After December E-Book

L.A. Witt

• Herausgeber: GallagherWitt Publishing LLC
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

May-December love is sweet… but December doesn’t last forever.

Tim Davis always knew he’d likely outlive his older husband. He just thought they’d have more time. He also never imagined that their final years together would revolve around a grueling and protracted battle with cancer. Eighteen months later, he’s still coming to terms with his loss and his new life. Where does he go from here?

Alex Ouellette is drowning in grief and survivor’s guilt, constantly reliving the moment his world stopped. Then a friend suggests that a change of scenery and the company of men who’ve been through similar losses could do him some good. Alex is dubious, but he agrees to go.

Neither man has high hopes for this widowers’ retreat. Grief and loneliness have been constant and unwelcome companions, though. At this point, they’ll try anything.

The last thing either anticipates when they get there? A powerful spark of attraction.

Friendship blooms. Then more. They bond over their grief, but also find joy, laughter, and a connection neither expected to ever feel again. As their broken worlds collide, both Tim and Alex finally have unexpected hope that there’s life after loss.

But grief’s dark clouds are never far behind, and the past could be the one thing standing in the way of a happy future.

After December is a 120,000-word standalone gay romance novel.
 

Leseprobe

After December

L.A. Witt

Contents

About After December

1. Tim

2. Alex

3. Tim

4. Alex

5. Tim

6. Alex

7. Tim

8. Alex

9. Tim

10. Alex

11. Tim

12. Alex

13. Tim

14. Alex

15. Tim

16. Alex

17. Tim

18. Alex

19. Tim

20. Alex

21. Tim

22. Alex

23. Tim

24. Alex

25. Tim

26. Alex

27. Tim

28. Alex

29. Tim

30. Alex

31. Tim

32. Alex

33. Tim

34. Alex

35. Tim

36. Alex

37. Tim

38. Alex

39. Tim

Epilogue

About the Author

Also by L.A. Witt

Also by L.A. Witt

Copyright Information

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

After December

First edition

Copyright © 2022 L.A. Witt

Edited by Robin Covington

Cover Art by Lori Witt

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, and where permitted by law. Reviewers may quote brief passages in a review. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact L.A. Witt at [email protected]

ISBN: 978-1-64230-132-8

Print ISBN: 979-8-35346-661-1

Created with Vellum

About After December

May-December love is sweet… but December doesn’t last forever.

Tim Davis always knew he’d likely outlive his older husband. He just thought they’d have more time. He also never imagined that their final years together would revolve around a grueling and protracted battle with cancer. Eighteen months later, he’s still coming to terms with his loss and his new life. Where does he go from here?

Alex Ouellette is drowning in grief and survivor’s guilt, constantly reliving the moment his world stopped. Then a friend suggests that a change of scenery and the company of men who’ve been through similar losses could do him some good. Alex is dubious, but he agrees to go.

Neither man has high hopes for this widowers’ retreat. Grief and loneliness have been constant and unwelcome companions, though. At this point, they’ll try anything.

The last thing either anticipates when they get there? A powerful spark of attraction.

Friendship blooms. Then more. They bond over their grief, but also find joy, laughter, and a connection neither expected to ever feel again. As their broken worlds collide, both Tim and Alex finally have unexpected hope that there’s life after loss.

But grief’s dark clouds are never far behind, and the past could be the one thing standing in the way of a happy future.

After December is a 120,000-word standalone gay romance novel.

Chapter 1

Tim

Alex Ouellette walked into the cabin, and for the first time in over five hundred days, the sun came out.

I should backtrack here. Tell you where I was and why. After all, light can’t be understood without shadow, and to truly grasp the sudden brightness in my world, you need to know about the dark.

Support groups and the like had never been my cup of tea. I was sure there were people who benefitted from sitting in a circle and discussing their feelings with relative strangers, and more power to them. But that wasn’t me. My emotions poured out on canvas. They weren’t words. They were tone and value, form and texture. I had a friend who did the same through music; the only place either of us could cut open a vein and make sense of what came out was through art. I didn’t imagine others—even those going through the same thing—would gain much from watching me silently paint while tears rolled down my face. So no, group therapy wasn’t for me.

At some point, though, the paint had stopped helping. Grief, anger, pain—it had all morphed into frustration because I couldn’t get them out of me and onto the canvas. Not in any meaningful way. Not in any way that brought relief or comfort or whatever else I’d hoped to find.

A worried friend had gently suggested that perhaps I needed help. One-on-one therapy hadn’t done much except make me realize how woefully incapable I was of articulating my feelings through words, and the only art therapist my insurance covered had a six-month waiting list. Then my counselor told me about this place.

“It’s not group therapy,” she’d insisted. “It’s spending some time in a beautiful, peaceful place with people who’ve been through what you have. People who can empathize and understand even when you can’t put it into words.”

That still sounded like group therapy to me, but at this point, I was desperate. Grief had become an anchor chain, and though I knew there was no cutting it away and returning to anything like normal, maybe I could find a way to loosen it. Find a way to breathe.

And that was how I’d ended up in this enormous cabin deep in the forested hills of West Virginia, both cautiously optimistic and stubbornly dubious about what I might take away from a ten-day retreat for widowers.

The retreat didn’t formally start until tomorrow. Today, attendees were driving in and would be arriving throughout the day and evening. I’d been one of the first, pulling in around eleven o’clock in the morning since I’d only had to come down from Pittsburgh. Clancy, one of the two guys running the retreat, had already been here, and I’d met him along with Mike, Rick, and Javier. I’d settled into my assigned room, and when I’d come down, I’d met Hank and Jason.

