Page 20 of Forget That Guy

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I’d only hurt my family.

And family was everything to me.

My girls were my life.

My mom. Brother. Sister. Nephew. All of them were everything to me.

Even my found family. My club brothers meant the world to me. Every single one of them.

I’d give them the heart out of my chest if they had need of it.

So no, I wouldn’t hurt my grandchild by denying his father the leg up that he deserved.

Even if he’d make a stupid mistake like knocking my daughter up at sixteen.

“I’ll sign anything,” he replied. “I’m emancipated now.”

That was new, too.

After his parents had kicked him out upon finding out that he’d gotten Joe pregnant, he’d been forced to do a lot of hard things. One of those was going to talk to a judge about emancipating himself so that he could do adult things—like get his GED and drop out of high school.

“I’ll get it drawn up,” I said. “I think it’d be a good thing to have you close anyway. So you can help Joe.”

“I agree.” His shoulders slumped. “Thank you, sir.”

“Call me Denver, kid,” I said. “Guess we’re family now.”

Jetty closed his eyes.

The relief on his face and in his shoulders made me feel for him.

He’d lived a hard life.

When I’d first met him, he’d explained that his parents had opened a petting zoo just outside of Sawtooth. The vibe I’d gotten off of him was that Jetty was the hard laborer. He did the cleaning, the lifting, the moving. All while maintaining a 3.8 GPA and attending extracurricular activities.

With him gone, I wondered how they made it.

Surely, they’d had to hire hands.

Jetty was a hard worker. He’d helped me out plenty around the farm when he hadn’t had to.

I would be stupid not to hire him on.

“Thanks, Denver,” Jetty said. “You won’t be disappointed.”

“No, I don’t think I will.” I held out my hand.

After shaking it, he headed back to the family room.

I chose not to say anything as I went to my bathroom, showered, then hit the sack.

Tomorrow was bound to be a better day…right?

FIVE

No thanks, malls. I shop from home without pants like a normal person.

—Holly’s secret thoughts

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