Page 85 of Be My Monster

She wiggled off my lap, grabbed Owen’s hand, and practically dragged him up the stairs. We still had a few hours before we had to be there, but that wouldn’t stop her.

As soon as we were alone again, I asked Penn a question I’d been avoiding for some reason. “Did you call Tenny’s family?”

“I did.” When he didn’t elaborate, I gestured for him to continue. “They were happy to hear I’d settled somewhere.”

“Do you think they’ll visit?”

Penn cocked his head. “Probably, maybe, I don’t know. Family has always been different for me than it has been for you, Gid. Tenny, she was my family, my safe place growing up. She taught me things, helped me become the man I am today. Her family, they cared about me a lot—I don’t doubt that, but I never experienced things with them that I have here.”

“The running for your life experience?” I smirked.

He playfully shoved me. “No…well, yes, but that’s not what I meant.”

“Tell me.”

After a beat, he did. “I was in the Sunshine House. Other kids came and went from there, everything was unsettled. We couldn’t have traditions because things changed all the time. Tenny was the only constant. It wasn’t home. I was there with a woman who loved me, but she couldn’t adopt me, I don’t know if she even tried. She had a house she went to often so it wasn’t like she lived at Sunshine House. I guess…”

He sighed. “I think part of me never felt like I belonged, was never settled.”

“Penn.” He looked at me, those green eyes full of trepidation. “I love you. My kids love you. We want you here with us for as long as you want to be here. I very much want this to feel like a home to you. We’ll make traditions, you’ll learn to tolerate Rita’s karaoke nights, and the way Dean always complains every time he has to take out the garbage.” He laughed. “I’m serious, he always asks what’s in it. Like, what does he think is in it?”

Penn’s grin was wide, his eyes full of happiness. “I want all that, Gid. I spent my life running away, but maybe I was actually running toward something.”

“Me?” I waggled my brows.

“Yeah,” he said seriously. “You, the kids, your insane life.” He pressed his hand to my chest. “My home.”

I covered his hand with mine. “This is your home, no matter if it’s under this roof or another, Penn. I promise you that.”

“Then my roots are gonna be deep, Gid. There’s nowhere else I’d rather grow old than here with you, Owen, and Olivia.”

When I married Ella, I’d thought that was it, she’d be my forever. I’d never imagined life without her. After she died, I’d figured I wasn’t meant for happily ever after love. But Penn walked into my life, maybe sent by Ella herself, and here I was, grasping on to forever once again.

“You’re stuck with us now, Pennsylvania.”

He scooted closer and took my lips in a searing kiss. Once we parted, his eyes sparkled.

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

THE END