Through introductions and small talk, the theme of the retreat hung over us like a bad smell that no one wanted to acknowledge. No one mentioned the partners they’d lost. Some of the guys were chatty and seemed happy. Rick and Hank were both enthusiastic about a recent basketball game, and Hank managed a flicker of interest when the conversation turned to hockey. Javier didn’t say much. Jason barely seemed to be here at all. Me, I was somewhere in the middle—I could carry a conversation and even inject some enthusiasm, but I wondered the whole time if Rick and Hank were faking it as much as I was. Or if they’d discovered some secret to moving forward. They were here, after all, so they must still be struggling with their grief.

But damn, they made it look easy.

Our ages were all over the place, too. I’d envisioned a widower group full of men older than me. Hadn’t people been telling me for a year and a half how tragic it was to be just forty-seven—now forty-eight—and widowed? So, I’d expected a lot of guys closer to my late husband’s age—he’d been seventy when he’d passed.

Clancy and Hank were both at least in their fifties. If I had to guess, Rick was around my age, give or take a handful of years. Javier was forty at the absolute oldest (I suspected closer to thirty-five), and Jason? Jesus. He looked about thirty, which, given grief’s tendency to age people prematurely, made me think he was in his mid-twenties. I had no idea how I’d have coped with this at his age. I wasn’t even coping with it at my age.

More attendees arrived. Around the time Clancy and Lawrence, the other organizer, were setting up for dinner, another car pulled into the gravel lot out front.

Rick craned his neck to look out the window, and he exhaled. “Oh, good.” To Hank, he said, “That new guy Mike was trying to bring—looks like he made it.”

Hank also gave a relieved sigh. “Thank God. I didn’t think he was going to come.”

From where I sat in one of the armchairs, I watched the exchange, but I didn’t ask.

Hank rose and stepped out onto the porch. There were some footsteps and muffled conversation. Then the door opened again, and as Hank carried a suitcase inside, he was saying, “Mike, you want me to put these in your room? Alex, what about you?”

“Nah, I got ‘em,” came another voice. Then, quieter—likely to someone else—he said, “It’ll be a change of pace. I promise it’ll do you some good.”

Someone replied quietly, but I didn’t hear the words.

The first of the two stepped in. Mike, I assumed, since he seemed to know a few people.

Then the other newcomer, Alex, followed Mike inside, and my whole world came to an abrupt halt.

He was probably in his thirties—maybe early forties—and white with sharp features, stunning hazel eyes, and a dusting of gray in his otherwise dark hair and the stubble on his sharp jaw. A black leather jacket sat on broad shoulders, and his jeans were just snug enough to make me think about things I hadn’t in a long, long time.

It wasn’t love at first sight, this sudden zing he sent through me. The man was a complete stranger, after all. No, what hit me in that moment was an undeniable spark of attraction. An earth-stopping jolt of desire that was both familiar enough to recognize and beyond alien because I’d convinced myself I’d never know it again. Immediately on the heels of that spark came the overwhelming rush of another thing I’d believed was gone forever—hope.

Holy shit. I didn’t know if this retreat’s program would do me a damn bit of good, but the trip was already well worth it for everything that happened the instant I laid eyes on Alex. Even if I never made more than a fleeting connection with him, it was encouraging to know I could feel attraction or desire again. That there could be light where there’d only been dark.

The other men were making introductions, so I rose to do the same. As I offered my hand, our eyes met. He offered the faintest of smiles and I realized that I had all but forgotten what this retreat was for. The smile was like a beam of bright light that emphasized the shadow—specifically, the soul-crushing sadness in Alex’s beautiful, tired eyes.

My rush of hope and attraction was immediately dashed by a nauseating wave of empathy. Alex was here. That meant he’d lost someone, too. Like me, he still wore a gold band on his left ring finger. Like me, he was grieving. He had lost someone, likely much too soon, given his age.

In the not-too-distant past, I’d had a lot of moments of this isn’t fucking fair.

This was one of those moments.

I cleared my throat and managed a smile. “It’s good to meet you. I’m Tim.”

“Alex,” he said quietly as we shook hands. “Nice to meet you, too.”

Then the room was full of activity, and we were both swept in different directions. Mike whisked Alex away to get him settled into his room, and I joined the other guys in helping to get dinner arranged in the huge dining room. As we were all sitting down to eat at the long table, Mike and Alex returned, and they took the two empty seats across from me.

Before I could think of a reason to strike up a conversation with the men around me—especially Alex—Clancy grabbed the room’s attention.

“So,” he said. “I know the program doesn’t start until tomorrow, but this is a good time to break the ice and get to know each other a bit. How about we go around the table, and everyone can tell the group your name, where you’re from, and what you do for a living.”

Alex froze, sudden horror breaking through the mask of sadness and fatigue.

Mike nudged him with his shoulder and murmured something. “It’ll be fine,” was what I thought he said.

Alex didn’t look convinced, and he didn’t look at Mike, Clancy, or anyone else. He just stared down as he spread some mayonnaise on the bread for his sandwich. I watched him so intently, so curiously, I almost missed when it was my turn to speak.

“Oh. Um.” I cleared my throat and absently tugged at a piece of lettuce on my own sandwich. “I’m Tim. I’m from Pittsburgh, and I work as an artist, and also a content creator on YouTube with my daughter.”

That prompted a murmur of curiosity. Even Alex peered at me through his lashes, some interest in his eyes. I responded with a smile.

The introductions continued. When they reached Alex, he once again avoided eye contact with anyone. “I’m Alex,” he said quietly. “I’m, um… I’m also from Pittsburgh.” He glanced at me again before his eyes darted away. “Kind of between jobs right now, so I don’t really ‘do’ anything.” Some color rose in his cheeks.

I cringed inwardly. God, no wonder he hadn’t been thrilled about the icebreaker. I wasn’t a mind reader, so I had no idea what his job situation actually was, but he clearly wasn’t happy about it. Or eager to share it.

After a few more introductions, the icebreaker had done what it was meant to do—conversations started, a lot of which seemed to center on hometowns or jobs. About half of us were from Pittsburgh, others from various cities here in West Virginia, and two were from Ohio.

