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I move and we both gasp at how good it feels. Our bodies come together and it’s so beautiful that I get tears in my eyes sometimes.

Like this time. Donnie’s all wrapped up around me. I’ve got my arms tucked under his body. We’re rolling against each other, slick skin on slick skin. My forehead is pressed to his and we’re breathing the same air. His cock is leaking a mess, sandwiched between our stomachs.

“Connor!”

He’s getting close. I can tell by the way his muscles start quivering, the way his ass tightens around me. I reach between us for his dick, so hard and hot it burns my palm. I jerk him and fuck him and kiss him and then he's spilling his cum all over my hand. His ass clamps down on me like a fucking vise and I’m coming too, hips jerking to get as deep inside him as I can.

It’s overwhelming. It’s all-consuming. It rocks me in the innermost part of my soul. Every time we come together like this it feels like I lose a little piece of myself to Donnie. And that fills me with so much joy.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

DONNIE

I stop a few feet away from the restaurant door to take a couple long, slow breaths. My heart rate is elevated and my breathing is too shallow. Connor was lovely yesterday, holding me on the couch, listening to me, then taking me upstairs to bed. I spent the night in his room, which I don’t usually do. But I needed him with me and I didn’t want to wake up alone.

Phyllis and Leonard are already waiting for me inside the restaurant. Four years on and this is still so hard. I thought it would get easier as time passed, but in some ways, it’s getting more difficult.

I love Phyllis and Leonard. They’re the parents I never had. Since the very first day I met them, they’ve been nothing but caring and supportive. They welcomed me into their family and treated me like their own son. Roger was really close to them his whole life. Before he died, we used to see them at least once a month.

Now, I see them maybe three times a year.

I pull out my phone and send Connor a text.

Donnie: At the restaurant now. I’ll let you know when I’m on my way home.

Connor responds immediately with a series of hearts and thumbs-up emojis.

I plaster a smile onto my face and pull open the door. Phyllis sees me the minute I step inside and stands up to wave me over. I give them both long, tight hugs that I don’t want to end.

Sadness wells up in me at seeing them again. I’ve missed them a lot, more than I’ve realized. They’ve always been so easy to be with. They’ve known me for so long that there’s a deep familiarity between us that only comes with time. Sitting down with them now feels like coming home in a way I haven’t felt since the last time I saw them.

It also hurts to see them though. We are the three people Roger loved the most while he was alive. We are the three people who loved him the most too. No matter who we talk to or how well we try to explain it, no one else in the entire world will understand exactly what it feels like to have loved him and lost him. We’re bound together not merely by our shared love of Roger, but also by our shared pain. It’s impossible to forget that when I see them.

“We ordered wine already. I hope that’s okay.” Phyllis lifts her glass in a silent salute and takes a sip.

“Would you like a glass?” Leonard picks up the bottle.

They know I don’t drink much. I never have—except for maybe a two-week period when I tried to drown my sorrows and ended up on the bathroom floor more times than I’d like to admit. I drink even less now.

“No, thank you.”

Leonard tops up Phyllis’s glass instead.

“How are you, dear?” Phyllis asked. “You look good.”

She’s lying. I look like crap. I woke up halfway through the night, all tangled up with Connor in bed, with a sudden panic about what I was going to say to them at lunch. I crawled out of bed at first light, feeling like I’ve been punched in both eyes and I have the bruises to prove it.

I force my lips into a smile. “I’m okay.”

It’s an understatement and that’s kind of the problem. The past few weeks with Connor have been wonderful. The shared meals, easy conversation, casual kisses, and heated touches. Movie nights and trips out into the city, sweet messages waiting for me on my phone after classes.

I’ve been smiling more than I have in ages. My steps feel lighter and the sun feels brighter. I have that giddy, walking on the clouds, everything is perfect feeling that comes at the beginning of every relationship. I haven’t felt that in literal decades and my body and soul have been gorging on it.

Phyllis looks at me and I swear she can see inside my brain and read every single one of my thoughts. She gives me a smile that makes my eyes sting with tears and suddenly, I feel like an eight-year-old boy who wants his mother, rather than a fully grown man in his forties.

“That’s wonderful. I’m so happy to hear that.”

I switch the subject before I actually start crying in the middle of the restaurant. “How have you both been?”

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