“I do like him,” he confirmed, still smiling that creepy smile. “But I’m firing you because… you stole pens from the gym. I saw them in your purse.”

I drew back and stared at him. This wasn’t about fucking pens. Of course it wasn’t about pens. Grandpa had bought all of my school supplies as business expenses my entire life.

Why the hell was he doing this to me? “But why? I thought”—I had to reach up to wipe at my eye as more panic spilled into my chest at the idea that he was doing this to me for no fucking reason—“Maio House was going to be mine one day. You told me. You told me that when you died it was going to be mine, and that’s why I’ve been working there since for fucking ever. And I’ve been managing it because it’s ours. Because it’s our family’s, and I’m your family. I’m your… I’m your….”

I was panting.

I was fucking crying. Holy shit. I reached up to touch my face, and there were real tears there.

“Why are you taking this away from me?” I croaked, feeling… feeling so fucking confused. “I’ve been doing a good job. Most of the time. Half the time.”

My grandpa just blinked at me. Then he used his reasonable voice on me. “I’m not taking anything away from you.”

“Yeah, you are.” I wiped at my face with the back of my hand, feeling… feeling… holy shit. This had been the plan. My entire life, this had been the plan. “You said… you said it was going to be mine.”

“Is that what I said?” he asked.

I wiped again, trying my hardest not to get upset but failing miserably. “Yeah.”

“When, Len?”

What? “I… I don’t know. A bunch of times. You know you did.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “Yeah, I did. When you were ten. When you were three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten.”

What the hell was he talking about?

He aimed those gray eyes at me steadily. “I haven’t told you that this was going to be yours since you were ten years old.”

He hadn’t?

“It’s been twenty years since I did that, Len, and part of me regrets so much that I put that responsibility on you when you were a kid. Do you know why I stopped?”

I didn’t even answer him. I couldn’t.

Luckily he wasn’t really waiting for a response. “Do you remember that was the year I made you enroll in gymnastics?” I didn’t nod. Of course I remembered. I had really liked it, and I’d been pretty good at it. “Your coach told me how good you were. How much talent and athleticism you had, and he said he regretted that you were going to be so tall because you would never make it to the elite level.”

I jumped in. “What does that have to do with you firing me?”

“Give me a second,” he requested. “I came home and told Peter how much of a badass you were, and he agreed. He said she’s good at everything. Lenny’s going to be able to do anything she wants when she grows up. And that was when I realized what I’d been doing.”

I blinked.

“Before you were born, Len… I had been a wreck because of losing your dad. My heart was broken. It was… dust. I had thought… I had thought for a while there that I didn’t want to live in a world that would take my son away from me,” Grandpa said quietly, more quietly than I’d ever heard, I knew for a fact. “I missed him so much, and I was so angry. And then your mom came to me. I told you this story a long time ago.”

He had. But he retold it.

“She told me she was pregnant with my grandchild. She said she was five months along, and that it was too late to have an abortion.” I knew all of this. “And she wanted to tell me that she was going to put the baby up for adoption because she wasn’t in a place to raise her, but she wanted me to know.

“And I knew without a doubt, in that instant, that there was no way I would ever let her put my boy’s child up for someone else to raise. Not when this, you, were the last piece of him I had left. I didn’t know how I was supposed to live without him in this world, and then you were born, and it took one look at you being all ugly and wrinkly—”

I laughed and wiped at my face, not realizing until then that I was full-on crying.

“—and I knew that I was going to have to break the world record for being the oldest man alive because there was no way I would ever let anything happen to you. You gave me life back. You gave me a damn purpose, Lenny. You have been the greatest gift I have ever been given. The greatest joy I will ever have. You were my best friend from the moment those cloudy demon eyes looked at me, like you needed me more than anything or anyone.

“I would fight to the death for you, Len. You were—” He smiled at me before correcting himself. “You are my everything. My soul mate. My best friend. My enemy.”

I laughed again and watched as he blinked at me, eyes glittering even more.

“And with that comment, Peter reminded me of everything I had seen in your face when you’d been born. That I would do anything for you. That you were a supernova. And look at what I’d been doing to you. How could I bottle you up and decide your future for you? How could I tell you what to be? I wanted the world for you. I want the world for you. And that’s why I stopped telling you that this place was yours since then. That’s why I made you get jobs outside of here. That’s why I made you get a degree and I didn’t let you work full-time here until Mo came along.

“Because I wanted to give you a chance to be whoever you wanted to be. Do whatever you wanted to do. All I want, Lenny, is for you to be happy, because that’s what matters to me at the end of the day. That’s what I lose sleep over; that’s what I will always lose sleep over. I want you to be happy in whatever way that is, being yourself the whole time. Do you understand me?”

At some point, the need to gulp in breath was making it hard to breathe. My cheeks were wet. But somehow, someway, I managed to ask him in a voice that was barely intelligible, “But Maio House is our family legacy.”

The old fart rolled his eyes even as he smiled. “Maio House is our family business, Len. You, Mo, you two are our family legacy.”

Oh hell.

Oh bloody hell.

I was so grateful right then that this wasn’t the man who had raised me. That this sweet, nice grandpa wasn’t the one I had grown up knowing.

Because he would have killed me with his sweetness, with his kindness, and I never would have grown up to be the person I was if this was what I’d grown up with.

More fucking tears came out of my eyes as I slowly started to realize what he was trying to tell me. What he was doing. For me. For Mo.

A million times in my life, I had thought that I couldn’t love my grandfather more than I did right then, and every single time that was proved to be a lie. Just like it was in this case. Right then.

And he kept on going.

“I love the gym, loved running it, loved having you there with me all the time. I love Peter being there. But it’s just a business, Len. It’s four walls and some concrete that could disappear in a day, in a flood, in a hurricane or a tornado. It’s a part of me, you, and Peter, but it’s not everything.” He reached up to wipe under his eye with the side of his index finger. “Some people are lucky to find one person in the world to love. Some people are even luckier to find more than one person to love and be loved back. Some don’t find anyone. If you find someone, you don’t let them run away. We love them the way we need to love them. The way they need to be loved. And we don’t give up on that. We don’t throw that kind of thing away or push it to a better time, because there is no better time. If you love that kid the way you say you do, you don’t give that up. You fight for it, you stick with it, and you go for it. You keep it.”

I felt like a zombie as I pulled myself into a standing position and then draped myself around my grandpa, giving him the tightest fucking hug and feeling him give me the tightest fucking hug right back.

I could barely understand what the hell I was saying as I muttered, “Are you telling me to go? To go be with him across the fucking world and leave you?” I hiccupped. “How the hell could you tell me that? How could you tell me to not be with you and see you and…”

Those strong, safe arms—the strongest, safest arms I had ever known for the majority of my life—didn’t let me down. They cradled me. They loved me. They adored me right then, as my grandpa said, “I’m telling you to go live your life, Len. I’m telling you to go be happy. That’s what I’m telling you to do.” Those hands of his palmed my face and pulled me back just far enough away so he could look right into my eyes. “And who the hell says you’re leaving us behind? Jonah invited us to come along too. My bag has been packed for weeks.”

Chapter 24

9:30 p.m.

Me: Are my messages coming through?

9:31 p.m.

Me: Our flight just landed.

9:32 p.m.

Jonah: Yes : )

9:33 p.m:

Jonah: Awesome. Take your time.

Jonah: Can’t wait to see you.