Across from me, Mike picked up his Coke. “So, you’re an artist? What kind of art do you do?”

I swallowed a bite of my sandwich and tried not to notice—or at least be conspicuous about noticing—that Alex was watching me curiously now. “A lot of portraits. Landscapes. Animals. A little of everything, honestly.”

“Yeah?” Mike rested his forearms on the table’s edge. “So, digital? Or like actual paint?”

I chuckled. “I’m old school—actual paint on canvas.” Or paper, or boards, or whatever else I felt like painting on, but I didn’t elaborate. No need to bore everyone to tears with a nervous ramble of all the available substrates I could apply pigment to.

“Can we see some of your work?” he asked.

“Sure.” I shrugged, took out my phone, and pulled up my Instagram. Then I slid it across the table.

As Mike thumbed through the images, Alex leaned in and watched over his shoulder.

“Wow.” Alex glanced up at me. “These are amazing.”

I could usually take a compliment about my work, but for some reason, the praise from Alex made heat rise in my cheeks. “Thanks.”

“And you do YouTube content, too?” Mike asked, still looking at photos.

“Yeah.” I picked up my sandwich again. “My daughter and I have a channel for art tutorials and whatnot. She mostly does watercolor and gouache, plus some digital. I mainly do oil.”

“I’ll have to get the link from you.” Mike slid my phone back across to me. “My sister-in-law is trying to teach herself to paint, and she’s been looking for some good tutorials.”

“Sure. Yeah.” I pocketed my phone. “Madison’s got a lot more content on there than I do.” I gave a quiet, self-deprecating laugh. “She’s probably a better teacher, too.”

At that, Alex chuckled, and fuck me, but I would have done almost anything to get him to smile like that again. I didn’t know if it was because he was so jaw-droppingly attractive or if I just felt such a camaraderie with that bone-deep sadness etched into the lines of his face. Hell, I didn’t even know if he was into men. What I did know, however, was that those brief smiles that broke through were sunbeams, and whether it was for his benefit, mine, or both, I wanted to bask in as many of them as possible.

No, I couldn’t explain it. I couldn’t really make sense of it. Not in any rational way that hadn’t been shaped by the grief that had brought me here in the first place.

I just knew that my world had been dark and cold for so long, I’d forgotten what warmth and light even felt like.

Maybe this week, I could remember.

Chapter 2

Alex

I hated sleeping. Ironic, given that I’d spent my whole life wishing I could fall asleep and stay asleep like normal people did.

Now I dreaded drifting off.

That was when everything happened all over again. Every night, the tires squealed and the glass shattered. Every night, the seat belt broke my collarbone in the same heartbeat it saved my life.

And every night, Jeff went still.

Lying in the darkness of that unbearably silent room in the cabin, I wiped a hand over my face. Sweating. No surprise there.

With a heavy sigh, I rubbed my aching left shoulder, then traced my fingertips over the edge of the plate that had held my broken clavicle together while it had healed. It was oddly comforting—a reminder that the bone and the incisions had healed. That time had gone by. The accident, while painfully fresh in my mind, was in the past. So was the physical pain, though my neck, back, and shoulder sometimes hurt.

Everyone kept telling me the rest of the pain would fade eventually too.

Some days, I itched for that to be true. Others, I was afraid it would be. That when my grief faded, it would take all the other feelings and memories with it. This was utter hell that I wouldn’t wish on anyone else, but I also didn’t want to lose the profound love I’d had for Jeff that made his loss so unbearable.

I didn’t know if that made sense. Nothing had for the past year, so why start now?

Thumbing my wedding ring beneath the covers, I stared up at the ceiling, then at the window dimly illuminated by a crescent moon. I shouldn’t have come here. Sleeping in my own bed was hard enough these days. Someplace unfamiliar? Surrounded by people I didn’t know? Kind of sounded like I was asking for trouble. Mike had insisted that a change of scenery would do me good, but what good would it do the rest of the guys in this cabin if I woke them all up when the nightmares came? I didn’t do that all the time. Sometimes I just woke up out of breath or crying into my pillow. Once in a while, though…

Yeah. No one here needed that.

I shouldn’t have come.

Maybe I needed some air.

With a groan, I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed. My back and shoulder protested, because of course they did. After I’d rubbed a little stiffness out of both, I grabbed a T-shirt from my suitcase and pulled it on. I already had on a pair of sweats, and my shoes were downstairs with everyone else’s.

The cabin was mostly silent, but not entirely. The tinny sound of a TV filtered through a door, and I thought I heard someone talking quietly. On a phone, maybe. From somewhere else, unobtrusive music.

I wasn’t surprised—I doubted I was the only one in this house who struggled to sleep. I was hardly a stranger to insomnia, but it was apparently a thing with grief. God, what wasn’t a thing with grief? The last year had been a cornucopia of bullshit new experiences, and that could stop any time.

It sounded like some of the guys were sitting in the living room and talking. The soft glow of what was probably a single table lamp spilled into the hallway, and from the smell, they’d made some coffee.

I didn’t join them. Instead, I put on my shoes and stepped out into the night. The cabin had a wraparound porch with a bunch of Adirondack and rocking chairs, plus tables and a gas barbecue. I was too restless to sit in any of the chairs, so I stood at the railing and rested my hands on the cool wood, absently tugging at the cracking paint with my thumbnail.

It was quiet out here. During the day, there were probably birds chirping and wildlife moving around. Right now, there was just the soft rustle of wind in the trees. I closed my eyes and imagined coming here in the winter when everything was blanketed in snow and seemed even quieter. I’d always loved that.

This was nice, too. It was early March, so the air still had a bite to it, but it wasn’t quite as sharp anymore. In another few weeks, it would be warm, even this late at night. Humid, too. For now, it was cool and comfortable,

Jeff would’ve loved this place.

