“Yeah, they are,” he agreed. “But we’ve got each other. And Allie, you’re my past, present and future.”

“I know,” I replied, smiling broadly at him.

“Good,” he whispered, leaning down to kiss me.

“Now,” he started, rubbing his nose against mine. “Before I smuggle you into the bedroom and take you through a tour of Pound Town, I want you to tell me you’ll marry me first.”

I stared into all Heath’s raw beauty and for a second I lost myself in those dark eyes. Feeling particularly happy – and hopeful – today, I replied, “Okay, Heath. I’ll marry you.”

Ryker

20 years later…

Maria called me from inside the house.

I was too busy breaking shit in the shed to pay attention. This fucking car needed its engine stripped and it was a cunt of a job. Lucas stood next to me, bored as shit, holding onto the tools in his hands as he sneakily texted his friends.

“You must think I’m deaf or dumb, or, hell, both if you think I don’t know you’re whacking those fingers on that phone.”

He exhaled loudly and stuffed the phone in his pocket. “You’re taking forever.”

I stood up and grabbed the bottle of water on my shed table. “You want this car, Luke? Like really want it?”

He stared at the car I had bought and stripped just for this spoiled little shit.

A Pontiac 1967 GTO, almost halfway done. This baby was going to look like a dream. If the chicks weren’t clawing at my seventeen year old now, they would be when they saw him rolling in this.

“Yeah, but I want it when it’s done,” he replied.

I raised a brow. “Then you’re not hungry enough for it.”

“I am hungry for it! I just don’t get why we don’t have it done by someone. Why are we doing it ourselves?”

“For the experience,” I explained. “When you create something from your bare hands, you’ll feel a kind of rush that makes it all worth it. You want something, you have to work for it. That’s just the way it is in life.”

His brown eyes ogled me before he raked his dark brown hair off his forehead and muttered, “That’s what Mom said you did with her.”

I chuckled. “Your mom definitely didn’t make it easy.”

No, it took six months just for Maria to come around. Even when I tried to lavish her with nice things, she turned the other cheek. Maria was modest and beautiful. She came from a poor town in Panama. She had worked at the bank where I’d deposited my money, and the second we made eye contact, I felt something.

Something good. Something different.

Something delicious.

“Ryker, for the hundredth time, come here right this second!” Maria shouted.

“I’m filthy,” I called back.

“I don’t care. You have to see this! Now, Ryker, now!”

If she didn’t care that I was in my filthy overalls and my hands were greasy, then it definitely meant it was important. I hurried with Kyle to the back porch of our three storey home, built from locally quarried limestone; its upper level balconies gave direct view of the Pacific Ocean. It was a stone’s throw away from the beach, and it suited our lifestyle to a tee.

I traded in a shit town for paradise.

I stepped into the house and followed that curvy body to the living area. She looked back at me, and for a moment I wanted to just lose myself in her chocolate, dizzying eyes. She looked like a fucking dream right now, and I was always hungry for her when I kicked around in that shed for long.

She pursed her plump red lips and gestured to the flat screen television.

“Focus,” she said. “You have to see this.”

I eventually tore my gaze from her and stared at a MMA match between two men. My eyebrows came together in confusion. Where was she going with this?

“Look hard at the man with the dark hair,” she told me. “And pay attention to what the commentators are saying.”

I did as I was told and watched the dark haired man. He slayed his opponent, punch after punch until he cornered him. He went for an uppercut and his opponent fell back, hitting the ring like a sack of potatoes.

When the camera zoomed in on him, I immediately lost my breath.

“Unbelievable! Kayden Lawson has managed another TKO!” bellowed the commentator, whistling his praise.

For several minutes as they kept the camera on his face, looking like a broader, stronger spitting image of me, I felt like my entire body had come apart. My heart rate accelerated and my palms got sweaty.

“Is… that him, Dad?” Lucas asked cautiously. “Is that… my brother?”

I’d told them all about my life. They knew about Kayden, completely aware I’d left him in other Allie and Heath’s responsibility, and the more I aged, the more I regretted that.

Maria’s hand grabbed at my face. She tenderly stroked me. I eventually tore away from the screen and stared at them.

My family. My second chance at life. My eternal happiness.

And I smiled. A genuine, happy smile.

He had become someone. He hadn’t strayed. He hadn’t fucked up. Kayden had become somebody. And in that moment, I wanted to scream my love for Heath and Allie. I wanted to applaud them for giving him the life he needed when I couldn’t be the one to do it.

Maybe he will find you one day, I thought to myself. Just maybe…

Reaper had been right all along, I quickly came to realize. There was good left in this world, and I was a part of it now.

With a slow nod, I turned to my son and said, “Yeah, Luke, he is.”

THE END.