Pieces

Patrick Donovan has spent the last three anniversaries of his lover's suicide getting drunk at Josh Stevens' bar. It's at the bar he feels closest to his lover and to the man he has loved since high school, Josh, his dead lover's cousin. The summer after he graduated high school, Patrick spent one hot night with Josh. When it was over, Josh maintained it was a casual one night-stand, breaking Patrick's heart. Troubled by Patrick's annual visits to the bar, Josh encourages Patrick to move on from his grief. After a disastrous near-encounter, Patrick decides maybe he should move on and forget his love for Josh. But Josh changes his mind when Patrick decides to date other men. After nights of scorching sex, Patrick wonders where he stands once more, but Josh pulls back as he did the summer after high school. Josh doesn't want to be a substitute for the man he believes Patrick still loves.

Shawn Lane · LGBT+

Not enough ratings

22 Chs

Chapter 21

Josh nodded. “I know. I don’t understand someone killing themselves either. What I do know, is it wasn’t your fault. Or anyone’s.”

Patrick held Josh’s hand. “I don’t want that to happen to me. I can’t let it.”

“It won’t. God, I won’t let it.” Josh turned his face upward. “Never.”

His eyes glistening, Patrick shook his head. “We can’t be together.”

Josh’s heartbeat faltered. For a second, time stopped and the room went still and the only sound he heard was his blood pounding in his ears. The hurt from Patrick’s words was so piercing, he could barely force a word out. “What?”

“I love you, Josh. I always have and I always will, but I can’t be with someone who doesn’t love me as much as I love them. I won’t put myself in a situation like that where my partner doesn’t share my feelings. If nothing else came from Andrew’s death, I now realize life is too short not to love with your whole heart and deserve it in return.”

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