“He’s a son of a fucking bitch, and I fucking hate him,” Justin says. “I made sure he knew that he wasn’t allowed to contact him, and the only way he would have communication with Dylan was if Dylan wanted to talk to him.”

“What do we tell him?” I ask, and he takes a deep breath.

“I have no idea. I was going to say nothing and hope that when he gets older, he has no memory of him,” Justin says. “I hate Andrew, but he did do one thing. He made Dylan.”

“I had more of a hand in it than he did,” I say, and he laughs. “He’s mine. I want to change his last name.”

“Okay,” Justin says. “We can go to the lawyer, and he can take care of it.” He kisses me. “There is one more thing I did today, and I want you to know that I love you.”

“Why does this sound like you did something that I am not going to be happy about?” I ask.

“Well, you might be pissed,” he says. “Matthew said …”

“Oh, Jesus, nothing good comes when you start a sentence with Matthew said.”

Justin laughs and sits up, and I sit up with him. He reaches to the bed and grabs another sheet of paper, except this one is thicker than the one he just gave me. “I also did this.”

I open the papers and see my name now on a credit card statement and see the balance is zero. I flip to the next one, and it’s zero also. All the debts I had are paid. “What?” I ask, not sure I’m seeing right.

“How?”

“I might have stolen your social security number from your file at work and given it to my lawyer,” he says, and I just flip through the pages. “And I know you're going to be pissed, so you can pay me back, just with no interest.”

I look up at him. “You’re going to let me pay you back?” I ask, and he looks away from me.

“I was going to put it in Dylan’s account,” he says. “Or not.”

“I can’t believe this,” I say in shock. “This whole thing.”

“It’s about time,” he says, and I look at him. “It’s about time that someone finally took care of you and not the other way around.”

A tear escapes my eye. “You just have to protect and take care of us.” My hand goes to his chest, and my finger plays with the necklace that he hasn’t taken off. “I love you.” There are no other words that I can say right now.

“I love you, too,” he says to me. “Forever.”

Chapter Forty-One

Justin