Page 35 of Less Than Three

“I’m not unhappy.” And that was the truth. Wanting and not having wasn’t the same thing as being miserable. He had moments, but he didn’t dwell in them anymore. “Anyway, I’m sure I’ll make friends.”

Raphael smiled, then fought back a yawn, offering Dmitri a sheepish smile as he covered his mouth with the back of his hand. “It’s been a rough couple of days.”

Dmitri raised a brow at him. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“My doctor is changing my medication. I had a seizure in his office, so he doesn’t want me driving anymore.”

Dmitri’s stomach twisted. He knew how important independence was for Raphael—he knew how those little things like driving and living alone and being trusted to handle his own care meant to him. Raphael had once whispered—on a stargazing night out by the lake—that he knew one day he’d start to lose them.

“It’ll probably be driving first. My body will be next. I won’t be able to get up off the sofa the same way, I won’t be able to get in and out of the shower. It won’t be tomorrow, but it’ll be sooner than most people, and I’m not ready.” He muttered a long string of German that Dmitri couldn’t hope to understand, but he read the tone too easily, and he used the last of his strength not to reach for him.

“Will he be cool with it if the new meds work?” Dmitri asked.

At that, Raphael’s eyes brightened a bit. “I think so. And there’s far more promising treatments now than when I was little.” He stabbed some of the chicken and took a bigger bite than before. “But this week isn’t to worry about me.”

Dmitri sighed, and he took a moment to let himself hate sitting here, inches away from the one thing he’d ever really let himself want. The one thing he couldn’t have. But he could keep on with his plan and find someone for Raphael, and then someone for himself—eventually. If he was lucky.

9

Raphael staredat the pills on the counter, then at the clock. He had twenty minutes before Luca arrived to drive him to his appointment, but the thought of choking back the pills had his stomach twisting into knots.

They were working—maybe. Probably. It had been two weeks now, and he hadn’t had another seizure, but the side-effects had him stuck on the toilet for half the day, and the pounding in his head had only eased some. The dizzy spells, which started the first week, had whittled down to nothing, and he had appreciated Wilder’s sympathy care package in the form of Luca and his keto pasta, heavy on the chickpea noodles and sausage.

It wasn’t Raphael’s first medication change. The curse of his condition meant sometimes his body would just get used to what he was taking. His seizures would happen anyway, and he’d be back to ground zero of adjusting and tweaking and surviving through it.

This time he didn’t have anyone with him—to hover and fret. This time, he was very alone on his sofa with no one to run fingers through his hair and dab his forehead with wet cloths whenever his stomach wouldn’t stop heaving.

And he liked that he could take care of himself, but it was lonely.

He hadn’t paid a visit to Diego since their last little tryst after his bad date, but he was starting to crave some sort of intimacy and his prospects were frighteningly small. Summer was easier for dates—if he really wanted them. With the new restaurants and bars opening up by the lake, Luca had been a wingman a time or two and had secured a couple of hook-ups. But Savannah was always quieter in autumn, and winter brought a new set of people with a different mindset.

Something about the holidays, and the snow, brought in couples. Cute little families with their little tow-headed children and their bright smiles. He watched with vague envy as they strolled the winter market stalls holding hands and sharing cocoa and living a life he had always quietly dreamed of.

But that was months away.

September’s end loomed, with humidity still on the breeze. His legs ached more during hurricane season, and his fingers didn’t want to cooperate as much. His birthday would skate by mostly unnoticed, just the way he preferred, and he wouldn’t think about another year passing where he hadn’t made much of a difference in his own life or in anyone else’s.

Taking a breath, Raphael grabbed his juice, laid the medication on his tongue, and swallowed. The effects would be later, and he’d have enough time to get through the appointment with Luca waiting for him, choking back the bitterness that his car keys sat unused on the kitchen counter.

It was a ticking clock, to the day he’d never pick them up again. And maybe that wasn’t entirely true, but he’d lived a good portion of his life with his mother’s belief that every accomplishment he made in life that allowed him to live the way other people did was on borrowed time. Each step was a miracle that would be revoked the moment God saw fit to take them. Each moment on his own without some nursemaid hovering over his side a gift that was meant to be given back.

Someday.

Of course, he knew, logically, it was just fear talking. Escaping her tragic clutches had allowed him to meet other people and understand that his life was just as good as anyone else’s. He had never been the sort of activist to surround himself with people of like body, but he had socialized enough that he no longer believed in her fear like the fifth gospel.

But there were days it was hard to shake that old conditioning. There were days, when his doctor told him no more driving, and to come in more often, and to use his chair a little more. Those were the moments he wondered if maybe she wasn’t right about some things.

Right then, he just wanted to be fucked a little, and loved a lot, but he wasn’t sure there was space for that in his life. And the worst of it was, there was no one who held a candle to the man firmly wedged in his heart, and he wasn’t sure how to remove him.

He wasn’t sure he wanted to.

Raphael was drawn from his thoughts when his phone buzzed, and he didn’t bother looking down, instead reaching for his chair to sit. His bag was attached to the back, and he rolled out the front door, locking up before heading down the path to where Luca was parked.

It was easy to forget sometimes that his friend was absurdly rich, until he rolled up in his sports car with the top down and smiled with his eyes behind his faintly tinted designer glasses. Raphael liked the casual luxury that accompanied Luca everywhere he went. He showed up in Savannah a literal disaster with an invisible barrier between who he was and the man he wanted to be, but Wilder had taken him by the hand and helped him crash through it.

Wilder’s love hadn’t changed the core of who Luca was. It had only helped him discover the person under all the pretending, and Raphael loved them both a little more for it. He smiled at Luca as he stepped into the car, then carefully disassembled his chair and eased it into the back. The door slammed a little too hard, but with Luca’s easy access to cash, he never treated material possessions like they were more precious than the people he loved.

He reserved all of his care for Wilder, and for his few close friends, and Raphael felt treasured in a way he was unaccustomed to. Luca brushed a hand against the back of his neck, then squeezed. “How is it today?”

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