The thought hit me in the chest, and I squeezed my eyes shut.

I was so tired of that tumble of emotions every time I experienced something new. Visiting a place he’d enjoyed or would’ve enjoyed. Whenever one of his favorite bands released a new song, or a movie came out that he would’ve liked. A few months ago, a billboard had gone up announcing that a fast-food chain was bringing back a seasonal special that had been Jeff’s guilty pleasure, and I’d fucking cried.

And this place stung even more because, yes, Jeff would’ve loved it, but I never would’ve known it existed if he were still alive.

I swiped at my eyes. Damn it. I should’ve stayed home. That was miserable, but it was a familiar kind of miserable. The heavy numbness. The slog through another day in a life I still didn’t recognize. The emptiness beside me in bed or on the couch that I would never be used to, but also somehow seemed like it had been there forever.

This was new—the place, the people, all of it—and I didn’t do new very well. Not when every goddamned thing in my life was filtered through Jeff is gone.

Everyone told me that would get better. I guess it had. I’d been almost catatonic at first. I barely remembered anything from the first few months. At some point, I’d crawled out of that, and that was an improvement. Was this as good as it was going to get, though?

Man. That was tough to think about. Not that I could imagine anything better than—

The door opened behind me.

I jumped and turned around; it took my eyes a second to adjust. A little bit of light came in from the living room window—enough to illuminate his face—and I couldn’t decide if I was surprised to see the guy I’d sat across from at dinner. In fact, now that I thought about it, I was pretty sure I’d heard his voice in the living room, though I had no idea who he’d been talking to.

“Hey.” He shut the door quietly behind him. “You all right?”

The question caught me off guard. Why would he think I wasn’t all right? This guy didn’t even know me.

Oh. Right. Because everyone here was a grieving mess. He didn’t have to know me specifically to get concerned about why I was strolling out into the chilly darkness at whatever o’clock at night.

I casually leaned against the railing and folded my arms loosely. “I’m good. Just, uh… Just needed some air, I guess.”

“I get that. Do you mind if I join you?”

“Not at all.” I paused. “Your name is… Tom? Fuck, I’m sorry. I’m awful with names.” I hadn’t been in my previous life. These days, my memory was full of holes. Or at least things didn’t stick to it very well. Not like they used to.

He smiled, though, easing into one of the Adirondacks. “Tim. You’re Alex, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I didn’t wake anyone up coming out here, did I?”

“Nah.” Tim sat back with a long sigh. “I was talking to Javier, and he was calling it a night. Saw you come out here and just wanted to make sure you were okay. Uh, all things considered.”

“I’m good. All things considered.”

He regarded me silently for a long moment, and I studied him as much as I could in the glow of the living room lamp. He was probably forty-five or so. Maybe fifty or close to it. Around Jeff’s age, I thought with a wince. White with mostly gray hair, a kind smile, and brown eyes that were almost black in this light. I’d noticed him as soon as I’d walked in this afternoon, and as I’d looked at his art over dinner, something in my brain had clicked. This was someone I wanted to get to know.

It was kind of like that feeling when I’d gone to summer camp or whatever as a kid, and I’d gravitated toward another camper, intrigued by them and wanting to find any excuse possible to sit next to them and learn everything I could about them. That was probably childish as all hell, but it was something other than wanting to crawl into a hole and die, so I didn’t argue with it. Especially since this was a much better alternative than lying in bed and waiting for the nightmares to come.

I eased into the other Adirondack. “Seems like everyone here is staying up late.” I gestured at the cabin behind him. “I heard some TVs and music on when I came down.”

“I doubt anyone here has had a good night’s sleep in a while.” He folded his hands on his belt. “Or they just need background noise to sleep.”

I grunted in agreement. Now that Tim mentioned it, a few of the guys in my support group said they slept with their TVs or radios on these days. Mike was one of them.

“This your first time coming here?” Tim asked.

Nodding, I shifted in the chair. “Yeah. Mike and I go to the same support group. He said this was really helpful for him last year, so he suggested I come. You?”

“First time. Stuff like this isn’t usually my thing, but…” Tim shrugged. “Same deal, really—a friend said it might help. Figured I didn’t have anything to lose except the registration fee and ten days in the woods.”

“Yeah, there is that,” I said dryly.

We were both quiet for a long time. I watched Tim, who was gazing down at his hands. Playing with his ring, maybe; I’d noticed several of the guys here still wore rings. That was reassuring. Some of the people who were still in my life—those who didn’t avoid me because they didn’t know what to say—seemed to think it was strange I hadn’t stopped wearing my ring. My brother had suggested more than once that I should take it off. It was time.

I disagreed, but for the life of me, I couldn’t tell him why. Or when it would be time. Or if it ever would be. I just knew it wasn’t now.

Seeing other widowers still wearing theirs was both comforting and disconcerting. It wasn’t abnormal or weird for me to keep mine on. At the same time, what did that say about how long I was going to feel like this?

I cleared my throat. “A lot of the guys here still seem to…” I held up my hand and gestured at my ring.

Tim flicked his gaze to my hand, then to my eyes, and he nodded. “I know someone who took his off the same day. My grandmother wore hers for thirty years after my grandfather died.” He shrugged and focused on his own hand, running a finger along the back of his ring in a reverent gesture. “I don’t think I’ll keep mine on as long as she did, but I’m not ready yet.”

God, it was both reassuring and heartbreaking to hear my own thoughts coming from him. I hated that anyone else had to go through the same kind of pain I did, even though it was also reassuring to know I wasn’t alone. That I wasn’t doing it wrong.

Ugh, all these emotions had so fucking many layers. These days, I couldn’t feel anything without it being layer upon layer of wildly different and even contradictory feelings. Mike had told me that his therapist said there was a thing called complicated grief that could arise after a year or so. I was afraid to find out what that was all about, because if I’d learned one thing since the accident, it was that there wasn’t a damn thing simple about grief.

