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“Millie?” His voice came out hesitant, unsure.
“Yes, hon. What is it?”
“I really like being here… With you and Will.” Again, he felt the annoying tears building.
“Aww, sweetheart, we love having you here, too. So much.” Millie took the kitchen towel from his grasp, drying her hands before she placed it on the kitchen counter. “You’re just such a breath of fresh air, truly.”
“Yeah?” The feeling of hope blooming in Matty’s chest transferred to his voice.
“You sure are, Matty. Heck, I haven’t seen Will this energetic in a long time, having to keep up with a young fella like you.” She winked, brushing at a tear which had trailed down Matty’s cheek. “Oh, hon, come here,” she cooed, while pulling him against her chest, holding Matty in the softest embrace. Her lips brushed against the top of his head while she mumbled words of comfort into his hair. “It’s okay, my sweet boy. Everything’s okay.”
They stood like that for a while, Millie holding him like he couldn’t recall ever having been held before. Her soft breath on his face, her heart beating against his own. Her good heart. Millie Hart had a good heart. Suddenly, Matty felt like something lifted. Something eased from his chest, making him breathe more freely. Releasing himself slowly from Millie’s warm embrace, he looked at her, blue eyes meeting her blue ones in return. Briefly, uncertainty coursed through him, but then exhaling deeply, Matty spoke.
“My home…” he trailed off, looking down at the linoleum kitchen floor as Millie reached for his hands. “My home was not a nice place, Millie.” Biting his lower lip, he looked back into Millie’s eyes, which had gone all moist. Brushing a lock of hair away from his forehead, Millie smiled at him.
“Oh, hon… I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay…” Matty mumbled. “It is what it is, I guess.”
“It’s not okay, sweetie. It’s not okay at all.” Millie’s usually gentle voice had taken on a firm lilt to it. “Who in their right mind wouldn’t be nice to a sweet boy like you?”
A sob escaped Matty’s lips. With onesweet boyMillie started chipping away at all thestupid sonofabitchesanduseless crybabies.He could almost feel it inside his bones, how at least some of them were erased from his long-healed fractures. Perhaps if he could just stay long enough in this house, he could slowly rebuild himself. Heal. Yeah, if he could just stay long enough. Maybe even for good.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Ethan – Now
“SO… I HAVEa confession to make. I wasn’t exactly being truthful the other day…” Ethan bit his bottom lip as he stirred his coffee, looking away from Avery.
Avery leaned across the table in their booth at the roadside diner they were having lunch at. In a mock horrified voice, he gasped.
“Oh no, don’t tell me… Your real name is Alfred, you’re forty-five and a travelling salesman in… no, don’t say it,” Avery held up a finger, eyes serious, a frown between his dark-blond brows. “Vacuum cleaners!” he blurted. “Am I right?” He grinned at Ethan, eyes full of trouble.
Ethan nodded, hiding a grin behind his right hand.
“Yes, you’ve got me there…”
“So, let me get this right…” Avery pulled at his pink bottom lip with his front teeth as he leaned in even closer, whispering conspiratorially at Ethan. His breath smelled like strawberry jam and vanilla ice cream and Ethan felt his dick thicken behind the confinement of his jeans as it strained in Avery’s direction. He shifted in his seat and raised his right eyebrow at Avery in question. “So, what you’re saying is that when I kissed you behind the men’s room earlier, I was in fact kissing a forty-five-year-old salesman… Yes!” Avery pumped his fist in the air. “I always wanted to be with an older guy. That’s so fucking hot, Ethan. Sorry, I mean Alfred.”
Ethan chuckled, shaking his head before he took another sip of his coffee. It was half and half and with two spoonsful of sugar, just the way he liked it. Avery had wrinkled his nose in disgust when Ethan had ordered the coffee, taking a noisy draw of his strawberry milkshake. Ethan had teased him that he would never have figured that a twenty-eight-year-old university professor wouldn’t be addicted to coffee. Avery had raised his index finger between them and added“assistant professor, good sir,”while he’d continued to suck on the red and white-striped straw like his life depended upon it. Ethan wondered what those sinfully luscious lips would feel like wrapped around his own cock while he had a firm grip on Avery’s golden hair or around his long, slender neck, pressing his thumb against his pulse point.
“Sorry,” Avery smiled, oblivious to the havoc that his assault on the straw was wrecking inside Ethan. “I’ll be serious now. Tell me.” He offered Ethan one of his irresistible smiles that he’d grown so addicted to during the short time they’d known each other.
“I’m… uhm… it wasn’t exactly true when I told you that I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. Well, I mean, if I could just pick and choose, you know…” Ethan spoke the sentence in a rush, not looking up from the half-finished cheeseburger in front of him.
“Okay. I mean, that’s only fair, right? We’d only just met. Now that we’re ancient friends and swapping saliva in public places, you can tell me.” Avery reached out his hand and linked his fingers with Ethan’s. A shy smile escaped Ethan’s lips, contradicting the seriousness of his frown.
“So, Matty’s dyslexic. He used to get a lot of shit in school. Not just from our classmates but also from our teachers. Some of them used to be real mean about too, you know.” He looked up at Avery who nodded for him to go on. “I always felt so helpless, seeing the best person I know struggle like that. We used to read together every afternoon in the tree house, but the next day in class it would be as if everything was written in a foreign language, and he’d be lost all over again.”
Bracing himself for the next part, Ethan started playing with the salt and pepper set on the table between them, a tortured expression covering his face, his green eyes darkening.
“They’d call him retard, our so-called friends. I mean, that would’ve been one thing, right? At least, he had me at school and I’d usually get them to shut up. No, the worst part was when he got home with yet another failed English paper or history report. His father would mostly hit him where it didn’t show. But I’d know. I’d know as soon as Matty sat down next to me on the school bus, wincing in his seat.”
“Jesus!” Avery blurted, shock momentarily coasting across his face. Ethan’s hands were trembling by now, and Avery stroked his thumb reassuringly across the tanned skin of his right hand.
“I wanted to kick the shit outta that asshole, but I was just a kid and even if I’d been strong enough, it would’ve just landed me in juvie.” Chewing on the inside of his cheek furiously, Ethan looked into Avery’s eyes, a few tears gathering at the corners. Looking at Avery was like looking into a mirror, his eyes moist from unshed tears as well, a disgusted frown pulling at his mouth.
“I’m so sorry,” Avery whispered. “I’m so sorry that this happened to your friend. No child should have to go through that kind of cruelty.”
