AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Why all these questions, buddy? What’s going on?”
He stared at the floor. “Gabe and I can see that ever since you started hooking up with him, you’re happier. You’re smiling more and working less, and now you have friends over for dinner. You’ve never had people over. We just…” He finally looked up. “He’s good for you, Dad. He makes you happy.”
I sat there, completely stunned. I’d never seen that coming and especially not from my kids. Were they right? Had I changed so much since I was seeing Tomás? “I don’t know what to say.”
“Are you sure he doesn’t want to date you?”
I couldn’t believe I was discussing my dating life with my fourteen-year-old. “Josiah…”
“I’m just saying, Dad. You’re always telling us to ask rather than assume.”
“I do, but?—”
“Or does that stop when you’re an adult?”
“Of course it doesn’t, but?—”
“Then ask him. Ask him if he’s interested. You smile when you look at him, Dad… Gabe says it’s the same way you looked at Daddy.”
Was I? My kids were so much more perceptive than I had given them credit for. “I can’t, buddy, okay? I can’t.”
“Why not?” my little pit bull asked. Even when he’d been young, he wouldn’t let go until he had an answer.
I groaned, shaking my head. “Can you let this go, please?”
“I just don’t understand. Why can’t you date him?”
I met my son’s eyes. “Because if I give him my heart, he’ll break it. And I don’t think I can survive that kind of heartbreak a second time.”
18
TOMÁS
I was a homeowner. What a weird feeling. Sure, I’d owned apartments in London and Paris, but that had always been with Tiago. We still had a place in Rio de Janeiro, but this house was mine and mine alone. And today I was moving in.
My furniture had arrived yesterday, all professionally offloaded, unpacked, and put together by the store I’d bought it all from. I must’ve made their year, judging by the red carpet treatment I’d received. No IKEA for me, thank you very much. I preferred my furniture already assembled and a little more custom made—no offense to Cas and my brother.
I stood in Tiago’s guest bedroom, surrounded by the belongings I’d accumulated over the years. When Tiago had bought his house, we moved our stuff we’d had in storage into his house, and now we were unpacking boxes with content I hadn’t seen in years. The familiar scent of our shared history filled the room as we packed my things. I wrapped a delicate hand-blown glass bowl in bubble wrap and placed it in a box labeled “fragile” while Tiago was going through the boxes from storage. Every now and then, he coughed, the result of this nasty cold he was suffering through. Had to be because of living in the damp Pacific Northwest again.
“Hey, remember this?” He held up an old photo album.
I came over, and he opened it, revealing pictures from our childhood in Forestville. The two of us with Marnin, Auden, and Essex, all sporting similar grins as we proudly stood next to our bikes.
My heart clenched at the memories, making me painfully aware of how much time had passed since those carefree days. “Jesus, we look so young.”
“We were young. Innocent kids.”
He flipped a page, and there we were, the two of us, arms wrapped around each other as we stared at the camera with identical smiles. “Remember when we snuck out to the old treehouse in the woods?”
Tiago laughed. “How could I forget? We were so sure we’d managed to escape without Mom and Dad noticing.”
“Until they found us the next morning, shivering and covered in bug bites.” I shook my head, my heart full of nostalgia. “We thought we were invincible back then, didn’t we?”
“We still are.” Tiago grew serious. “Just in different ways.”
I let his words sink in. We’d always been there for each other, our lives intertwined like the branches of the towering trees surrounding our childhood home. And I had to believe the bond between us was strong. Unbreakable. We were twins, two halves of a whole, and that connection could never be severed.
I took the album from him and browsed the pages. “What I miss most about being young is how everything felt possible. We had no clue of the limitations we’d later feel. Everything lay wide open for us, the whole world to conquer.”