Tim absently played with a loose sliver on the Adirondack’s armrest. “How long has it been?” From the solemn tone, I didn’t have to ask what he meant.

Exhaling, I met his gaze. “A year last month.”

“Sorry to hear it.”

I searched his eyes in the low light. “What about you?”

He swallowed. “A year and a half next week.”

“Wow,” I whispered. “Does it get any easier between a year and a year and a half?”

Tim laughed almost soundlessly. “Kind of? I mean, it seems like it gets a little easier every day. Then one day, I’ll see or hear something that reminds me of him, and it’s the first day all over again.”

I pushed out a breath, both discouraged by the long process and again oddly relieved that I wasn’t the only one. “Yeah. It really is like that, isn’t it?” I pressed my elbow onto the wooden armrest and tilted a crick out of my stiff neck.

“Sometimes it is,” he said. “It kind of also depends on how it happened, you know? For me, I go back and forth between grieving and being relieved.”

I turned to him. “It wasn’t sudden, then.”

Tim’s gaze was fixed on something in the darkness, and he shook his head slowly. “No. It was, um…” He swallowed like it took some work, and his low, haunted voice barely carried as he whispered, “We knew it was coming.”

He didn’t elaborate, and I didn’t ask him to. I’d heard enough stories in the support group to read between the lines. As hellish as it had been to have Jeff snatched away from me so suddenly, the one silver lining was that he hadn’t suffered a protracted death. There was a guy in my therapy group whose wife had lived for five and a half years after her diagnosis. He’d told the group it was three years too long. I hoped Tim’s late partner hadn’t suffered as long or as horribly as Kim had.

And it was only now, as the silence lingered between us, that I realized Tim had referred to a male partner.

Everyone else in the support group back home was straight. Or at least their partners were women. When Mike had convinced me to come to this retreat, it hadn’t even occurred to me that there might be someone else here who’d lost a same-sex partner.

The knowledge that I wasn’t the only queer man here was comforting. Mike knew I was gay, and so did the organizers, but it was good to know I wasn’t the only one. There were things straight people took for granted—things I had to stop and explain when I was trying to put some of this horrible grief into words—and that was exhausting sometimes. There was cold comfort in knowing I could mention my fear of being kept away from Jeff’s bedside or left out of discussions about organ donation or funeral arrangements and someone here would get it.

Except that also meant being relieved that another queer man had gone through the hell I had, and that familiar ball of guilt grew behind my ribs.

Unaware of the ever-churning turmoil in my head, Tim turned to me again. “What about you? Was it sudden, or…?”

I shivered, the creak of the chair giving me away. “Sudden. It was a, um… A car accident.” Guilt had more words trying to tumble off my tongue. How there’d been nothing I could do. How I’d tried anyway. How sorry I was. I’d learned a long time ago how to hold those protests back, though. They just made things awkward. People didn’t know how to respond, especially if the cascade of emotions followed. Tim was making conversation, not inviting me to open the floodgates. So, I answered his question and left it at that.

Tim’s voice was soft. “I’m sorry. I can’t even imagine.”

A lot of people said that. It was odd, coming from someone who’d also lost his partner, but I guess it made sense. I couldn’t imagine watching Jeff slowly wither away over time like Tim’s partner had. And hell, I struggled to imagine losing him suddenly, even though that was exactly what had happened. It still felt like a dream, more often than not. A terrible one that I’d wake up from eventually and find him still sleeping soundly beside me.

Before I could stop myself, I asked, “Does it ever start feeling… real?”

Tim pursed his lips, gaze fixed on the dark forest. He was silent for a long moment, then eventually turned tired eyes toward me. “I think it’s like anything with this whole process. It eventually does, and then the next minute, it doesn’t.” He lifted a shoulder in a heavy half-shrug. “Don’t know if that ever ends.”

Well, fuck. That was encouraging.

“You’d think it would feel real,” I said. “But even when I was still in the hospital myself and couldn’t breathe without pain from the accident, I still couldn’t believe it had happened.”

“The mind is a weird thing,” Tim said softly. “It’s hard to grasp things that are bigger than us, even when we can’t deny the evidence.”

I released a long breath. That really was what it came down to, wasn’t it? Jeff’s death was too big to comprehend. Too earth-shattering to fit into my head even while I was standing in the middle of the metaphorical rubble.

“It does get better,” Tim said after a moment. “I think… I mean, if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that grief doesn’t necessarily go away. You just learn to live with it. It becomes part of your normal, you know?”

I scowled. “Kind of a shitty normal, isn’t it?”

“It is,” he acknowledged. “But it’s like…” He quirked his lips and stared out at the woods again. “One of my friends said it’s a lot like losing a limb. There comes a point when you accept that the limb isn’t coming back. It’ll always be gone. The worst of it heals, and then you find your balance again, and you go on. No, you’re never the same, but you’re okay.”

That was a little easier to swallow. “It does feel like losing a limb sometimes, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, yeah.” He sighed into the stillness. “And sometimes I think, man, I can’t fucking do this. Other times, I think I’m doing it.” He shrugged again and faced me. “Grief is weird.”

I managed a quiet laugh. “It really is. I guess that’s why we’re here.” I gestured around us.

Tim chuckled almost soundlessly. “Yeah. I guess it is.” He pushed himself to his feet. “I think I need to call it a night before I pass out.”

“Same.” I got up. “It’s been a long day.” Our eyes met. “Um. Thanks. For talking with me.”

His smile was sweet and a little disarming. “Don’t mention it.” Then he pulled open the door, and we headed inside. After we’d left our shoes in the hall with everyone else’s, we climbed the stairs.

Tim’s room was two doors down on the left. Mine was one more and on the right. We paused by his, and he looked at me again. “See you at breakfast?”

