Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 77106 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77106 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
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.