CHAPTER 65: MAGGIE

“Did she really never tell you about your dad?” I asked, drawing circles on Austin’s arm with my fingertip.

“No. Gramps told me a few years ago she went away for a friend’s birthday and a few weeks later found out she was pregnant. She swore there was only him but she couldn’t remember his name,” he replies. “It didn’t matter, anyway. I had my Gramps, and that was what mattered. He was there when no one else was.”

“He sounds like an amazing man,” I said, tilting my head back and staring into his gray eyes. “It makes it easy to understand where you get it from.”

He made a noise of disbelief. “I’m not amazing, baby, far from it.”

“The beauty of being an outsider is that I can see what you can’t,” I argued. “You might not see it yet, you might never see it, but you are.” I raise my hand to his face, stroke my thumb down his cheek and across the faint stubble on his jaw. And I’m not lying – I can see everything he can’t. I can see the beauty of him hiding behind the ugly memories of his p