The question gave me a surge of something unexpected. Not quite excitement. Nothing that dramatic. No, it was more… the feeling like I had something to look forward to, even if it was just pleasant company over the breakfast table.

“Yeah,” I said. “See you at breakfast.”

He flashed me a quick smile, then disappeared into his room.

Moments later, I lay back on my bed, hands laced behind my head as I stared up at the ceiling. Our conversation had brushed up against tough subjects, and it was always demoralizing to hear someone say grief never completely went away. Still, I felt better now than when I’d gone downstairs earlier.

I’d take it.

The first day of the retreat was pretty low-key. Mike had told me that the organizers tried to accommodate people who came in late the night before, so nothing official started until the afternoon. We’d all be helping to prep meals throughout the week, but the first breakfast and lunch were casual—more or less a continental breakfast and an assortment of sandwich fixings for lunch, kind of like what we’d done last night for dinner.

It was partly to let people settle in, and also to encourage us to socialize. After all, a lot of the seminars and programs invited us to open up about losing our partners, and that was a lot easier to do with people who weren’t total strangers.

I didn’t really want to socialize. Didn’t want to be here at all—I was just desperate for something to get me out of this awful pit of grief. Not that I had much faith that that was even possible at this point.

Mike encouraged me to at least join everyone for breakfast, though. And after the conversation out on the porch last night, I was admittedly somewhat more motivated because Tim would be there. He was friendly, and yeah, I might’ve developed something that felt vaguely like a crush, which had only intensified when I’d realized he was queer. I doubted anything would come of it— I hadn’t come here looking for that, and I didn’t think I had the capacity for it—but I liked the way it felt, so I let myself shamelessly chase that quiet attraction enough to be excited at the prospect of seeing him again.

The weather was pleasant—cool, but sunny—and breakfast wasn’t for another hour and a half, so several of us took our coffee out onto the back deck. There were some tables out here, along with a firepit a few feet away in the yard, and Rick brought out a chessboard he’d found in the living room. As he and Mike set up a game, I sipped my coffee and tried to be subtle about glancing at the door every five seconds for some sign of Tim. I reminded myself over and over that he still had plenty of time. I had come down pretty early since I couldn’t sleep.

And… Well, I’d see him eventually. Breakfast was coming. We were on the cooking schedule together twice, and we’d probably be at some of the same seminars. Plus, while the cabin was huge, it wasn’t so big that we wouldn’t cross paths sometimes.

I just… wished he were here now.

Because I’d lost my mind. But I’d known that since before I’d ever been aware of Tim’s existence, so no great surprise.

While Javier, Dominic, Tristan, and I watched, Mike and Rick played a game of chess, which Mike lost after only a handful of moves.

I tapped his foot playfully with mine under the picnic table. “How many times do I have to tell you not to leave your king unprotected like that?”

He made a disgusted noise and kicked me back as he set up the pieces again. “Yeah, yeah, Ouellette. You’re the chess master. I know.” He rolled his eyes and groaned theatrically.

I chuckled as I brought my coffee up for a sip. “Not my fault you don’t know what you’re doing.” That earned me another kick, harder this time, and I laughed as I nearly dropped my coffee.

Rick turned an interested look on me. “You’re good at chess?”

“I can hold my own,” I said with a shrug.

“I can hold my own,” Mike said in a mocking voice. “Says the captain of his high school’s chess team.”

“Oh, really?” Rick sounded very interested now. He slid the board over, so it was in front of me, and then he moved over on the bench. “Let’s see how you play, Captain.”

I scowled at Mike. He grinned innocently. Rolling my eyes, I huffed. “Fine.”

Rick was good at the game. Careful. Methodical. He took time before each move to, I guessed, mentally map out all the ways each strategy could play out.

Unfortunately for him, I hadn’t been captain of the chess team for nothing, and when he fucked up, I was ready for it.

Without a second’s hesitation, I moved my knight, captured his bishop, and grinned. “Looks like checkmate to me, pal.”

“Check—” He stared slack-jawed at the board, scanning all the pieces in play. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

I waved the captured bishop triumphantly. “Nope.”

He exhaled harshly, then laughed, shaking his head. “Well done, man. Well done.”

I laughed, too, and we started setting up the pieces again.

Behind me, the sliding glass door opened, then closed. I glanced up to see who’d joined us, and the rook I’d set on the board almost slipped out of my hand.

“Ooh, they have chess?” Tim grinned, cradling a coffee cup in his hands as he came closer. “You guys mind if I join you?”

Please join us.

“Not at all!” Rick gestured at the spot beside him. “You can play winner if you want.” With a smirk, he motioned toward me with his queen. “It’ll probably be this guy.”

Tim arched an eyebrow as he took the offered seat. “Is that right?”

Mike elbowed me gently. “Captain of the chess team in high school, right here.”

I groaned. “Should I just write that across my forehead so you don’t have to keep announcing it to everyone here?”

He turned to me. “But… what fun would that be?”

“Ugh. Whatever, choir boy.”

“Hey! What’s wrong with being in choir?”

“Nothing.” I put down my last piece—a pawn—and smiled innocently at him. “It just explains why you were too busy to learn how to play chess properly.”

That got an “ooh!” from everyone at the table, and Mike flipped me off, which had us all laughing.

I glanced at Tim, and…

Oh. Fuck. Me.

His smile had made the earth tilt under me last night, and it had the same effect now. I was almost surprised the pieces didn’t go sliding off the chessboard, but no, the world hadn’t actually listed. Just my equilibrium.

I focused on the game again. Tried to. What was I doing? I was going to take out his bishop, and then…

And then…

Fuck. Seriously. What was I doing?

When it was my move again, I still couldn’t dredge up the strategy I’d been working out in my head, and I hadn’t worked out another one either. I stared at the pieces, shifting my gaze all around the board, probably convincing everyone at the table that I was contemplating all my options and not wondering what game we were even playing.

