“Who did he marry?” she asked, not certain if it was the right thing at all.
“The man he’s been seeing. Lee Fargo. He’s a nice guy.”
“How do you know?”
“Facebook.”
Alice knew Neil followed Joshua on social media outlets, but she hadn’t realized he was also tracking Joshua’s friends. Though, of course she should have known that. She still looked at Jim’s account sometimes, following links to his new girlfriend’s page, and she didn’t even love him. Not the way Neil still loved Joshua.
Neil went on, “He posts pictures of them together and stories about their life. I hadn’t looked at his page in a few months. Because it hurts.”
“I know, baby.”
“But when I look, I get to see Joshua’s face at least.”
“Yes.”
Neil tensed all over. “So I missed the engagement announcement. But I should have known. They’ve been together a long time.” Neil rolled over so that his small back was to her. “Joshua looks happy in the pictures.”
“You deserve to be happy, too.”
Neil shrugged and covered his head with a pillow.
The next evening, Alice stirred the canned soup she was heating for dinner and watched as Neil signed onto Facebook to look at Joshua’s wedding pictures again. Seeing the pictures of Joshua obviously soothed as much as it hurt. The pot began to rattle on the stove, and she turned the heat down.
Day by day, moment by moment, she’d watched Neil realize that any hope he’d had of hurrying up into adulthood so that he could be with Joshua again was vanishing. Today that hope was entirely snuffed out. Joshua had a husband now, and a new life. Even if he still remembered and loved his old Neil, the one called Dr. Russell, Joshua had moved on.
And that was only right. Alice couldn’t begrudge Joshua that, even if it killed her to see her little boy grieve.
“Neil,” she said gently, snapping him from his obsessive clicking through the photos. “Soup’s ready.”
Neil rubbed at his eyes, turned his computer off, and stood up. “Not hungry. Going to bed.” He left the kitchen and headed down the hall to his bedroom.
Alice bit her lip as his bedroom door shut. With a sigh, she sat down at the table to eat. But the soup didn’t seem very appealing to her anymore, either.
August 2011—Nashville, Tennessee
Loving Joshua wasfrustrating as hell.
But Neil was accustomed to frustration. He was a scientist, after all. Patience, calculations, and re-tries were what his life was made of. It didn’t mean being stuck with blue balls for the fourth day in a row was any fun. But he could wait. For Joshua.
“Can I see you tomorrow?” Joshua asked, his ripe, soft lips swollen from the teenage-like make-out session they’d just engaged in for the past hour and a half. His eyes were dark and hooded, his expression soft and sweet.
If only he’d agree to go to the bedroom and let Neil into his hands, and mouth, and ass. Neil would make everything so good for him.
“Don’t you have to work?” Neil asked, brushing his thumb over Joshua’s mouth, letting it sink into the wet heat. “Bring home the bacon?”
Joshua groaned and sucked on Neil’s thumb, closing his eyes. He panted softly when Neil pulled it free. “I hate my job.”
“Most people do.”
“I want to stay here with you.”
Neil smiled. “You can come back over after work. I’ll be here with Magic. You could spend the night.”
Shit. He’d pushed.
Conflict warred in Joshua’s eyes, and Neil knew the moment he’d shut down against the growing lust between them. Sadness combined with shame as the young man he loved whispered, “I can’t do that. Not yet. Maybe not ever.” Joshua squirmed. “My family won’t understand. Ican’tbe gay. It’s not—”
