“At least I can thank your neighbor for finally getting you to reach out,” Law said.
“You wouldn’t—” Who was he kidding. Law totally would. “Don’t talk to him.”
“Sure.”
Jude narrowed his eyes. “I mean it. I don’t need help.” Except he actually did. “I can handle this.” He hoped.
“Can I stay for dinner?” Law asked, changing the subject. That was Law not agreeing. “I haven’t had your cooking in too long.”
There would still be plenty for Liam. “Fine. But stay away from Liam.”
“Liam.” Law grinned. “Tell me more about him.”
This was better than Law insisting on meeting the boy. “He’s from Missouri. He bought the house next door. He loves the beach. His best friend already lives in town, so I think that’s probably why he picked here to settle.”
“You said he was around our age?”
“I think so. Close enough.” Sam had been younger than Jude by a decade.
“What does he do for a living?”
Jude smirked. “He writes gay romance books.”
Law stiffened. “What?”
“You heard me. He said he writes gay romance books,” Jude shared. He thought it sounded very cool. To be able to make up stories and get them down. To share those stories with the world? That was terrifying to Jude. People, internet people especially, were not kind, in Jude’s experience. They loved to bring other people down and were often ruder than necessary as they hid behind a screen name. Sam had loved Instagram. Jude hadn’t been impressed by some of the comments he’d seen on his boy’s posts.
“Dude,” Law drawled. He’d pulled out his phone and typed furiously. Flipping the phone around, he demanded, “Is this your neighbor?”
He had to squint but there in front of him was that smile that Jude already had memorized. “Yes?”
“Your neighbor is Liam Groves?”
“Yes. How do you know who he is?” Jude challenged.
“I love his books!” Law said with pure excitement. “I follow all his social media accounts.”
That did not make Jude happy. Social media could be a tricky thing. Sam had been obsessed with having followers and all that. Jude had never seen the appeal. “You read gay romance books.”
Law snickered. “He doesn’t just write gay romance. He writes kinky gay romance.” Law clicked on a few links before passing the phone to him.
Jude read the titles.Daddy’s Blue Boy.Little Boy Peep. And on and on. All pointing very clearly to being books filled with Daddies and littles. “He wrote these?”
“He’s amazing. The age play aspect is some of the best I’ve ever read.”
“Wow.” Jude was impressed. He hadn’t known that people wrote or read those kinds of books.
“I had a boy that was obsessed with the series. I read them to him every night,” Law said. He took his phone back before placing it back on the counter.
“You have a partner?” Jude realized that even listening to the voicemails his friend had left that it wasn’t the same as being in their lives. Jude really didn’t know much about Law’s life now. Or any of the other friends.
Law shook his head. “No, we broke up about six weeks ago. He moved back to Nevada and already has a new Daddy.”
“Were you together long?”
“Almost two years,” Law shared.
“Damn, man. I’m sorry.”