Finally, I slid a pawn to G5 and hoped for the best.

From the relieved sigh Rick released, I’d fucked up, which didn’t surprise me. But damn, it meant I was back to strategizing a second after he gleefully captured the rook I’d left vulnerable. Whoops.

I did manage to get my head back into the game, and we continued as the guys sitting around us watched and drank their coffee. Games against players who knew what they were doing could take a while, and my back and shoulder started letting me know they weren’t pleased about me sitting on a bench with no support for this long. Especially my shoulder, which was still cranky over the hard bed. Getting comfortable could be difficult on the best of days—if I didn’t have something to lean against or rest my arm on, just the weight of my arm could cause some achy fatigue. My physical therapist insisted that would improve with time and conditioning, but it was seriously annoying.

For now, I rested my forearm across the edge of the table, which took a lot of the weight off my shoulder. It was still sore, though, and I finally reached up to knead some of the stiffness out of the muscles.

Mike’s expression was completely serious, and so was his voice. “Your shoulder okay?”

Grimacing, I nodded as I kept rubbing at it. “Yeah. Just… long drive. Strange bed.”

“Bad shoulder?” Rick asked.

“Broken collarbone that’s been bolted back together.” I tugged my shirt back into place, folded my arms on the table’s edge, and tried to ignore the persistent ache. “It’s been a year, but you know how bodies are.”

He grunted in agreement, gaze fixed on the chessboard. “Yeah, I do. One stupid injury and everything’s messed up for ages.” Without looking up, he gestured at his own shoulder. “Dislocated mine once, and it was a bitch for like five years afterward.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Ugh, don’t tell me that.”

“Just saying, man.”

“Great. I’m still curious what’ll happen when I fly.” I tapped my collarbone. “There’s a plate in there now, and I guess it can set off metal detectors.”

“Eh, it’ll be fine.” Rick moved his knight to A3. “Just tell them the cocaine is in your checked bag. They’ll wave you through.”

I laughed. “Sure they will.”

“What did you do to it, anyway?” Javier asked. “Full-contact chess?”

The other guys chuckled, except for Mike. Like me, he’d sobered, and I could feel him watching me.

Javier instantly caught on. “Oh. Sorry. I, uh… I didn’t…”

“It’s fine. It was a car accident. And… yes. It’s why I’m…” I gestured around us. The silence threatened to get uncomfortable, so I thought quickly, abandoning the strategy I’d been formulating in my head, and instead moved my rook to capture Rick’s knight.

“Oh, goddammit!” He groaned. “I didn’t put that there for you!”

“Yeah, but it’s a hot guy on a horse.” I held up the captured piece and grinned, grateful the tension had broken. “I couldn’t just let him ride on by.”

“It’s just a horse! How do you know there’s a hot guy on it?”

I peered at the piece, then shrugged with my good shoulder. “He put shirtless pics on Grindr?”

The ridiculous exchange got everyone laughing, and before long, we’d regained our relaxed vibe. Rick didn’t even notice that my impulsive move had left my bishop vulnerable to his queen, and that capture would’ve put me in check. Perilously close to checkmate, honestly. I wouldn’t have minded, given the circumstances, but I was still relieved when he decided to move a pawn instead.

His pawn was now in a position to capture my knight, but he was also two very easy moves away from putting me in checkmate, so I left the knight in place and moved my queen to a better position to protect my king.

Naturally, Rick jumped at the opportunity. “Ooh, pretty lady on a horse!” He nudged my knight with his pawn. “Swipe right.”

“Aww, how cute!” I took out his pawn with my other knight. “Too bad she swiped left.”

The game continued, as did the banter, and despite being distracted in the beginning by Tim, I managed to beat Rick a second time.

“Dammit.” Rick laughed as he shook my hand across the table. “Well done, Captain.”

“Hey, you put up a good fight.”

He let go of my hand, then turned to Tim. “All right. See if you can beat him.”

I froze. Oh. Fuck. Tim was playing the winner, wasn’t he?

Sure enough, they switched seats, and Tim grinned at me over the board. “Captain of the chess team, huh?”

I laughed with sudden nerves. “Had to do something after I couldn’t play football anymore.”

“You played football?”

“For two concussions, yeah.”

“Two concussions?” He arched an eyebrow as he arranged his pieces. “Or two seasons?”

“Both. Sort of.” I nudged my pawns into a neat row just to keep my hands busy. “First one benched me about halfway through my first season. Opening game the next season, I left on a stretcher, and that was the end of my football career.”

Rick whistled. “You know you’re supposed to wear the helmet, right?”

Chuckling, I flipped him off. Focusing on the board again, I said, “Eh, it was probably a good thing in the end. They happened in middle school, and the concussions were relatively minor. By the time I got to high school, all the guys playing football were a lot bigger than I was, so they probably would’ve mowed me right over.”

“Probably,” Mike agreed.

I elbowed him, and he laughed. To Tim, I said, “Okay—any preference who goes first?”

“Nah. You?”

“Not really.” I held up my fist. “Paper, rock, scissors?”

With a laugh that made the whole deck spin, he put up his fist. After three tries, my scissors beat his paper, and the first move was mine.

Tim turned out to be pretty decent at chess, and it wasn’t just because my concentration was trash. I beat him the first game, though he’d only been a move away from putting me in check. The second game ended in a stalemate. The third, Tim won, and I didn’t even mind because of the way he smiled when he fist-pumped.

By the time we all got up from the table to get breakfast, my mood was lighter than it had been in a while. My neck and shoulder still hurt from sitting for so long, but even that wasn’t enough to drag me back down into the mental place where I spent most of my time.

On the way into the cabin for lunch, Mike gave my uninjured shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Told you this would be good for you.”

