Chapter 1
It all happened in quiet succession. His shin collided with the table he was pretty sure Jacqueline had moved without telling him. Sebastian began to whine, a stream of curses fell from his lips, and then a familiar baritone chuckle sounded from the front door. Relief swept through Fredric with an intensity he hadn’t expected, and he turned his face up, feeling his cheeks strain with his grin.
“Still laughing at old men?”
“Only when they embarrass themselves.” The voice got closer, polished shoes shuffling across the threadbare carpet, and then a warm hand closed around his bicep, and he was able to straighten up. “Let me guess,” Ilan said, and his voice was cold and hard, “she moved all your shit around?”
“Please don’t,” Fredric sighed out. The week had already frayed his nerves beyond repair, and he didn’t really have it in him to have this conversation about Jacqueline again. He’d already gone a round with her that morning, and he would have tripped over a hundred more tables if it meant having the cottage to himself for a little while longer.
“Julian said she’s been particularly vicious this week,” Ilan murmured as he let Fredric’s arm go. “And not just with him.” He sat on the sofa with a soft grunt, and Fredric heard him pat the cushion next to him. “Is there anything I can do?”
“No,” Fredric said and then walked the now-clear path back to the sitting room and took up space beside his son’s best friend. “We all knew this week was going to be terrible. I was just hoping she’d find another focus than Julian.”
Ilan snorted a bitter laugh. “Considering she guilted him into coming to his ex’s wedding…”
And Fredric felt a measure of responsibility because he hadn’t been able to do enough to stop Julian from showing up. He’d been tied in knots over the events that week, and his heart ached knowing that no matter what he said or did, Julian would put himself through hell, if only to shut his mother up. It was what he had always done—in the name of keeping the peace, and Fredric had lived with that suffocating guilt for as long as he could remember. And he could only blame himself for being such a weak man that his son would show up to the week-long circus Julian’s ex-husband was calling a wedding celebration.
He’d shouted himself hoarse the night Jacqueline had told him, and even now, his throat ached a little with the memory.
“I don’t see what the problem is, Fredric.” Her voice had been cold and sharp—something he’d once loved about her, but had now come to despise with a sort of searing hatred. “Julian made his choice.”
He had laughed then, bitter and furious, because it was categorically untrue. He may have been blind, but he didn’t need sight to know that Bryce was an opportunist, and the moment he met a richer cousin, he’d jumped at the chance to leave Julian in the dust.
Of course, Jacqueline had seen to it that Julian hadn’t made a single choice to benefit himself for most of his life. His one, single rebellion against her was turning down law school and getting his master’s degree in literature. He remembered the seething fury in Jacqueline’s voice the night Julian announced he’d taken a job at a high school, teaching English. It had given Fredric an almost perverse pleasure knowing his son had done it as a very soft, very quiet fuck you to her.
Fredric admired his bravery and his poise. Some days he wished he was half the man his son had grown up to become, because all that was left inside his aging bag of bones was cowardice and regret. But he did have a breaking point, and the wedding had taken him by the hand and then flung him off the edge.
And there was no going back now.
“You okay?”
Ilan’s voice brought him back to the present, and Fredric turned to him, hoping his smile was convincing enough. Ilan had always been able to see through the façade of their home though, and it was one of the reasons Fredric had gone out of his way to make sure the boys’ friendship didn’t fail, regardless of Jacqueline’s dislike for Ilan and his background. He knew that if Julian ever needed saving, Ilan would be the arms he’d fall into.
To this day, he was still surprised that the two of them had never fallen in love. No one cared for Julian the way Ilan did, but Fredric supposed that maybe it was the kind of love which didn’t need romance.
“I’ve been better,” he finally managed to get out, and he heard Ilan sigh.
“This sounds like a scotch kind of conversation.” The sofa let out a small groan as Ilan hefted his bulk from the seat, and Fredric held up a hand to stay him.
“I don’t think there’s anything here except wine, and even that might be gone.”
Ilan scoffed, and Fredric heard the distinct sound of a zipper and then rustling cloth. “Come on, Papa, you always underestimate me.” He was back, his warmth against Fredric’s side, and then something cold pressed against the back of his hand. “Take this glass. I came prepared.”
Fredric felt a real, genuine smile spread across his face as the sound of liquid sloshing from a bottle filled the room. The scotch in his hand was aged and expensive, the spice tickling at his senses, and he was suddenly eager to let the burn of alcohol eclipse the quiet frustration of the week.
“Have you been by to see Julian?” Fredric asked as he lifted the glass to his lips. The scotch went down easy, and he smiled against the rim.
Ilan made a soft noise in the back of his throat, and Fredric recognized it instantly. It was his single tell—like his body preparing for a lie. “No. I’ll see him tomorrow.”
Fredric’s brows rose, and he turned more fully to the other man. “And what are you keeping from me?”
Ilan cleared his throat but said nothing.
“You forget, I know you better than you know yourself. I don’t care how grown you are…”
“Almost as old as you,” Ilan shot back, and Fredric could hear the laughter in his voice, but the moment quickly sobered. He liked the man Julian had brought to the wedding, but since Bryce, Fredric had done nothing but worry for his son’s heart.
“Just tell me he’s not in trouble. Tell me that he’s made the right decision,” Fredric begged after a moment.
Ilan breathed out, then Fredric felt a touch of fingers against his knee before Ilan’s large palm engulfed it. “I think Julian is falling in love faster and deeper than he expected to. And I don’t think he’s letting himself see a future beyond this week. But I think…I think this man will change his mind.”
“Have you met him? This new boyfriend.” Fredric asked softly.
“No. But I heard Julian’s voice and it’s…” He chuckled, his baritone rumbling and hitting Fredric like a physical thing. “It’s nothing like I’ve ever heard before.”
“I know what you mean,” Fredric admitted. He thought about him—the man who had swept his son off his feet. The quiet tone of his voice, the rich passion, the fact that he’d given something to Fredric that no one ever had before.
Fredric had come to terms with permanent blindness not long after he’d woken up from his stroke and realized he couldn’t see. But his life wasn’t over. In fact, he woke up grateful that he could wake up at all. The first time his children fell into his arms and he smelled the dirt and cookie crumbs, felt their tiny hands cling to him, he knew that his survival had been a gift. So, he worked his ass off to heal, and he’d quietly mourned what he lost, knowing that there was an entire lifetime of things to discover with touch, with taste, with scent, and sound.