Chapter 24 Grandpa Kinks Emmett
“DO YOU THINK I HAVE a grandpa kink?”
My narrowed gaze slides to my wife as I hand her a few bags from the back of the truck before loading up my own arms with the still-hot trays we prepped this morning.
Cara starts up the walkway in front of us, glancing over her shoulder to bat her lashes and flash me a grin that’s anything but innocent.
She loves to take pleasure in my pain. “I mean, yeah, sure, I’ve always seemed to have a bit of a refined palate for an older man.
They tend to be more mature, don’t waste time on games, communicate more effectively… ” She waggles her brows. “Rich.”
I sigh loudly, and she shrugs.
“All signs point to a grandpa kink.”
“I’m thirty-one today, Cara,” I remind her, and I don’t know what for.
She knows how old I am. Woke me up with her version of birthday bumps, which is to say she squeezed the base of my cock in her fist, engulfed the swollen head with her mouth, and then seemed to swallow it whole before dragging her mouth back up, in slow fucking motion, thirty-one times.
“Over halfway to sixty. Might as well be a hundred.”
“You’re lucky you’re hot.” That must be the only reason I let her get away with everything, right?
“Speak for yourself.” We climb the front steps of Second Chance Home, and Cara spins into me before I can reach for the door, the trays in my arms shaking, much like her composure, as her palm grazes my cock through my jeans. “You’re the reason I have a grandpa kink.”
The door flies open, and Emily stands there, grinning at us. “Oh, look who it is. Right on time too.” She cocks her head. “I hope I wasn’t interrupting anything.”
“Not a thing.” Cara gives my cock a little pat-pat before she heads inside. “I was just telling Emmett, now that he’s over halfway to sixty, I think I have a grandpa kink.”
“Oh my God, Emmett. Happy birthday!” She squeezes my shoulder. “I didn’t realize you were so old. Cara, have you started looking into replacements? You know, for when your model fails?”
“I’m thirty-one!” I set the trays down on the large table in the dining room, throwing my arms over my head. “I’m young! I’m hip! I’ve got lots of life left in me!”
Cara lifts a brow. “Did you just call yourself hip?”
“Maybe he was saying his hip hurts.” Emily all but shouts the words at me, enunciating each one as if I can’t otherwise hear. “Does your hip hurt, grandpa?”
Cara cackles, and I roll my eyes as the two of them high-five.
“I’m just teasing you.” Emily nudges my arm, then bumps her hip off Cara’s.
“How are you guys? Thank you so much for bringing lunch today. I think everyone’s done, you know?
Christmas is exciting, but for a lot of these kids, it’s draining.
Saying goodbye to their parents when their visit is over, or never getting to say hello in the first place if they don’t show up.
For a lot of them, Christmas is a reminder of what they don’t have, and I’m not talking about gifts.
” She smiles sadly, pulling plates and utensils from the cupboards as Cara and I set out the food.
“They’re ready for the holiday to be over. ”
So am I, honestly, and I know Cara is too.
I think, mostly, we just wanted to say goodbye to last year.
To feel like today was a fresh start, a new beginning we desperately need.
It’s not like we’re leaving the pain of the last year—or the two years before that—in the past. Rather, we’re trying to figure out how to be a little kinder to ourselves right now when we need it most. To give ourselves some grace while we heal, and figure out what that healing looks like for us.
So spending the first day of the New Year, and my birthday, with the kids at the home felt like the right choice.
“Oh, Emmett, that reminds me.” Emily tilts her head toward the living room, where it sounds like most of the kids are. “There’s a little boy in there who’s going to be so happy to see you again.”
My brows jump. “Me?” Without fail, Adam and Carter cause the most excitement around here. And normally, when it’s just Cara and I… well, I’m sure you can guess who their favorite is. I grin at my wife. “Did you hear that? Someone’s excited to see me.”
“Abel,” Emily tells me. “He’s been mostly quiet since he joined us earlier in December, but ever since he learned your name…” She smiles, shaking her head. “You should see the way his face lights up when there’s a close-up shot of you on TV. Won’t take your hat off either.”
“My hat?” My mind travels back to a little boy with a mop of auburn waves, red-tipped ears, pale green eyes, and the single tear that ran down each pink cheek when I dropped my beanie on his head just a few weeks ago.
