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Abe couldn’t help but feel like Shane wouldn’t handle the “who” part of this as well. “I don’t know that it’s anything permanent. Right now, we’re just getting to know each other, really.” He held his breath. “He makes me a little crazy, to tell you the truth.”
“Good! That’s exactly what you need.” Shane got the tab back and he signed it, then stood. “Let’s do this place again next week. I’m getting what Quinn got today. That tomato soup is amazing.”
Abe thought he’d been stealing food to mess with Quinn, so he chuckled as they left the restaurant. The summer heat was back after the short break the night before. He hugged his son good-bye, then headed to his truck. He was on Glenway Avenue when he realized the same car had been behind him when he’d driven to lunch earlier.
The hair on the back of his neck rose. Thinking he was imaging things, Abe spotted a comic shop with a T-shirt of Spiderman in the window. That could be fun to wear the next time Dom came over. Hoping they had it in his size, he pulled behind the store and parked. As he walked around and into the front of the shop, he noticed the car slowing as if the person driving was looking at him. He couldn’t see through the tinted windows well enough to know what the person looked like—only that their face was turned his direction.
The car suddenly lurched, tires screeching as it took off down Glenway.
Abe stood staring after it for a long time because that gaze had carried enough malevolence to turn all the food he ate into a burning lump in his gut.Chapter EightAbe gripped the piece of sandpaper tight in his fist and sent it back and forth over the outside of his favorite window frame design. It held a tree that started thick at the bottom, growing from the bottom center, with naked branches filling the top—naked to show the flow of branches and to let light in through the window.
As a kid, he’d drawn trees often. He liked the way the branches snaked out to diverge into smaller ones and how all the lines in a drawing followed comforting parallels. There’d been a massive tree in his backyard as a child and he’d played underneath, sheltered from the hot sun. Later, he’d climbed it, especially after he and his father had built a treehouse.
He wished he had more trees in his yard now, but he’d gotten this house for a steal when a friend had to transfer jobs fast. He’d just managed to pull himself out of the financial mess he’d been in after the crash, but it had been a hard-won battle. Now, he had the house and a small nest egg for safety.
Safety had always been his priority. That and family.
He’d never understood how Patricia could throw that aside—how she could have walked out on Shane especially. God, he’d been the sweetest kid ever with his big brown eyes and dark curls. A bubbly baby who belly-laughed at everything. Abe had loved him instantly and been sad that his own parents had never gotten over his young fatherhood. They’d been so angry and had just started really being a part of Shane’s life when they’d been killed in a car accident. Shane had been only two years old.
For the longest time, it had been Abe, Patricia, and Shane against the world. Then she’d grown tired of the financial struggle. She’d always been kind of selfish, but her true colors had come shining through the more bitter she’d grown.
He moved the sandpaper over the trunk, pushing memories of his ex-wife away and moving on to Dom. He flashed back to that kiss under the stars and his hand paused. Fuck, that kiss had been nice. Just like the ones they’d had here the night before.
Though nice didn’t really describe those. Holy fuck, had that been something. He’d never felt such excitement and…heat.
It had been so long since Abe had felt anything like that and even now, a kind of giddiness filled him at the thought of doing more with the man. It had been all he could do not to cart Dom the few steps to his couch last night. What would it feel like to lie on top of him and feel all that heady strength and smooth, smooth skin underneath him? He’d felt the scars the night before, but they hadn’t detracted from Dom’s beauty at all. Those scars made him feel more real, more human, than the almost godlike Adonis he appeared to be most of the time. He wanted to spend time tracing his fingers along them, learning them. Learning every inch of the man.
He wanted to go to Dom’s now, but showing up three nights in a row would look pretty damn needy.
