AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He wanted to add on, and add on—beyond a match stuck in a squashed Twinkie, and this was the second year he had to do it. It worked in his favor that Dmitri wasn’t expecting much of anything, but Raphael had meant to use his free time to plan.
Except he’d been asked out, and the guy had been hot. Tall, muscular, a thick beard, and a curly bun. He laughed at Raphael’s jokes as Jayden did his hair, and then he slipped his number on the receipt and told Raphael to call him.
The date had gone well until he’d booked a rooftop restaurant without disability access. Raphael’s pride had refused to take the blow, so he’d taken the stairs and then he felt the familiar tug in his brain which he knew would end in seizure. He refused wine which annoyed the guy, and it ended the date early.
Raphael made it to his sofa before his body gave in, and he didn’t bother calling anyone to help him out when he came to and had to clean up his own mess.
The second date had been a kind of fuck-you to the first, but it was arranged. Jayden had met the guy when he was at the fabric store down the hill, and it wasn’t often Raphael agreed to blind dates, but Jayden begged him to trust that he was good at it.
At first glance, the guy wasn’t half bad, though not entirely his type. He was skinny and blond with too-white teeth and a teal pocket square. He was already seated when Raphael walked up with his crutches, and it was clear from the way his eyes widened he hadn’t been expecting Raphael to be disabled.
Or, as it turned out, he hadn’t expected him to bethatdisabled. “He just didn’t explain what that meant,” the guy—Robbie—said over their appetizers.
Raphael didn’t indulge him in the finer points of cerebral palsy or epilepsy and, instead, tried not to take total offense at the way Robbie spoke louder than he needed to, smiled a little too much, and answered for him every damn time the server asked him how his meal was going.
The date didn’t end in a kiss, but it had driven him to Diego’s for a consolation fuck even though the pair had been trying to scale back on hooking up. Mostly, Raphael knew, because he was getting desperate for more, and it put him at risk for feelings. The last person in the world he wanted to fall in love with was a man who would never love him back.
He was already teetering on the brink of an inappropriate crush on Dmitri, and he wasn’t about to add to his massive list of bad decisions he’d been making over the last year.
“Can you find me my jeans?” Raphael asked when he could speak properly again. “I need to get home.”
“No post-fuck cuddles?” Diego asked, teasing mostly because they’d rarely done that. He fished the jeans from where they’d landed by the front door, and Raphael began to wriggle into them in spite of his trembling legs. “Seriously, man, do you want to stay and talk about it?”
“No,” Raphael said shortly. “Talking isn’t going to help me feel any better about the fact that people are assholes.”
Diego heaved his sweats over his hips and then turned to stare at him. “Okay, cariño. Whose ass am I kicking?”
“I can defend myself, thank you,” Raphael said, though he appreciated that Diego cared for him in his own way. “It was just a couple of bad dates and a reminder that it’s never going to really work with someone.”
“That’s not—” Diego started, but Raphael fixed him with a firm glower.
“People can get over my legs, but they don’t always get over my personality, and I’m not trying to be someone else.” He pulled his shirt over his head and reordered his hair. “And I’m old.”
“Oh fuck off. You’re two years older than I am.”
“My point stands,” Raphael said. He leveraged himself up to do up the button on his jeans, then eased back down again and felt the stark relief in his knees. “It’s something I can deal with, but I can’t keep this up with you.”
At that, Diego’s voice went softer. “No, I know.”
“I care too much,” Raphael added.
Diego knelt in front of him and braced himself on Raphael’s thighs. “Let me help you find someone.”
“That’s too awkward. We fuck too much,” Raphael said. He reached up, his hand feeling a little stiffer than usual, but he managed a soft pat to Diego’s cheek. “But that’s just how it is, nicht wahr?”
Diego rolled his eyes, then gripped the back of Raphael’s neck. “Kiss for the road?”
“Or kiss for goodbye,” Raphael said, though he wasn’t entirely sure it would stick this time. But he meant to try. He leaned in, and the kiss was soft, and a little sad, and he felt something crack between them. So maybe itcouldend—with Diego’s help. “See you around?”
“Por supuesto, mi cielito. You couldn’t keep me away.” Diego rose and showed Raphael out, watching him get to his car and transfer inside. When Raphael shut his door, Diego shut his, and the silence surrounded him colder and a little more painful than usual.
It wasn’t a breakup—they weren’t together and never had been. They hadn’t even officially declared it over, but Raphael felt it, and there was a heaviness to it he didn’t expect. Even if Diego hadn’t been aromantic, he wasn’t a man Raphael wanted to love and spend the rest of his life with. He was abrasive in ways that got under Raphael’s skin, and his idea of love was jaded. Raphael wanted someone with hope—someone who believed in small miracles even when they were let down again and again.
Someone like Dmitri—but he couldn’t go down that road. Not now. Not ever.
He gripped the steering wheel tight enough his fingers spasmed, and he forced himself to breathe and flex until he could properly navigate back home. Luckily, Diego didn’t live far from him, and their fuck had erased most of the bad date.
All the same, he took an extra-long shower, then threw his clothes in the wash before crawling into bed. He turned on his side, staring at his phone, and made a snap decision.