I see the curiosity in Cara’s eyes, and I’m reminded that I didn’t tell her about the little boy who looked like he was having the worst day of his life. We both were, I think. Sharing my hat with him was the only good thing that happened that day.
I move through the dining room, the kitchen, pausing at the edge of the grand living room.
My gaze sweeps over the space, quieter than it’s ever been, kids curled up on couches with books, working on puzzles on the table, building on the floor.
It stops on him, small and wearing a Vancouver Vipers beanie way too big for his head, a mini hockey stick in his hand, standing in front of the TV, though it’s not on.
He looks around like he needs help, finding a social worker and tugging on her sleeve.
He shows her his stick and points to the TV, eyes lit with a kind of eternal hope I know too well.
She cups his cheek. “No hockey tonight, Abel.”
The little boy hangs his head, and as he curls up in a big armchair all by himself, staring down at my hat scrunched up in his tiny hands, it’s that familiar fractured look in his eyes, all that crushed hope… that’s what does me in.
I rub my palm over my heart, trying to soothe the ache that pulls it taut before I finally manage to make my legs move, until I’m standing beside him, searching for the right words.
Being some little kid’s hero isn’t new to me, even if I’ll never get all the way used to it.
But this… this feels different somehow. He keeps his eyes downcast, pulling the hat into his stomach and folding a little further into himself as my looming shadow swallows him whole, like he’s trying to disappear, and I remember what it felt like, trying to make myself smaller for the people who towered over me.
Sinking to my knees beside his chair, I pull my beanie off, run my fingers through my hair, and tell him quietly, “I like your hat. I used to have one just like it.”
He hesitates. Unravels his fists, letting the hat fall to his lap.
His head tilts, just a fraction, and slowly, his eyes rise to mine.
A softer hue of green than I remember, one that reminds me, today, of new beginnings, of hope.
They widen as he takes me in, looks from my face to the hat in his lap.
The small hockey stick resting beside him on the windowsill, and the TV.
He grips the stick in one shaking hand, the hat in the other, and there isn’t an ounce of me that’s prepared for the way those tears barrel unexpectedly down his cheeks, or the way he leaps from the chair straight into my fucking arms, wrapping his entire body around me and clinging to me like I gave him the whole world and not an old hat.
I’m not prepared for it, but I sink into it, absorbing the way I hear his little heart pounding in his chest, the way his fingers curl around my sweater, the way his tears warm my neck.
And then he whispers a single word, buries it against my shoulder, a sound so raw it feels like my heart cracks wide open.
“Emmett.”
Cara
We return to Second Chance Home two days later, and another two days after that too.
That first day, I was too stunned to do anything more than stand back, watch Emmett and Abel from across the room, the way they embraced, clung to one another like they’d known each other their whole lives, and had simply been waiting all this time to reunite.
Emmett barely said anything about it on the way home, just called Abel a sweet kid who reminded him a little of himself.
But later that night, when he curled his body around mine in the dark, he whispered a simple truth against my neck that had a single tear sneaking out of my eye, dropping to my pillowcase.
My heart feels happy today.
So when I suggested stopping by two days later with a Vipers teddy bear for Abel before Emmett’s home game, I wasn’t surprised he jumped at the opportunity.
And two days after that, when we were picking up apple cider muffins from our favorite bakery and Emmett wondered if Abel liked liked apple cider muffins too, I still wasn’t surprised.
I am a little surprised, though, with Emmett three days into a five-day road trip, to find myself alone on the front steps of Second Chance Home.
“You gonna go inside, or just keep staring at the door?”
I glance over my shoulder as Emily heads up the walkway, winking at me. “Oh, I was just… I was…” I look at my feet, pulling my lower lip between my teeth. “I’m not sure if Abel will want to see me without Emmett.”
Emily cocks her head. “Why wouldn’t he? He talks about you all the time.”
My heart patters. “Really?” Because most of the time, I get the sense that he’s not sure of me.
That he trusts Emmett, but he’s still deciding when it comes to me.
“He doesn’t talk to me much. When I join them, he gets quiet, strategically positions himself so he’s halfway hiding behind Emmett.
Is there something I could do to make him more comfortable around me? ”