Page 10 of Just a Little in Love

Rowan nodded slowly, his mind going a million miles an hour. Did he dare? His mother would go insane. She’d always said he was too sick to live alone, although if she was serious about John, maybe she would move to Phoenix?

But what if she made him go with her? Rowan wanted to vomit at that thought. But how could he turn his back on her after all the sacrifices she’d made? She’d even lost her job at one point because she’d had to take too much time off to look after him. She’d definitely lost at least one promotion because of him as well, and he’d been the reason she’d never remarried.

He remembered the first evening he’d ever dared to insist he be allowed to go to an actual study group on his own when he was a high-school senior, not the made-up excuse of one he gave his father. He’d come home to find her in floods of tears because she’d been dating someone at work she’d only seen on the weekends when Rowan was at his father’s. It had come out that he’d wanted her to go on a trip with him to attend his sister’s wedding in Colorado, but because Rowan had exams coming up, she couldn’t take him with them. She’d even asked his father if Rowan could stay with him, but he’d said no because he had to go on a work conference in New Mexico.

Rowan had wanted so badly to say he’d be okay on his own, but he never seemed able to push the words past his throat. It was the first and last time he’d ever gone to a study group in the evening. He still saw his college friends occasionally, but not very often. Father was still looking at him and Rowan felt like he had to say something. “You’re cutting back on your hours?”

“Yes, especially since I can sell this monstrosity,” he joked. “To be honest, I never needed to work all the hours I did. I was avoiding your mom, and much to my shame, it meant I avoided you.”

Rowan didn’t want him feeling bad though, especially as he’d done just as much avoiding. “You had a lot of work trips, though.”

“That’s true. When you were younger, I spent a lot of time backwards and forwards to Toronto.”

“And New Mexico,” Rowan agreed, and probably a hundred other places.

His father tipped his head a little, confused. “New Mexico?” He shook his head. “No, we were always split by areas, and that wasn’t mine.”

Rowan’s heart started pounding. “Never?”

“No, I went to Albuquerque once when I was around your age, but not since then. Why?”

Rowan shrugged, getting up. He probably remembered it wrong. “I’m going to take a shower.” He knew he should say something else. “But I like the idea of an apartment,” he added, almost in a whisper.

“Great,” his father beamed. “How about if after breakfast tomorrow we work out a few areas you like, then take it from there?”

“I’d like that.” The word Dad was on the tip of his tongue, but he didn’t add it. Maybe tomorrow. For now, he had a text to write.

Chapter six

Why am I staring at my phone? Gabriel tossed it onto the glass coffee table and winced at the noise. He was surprised he hadn’t either cracked the table or the phone. He’d dropped Rowan off at home, then turned around and driven back to the club. Spent five minutes sitting in the car, then because he couldn’t muster up an ounce of enthusiasm, he’d gone home.

Home?

Was it?

He wouldn’t call his sterile box of an apartment a home. But then, if he was honest, he didn’t know what home even looked like. He rented the apartment because it was close to work, but when the world had changed and working from home became mandatory for those fortunate enough to be able to do so, he found he didn’t miss his old life. He’d even found extra time to tinker with his stories.

When he’d first started writing—thanks to a mixture of frustration and needing a stress reliever—he’d thought he could write high fantasy because he liked reading it.

Six months and barely a hundred pages in, he had drunk nearly two bottles of wine one evening on his own and ceremoniously burned his printed manuscript.

He’d thrown himself into his job once more and garnered three new clients. He actually worked for a non-profit that matched people who, for whatever reason, didn’t have a degree, but were very capable of doing a job and yet were immediately disqualified from the hiring process because of that simple fact. He had a lot of very high-end multinational companies on board. He was good at what he did.

But his passion for his career had waned, and he knew both his clients and the people that needed a chance would eventually suffer.

He hadn’t had the opportunity to save money really, because his father had made a lot of financial mistakes and because of Clare he had to prop them both up financially. So even taking six months off from working full-time was an impossible dream unless Clare got the financial assistance they’d applied for. He knew that at thirty-one, he needed to get his act together. Especially as Clare was thriving. The sale of his dad’s house had covered the debts, and while Clare got financial assistance, he still helped to top things up.

He wanted her somewhere nice, and that meant paying a premium. At least he wasn’t cleaning up after his dad’s bad financial decisions any longer, though.

One evening a few weeks ago, he’d finished work early for once because his client had called in sick, and he’d played around with a completely different kind of book on his computer. He was nine chapters in but felt like it was some sort of dirty secret.

He’d taken something he knew everything about—BDSM—and something he knew nothing about—romance—and well, it had started out as a male dominant and a female sub, but after three chapters the sub had become male.

And he didn’t know what to make of it. He happily played with both, but this felt right.

He’d spent a lot of time researching and decided he would publish it himself. The thought of a publisher or an agent turning him down gave him hives. Which made no sense, really. Gabriel was usually very confident, but this story had turned him into an insecure teenager trying to navigate liking girls but also having a huge crush on the debate captain—a boy. Which reminded him of school, and his own problems there and at home.

He didn’t remember his mom very much. She’d divorced his dad after Clare had been born and then two years later had died in a car wreck. Clare had come to live with him and his dad, and Gabriel had become a fierce big brother.

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