at him. His eyes are dark, like mine. He’s got several tattoos and a thin frame.
But it’s the ears that do it for me.
I’d always hated my ears. Well, I’d always hated my earlobes, to be specific. They were longer than most, and thick. When I was younger, I used to keep my hair long just to cover them up. Since I started going gray, though, that just made me look like an old man.
I stare at him in shock and awe. Is it possible? Did Gina really give away our son and then lie to me about his death?
“So…” He clears his throat, looking as shocked as I feel. “So you’re saying this is my father?” His hand is clutching at his chest as he stares back at me.
Grace reaches into her purse and pulls out a piece of yellowed paper and holds it in the air between us. “This is your birth certificate. The mother listed is Gina Marie Spicer.” My heart thuds against my chest, feeling like the world has just… stopped. “And the father is Eugene Robert Grant.” Her eyes meet mine. “Shane didn’t die. She gave him away.”
Feeling like I could pass out from the revelation, I drop my ass onto the loveseat and stare at the little boy across from me.
I clear my throat. “Who is this?” I ask, my voice hoarse with emotion.
“This is my son,” Ty replies, his voice shaky. “His name is Joey.”
My body trembles. Gina lied. I have a son. I have a grandson. I’m a fucking grandpa. How is any of this possible? I kissed my son on his forehead the night before I left, the last memory I had of him before Gina told me he’d died. Now, my boy has his own kid. My brain is on the brink of explosion.
I look at Grace, Natalie, and Kevin, barely able to wrap my head around how quickly things can change. Just a few months ago, I’d been a lonely man on the edge of fifty with nobody to come home to and only my club to rely on.
Now look at me. I have a woman, kids—a family for the first time in my life. The weight of it crashes down on me until the dam breaks under the incredible force of happiness I feel.
“Holy shit,” I mumble, burying my face in my hands.
“Howy shit.”
Lifting my head, I look at the toddler across from me. He’s finished his donut, and now he’s just grinning at me, knowing full well that the words he’d just repeated were ones he shouldn’t have said, and not giving a single fuck.
“He really is your grandson,” Kevin quips.
The laughter that erupts from my chest makes it hard to breathe. I don’t even care, though. Oxygen doesn’t matter right now. All the shit that had gone on in the past few days melts away, leaving only this little boy and me, and the fact that his father is the son I’d lost when I was only twenty years old.
As the others join in on my laughter, I look into Grace’s eyes, knowing this is just the beginning. I’ve only known her a few short weeks, and already she’s given me my family. My son. God, even thinking that word is strange to me. My son and I have a lot of catching up to do. A grandson. Kevin and Natalie are mine now. Hashtag saw to that with his paperwork. Everything that I wanted in my life is right here in front of me. Every fucking last thing.
All of that is enough to keep the joy of my laughter going, because I know that even after this moment, after the laughter has faded away, the joy I feel will stay with me. Now that we all have each other, the joy will stay with all of us.
I’ve found my home, and I’m never letting it go.
Lindsey
Seeing him lying so still in that bed will haunt me until the day I die.
Karma has always been larger than life. An impenetrable force to be reckoned with. Always at the ready to tear down the world and kick some ass. But that’s exactly why he’s here in this bed, with so many tubes and wires coming out of him, isn’t it? His need to protect me going too far over the edge, and now he could die and leave me forever. A forever I wasn’t sure I wanted until this very moment. Leaving me alone. Stuck here with