfect little braids.

“Listen, you two, if you go up to Daddy and Dadda, then I will join you in a second. I need to get some clothes on. ”

“Why are you not wearing clothes?” Yes. Very bright observation, Jasmine. “You’re not wearing clothes either.” She continued crawling up the bed and attempted to lift the duvet next to Dylan to confirm her suspicions. He grasped at the duvet and squirmed away from her.

Yeah. This was bad. No good. I got it; God knew I did.

“Upstairs, everyone! Now!” I shouted with newfound enthusiasm, waving my hands in the air and making Jasmine bounce up and down on the bed. “There are waffles upstairs; I can smell them!”

I couldn’t but hey, little white lies. It did the trick anyway.

“I’m gonna go,” Dylan said, making a run for the bathroom, grabbing his clothes off the floor on the way, that gorgeous little backside of his bobbing from side to side.

It was silly how much I liked seeing it. Him. Bare.

“Don’t go,” I begged. “Come upstairs, meet the kids.”

“Too early,” he insisted. “You need time. Catch up.”

How things could change. A few minutes ago, everything had been so good. Now suddenly? Fractured. A strange mix of extreme joy and horrific fear that I’d just ruined everything .

“You don’t need me here,” he said, reappearing fully dressed, turning in a circle to try to find his shoes.

They were by the door. And I was still stark naked. And now he was sitting on my dining chair, trying to put his shoe on the wrong foot. Even I could see that, standing here like the idiot I was, and the kids were coming downstairs again, shouting at the top of their voices.

“Upstairs!” I barked, regretting it instantly as they disappeared.

I never shouted at the kids. Ever. But I was naked, and this was all going wrong and what on earth was happening?

“I’ll see you later,” he said casually, getting up from the chair.

I had my shirt in my hand, trying to cover myself up. I wasn’t doing a particularly good job of it.

“Dylan,” I said, but he was already gone.

I’d wanted to kiss him. Hold him. Tell him all those things that were still buzzing around in my head despite it sounding like I was hosting a bulldozer convention upstairs—suitcases getting rolled across the floor, no doubt, accompanied by children shouting, and now Jasmine was crying .

And I had no idea how everything had suddenly gone so wrong.

Looking more presentable, I stomped up the stairs and was met with the usual chaos.

As predicted, Gray was standing by the stove, making waffles.

He’d already managed to make one hell of a mess, his upturned suitcase still in the middle of the kitchen floor.

Still, he reached for me and allowed me to hug the shit out of him, as he so eloquently demanded.

This boy. This ridiculous, wonderful boy.

And, of course, my son, who was sitting at the kitchen table nursing a cup of tea with a face like thunder.

“I tried to calm him down, Stewart. It’s not a big deal.” Gray. Forever the diplomat here.

“The fuck, Dad?” my son spurted out, putting his tea down heavily on the table. “Seriously?”

“Reuben,” I warned. The kids were in earshot. We all had manners. Seriously, right back at him.

“Dad, you were naked in bed with a bloke?”