I couldn’t argue. “Well, if you’d told me upfront there’d be chess…”

He just snickered, patted my arm, and kept walking. Still smiling myself, I followed.

And yeah, I was pretty sure he was right.

Chapter 3

Tim

One of the things that had sold me on this retreat was that it wasn’t billed as an intensive therapy program. Some of the others sounded like hours on end of group and individual counseling sessions. And PowerPoint. God, there was always PowerPoint. Two days of all that would’ve been way too much. A solid week and a half could go straight to hell.

Clancy and Lawrence’s program, though, took the “retreat” part seriously. The intro on the first morning included a blessedly brief PowerPoint presentation, which mostly gave an overview of the seminars that were available as well as the recreational amenities and a schedule of events in case we wanted to attend.

Everyone was expected to pitch in for mealtime, and we were given a schedule for that, too. I was secretly thrilled to see Alex and me in the same slots for lunch one day and dinner another. Maybe because he was (to my knowledge) the only other queer guy here, and it was almost instinctive to gravitate toward each other. Maybe because we’d spent some time talking last night and playing chess this morning, and I wanted to get to know him more. Or maybe because I still felt a tingle of that attraction that had zipped through me the moment I’d first laid eyes on him. Neither of us was here to hook up or find love, but now that I’d had a taste of that desire again, I craved more of it. Just being around him and feeling that pull was addictive; even if we never acted on it (and I doubted we would), I couldn’t help wanting more of that intense hunger I’d never expected to feel again.

The program was vaguely religious, and there were some prayer and fellowship sessions throughout the retreat, especially on Sunday. Those were optional, just like everything else. A couple of the secular sessions discussed dating. There were some specifically for dads. It all read like a list of activities on a cruise ship or something, even though there weren’t that many people here. At most, a session would have fourteen people, plus Lawrence and Clancy. I liked that, too; if I decided to attend one of the scheduled seminars, there probably wouldn’t be more than a handful of attendees.

The rest of the time was ours. As Lawrence explained during the orientation, the primary purpose of the retreat was to give us a break from finding ourselves in our normal lives. We were surrounded by men who had been through similar ordeals. Others had a tendency to steer clear of people like us. They didn’t know what to say, so they avoided us, or they were conspicuously uncomfortable as they tried to talk to us about anything other than our late spouses. I didn’t hold that against people. Not at all. But here, I could take a breather from that and be around guys who understood. Conversations could and sometimes did turn to how we’d become widowed, and we all often talked about our late partners, but no one got awkward or uncomfortable. That was nice.

And if someone didn’t want to talk or even think about why they were here, they could hike, fish, ride ATVs, watch movies in the enormous living room, read, or do any number of other things. There was no pressure. I liked that, too.

I did spend part of the first afternoon at one of the groups. Jason, Rick, and Lee were there, too. Clancy talked to us for a little while about the grieving process. None of that was new—I’d been hearing about it since discussions of Eric’s treatment had started including palliative care—but it was always reassuring to hear that what I was going through was normal. That there was no set-in-stone timeline. That the five stages of grief were kind of a myth, so I wasn’t doing anything wrong if I missed a stage or hit it in the wrong order, or if I entered into a completely different stage that wasn’t included in the five. There was no wrong way to grieve. Sometimes I needed to hear that. Again.

Clancy told us about his wife’s death eight years ago. How he’d been lost for almost three years before he’d finally started getting help. How he still didn’t fully understand why she’d taken her own life, though he was steadily making peace with the reality that he never would. After he’d finished, he invited us to tell our stories. There were some shifting eyes as we all silently begged each other to go first.

Rick finally broke the standoff. He’d been with his wife nineteen years. They’d lived in Florida, where she’d been a scuba instructor. One freak accident later, he’d moved to Ohio to be close to his parents while he tried to get his life back together.

“If it weren’t for the kids,” he murmured, “I don’t know if I’d have made it this far.”

“How are they handling the loss of their mother?” Clancy asked gently.

“They’re resilient.” Rick smiled sadly. “More resilient than they should have to be, you know?”

Understanding nods all around.

Lee went next, solemnly describing how he’d lost his fiancée last winter. “The hardest thing,” he told us, “…is wondering—I mean, who the hell does that to someone, you know?” I doubted I was the only one with goose bumps and a sick stomach after that. I also made a mental note to keep an eye out for news about the case, which would probably go to trial in the next year or so.

Jason, who I was still pretty sure was the youngest at the retreat, didn’t speak. No one pushed him.

That left me or Dominic. He didn’t say anything. I was hesitant. Not because I couldn’t talk about Eric’s death, but because there was always that fear that came with revealing to a group of straight men that I wasn’t. I’d mentioned Eric a few times last night, so I was pretty sure if anyone was going to have an issue with my sexuality, it would’ve come out by now. Still, that was a habit that wasn’t going away any time soon.

I cleared my throat and shifted a little. “Next week will be a year and a half since Eric passed. That was three years after his diagnosis. Which… the doctors told us he had a year at best, but we got three, so…”

Clancy smiled. “That time must have been a blessing.”

The other men nodded in agreement, sympathy and empathy written all over their faces. Rick and Lee especially. They probably would have cut off limbs to have more time. More warning.

Shame needled at me. This was supposed to be a place to open up about the realities of grief with people who understood, but how was I supposed to look these men in the eye and tell them the truth? Dominic, who was somber-faced and hadn’t yet spoken, might’ve understood. Jason, too, since he hadn’t tipped his hand at all. But Rick, Lee, and Clancy—no, they wouldn’t.

“Yeah,” I lied. “It was definitely a blessing.”

The other men nodded.

Except for Jason. He was staring at the floor, his expression still blank.

Clancy talked for a while about adapting to our new reality, and how this retreat was a safe space to talk about any and all emotions relating to our losses. “People sometimes don’t understand that the bereaved can feel all kinds of things besides sadness. We sometimes feel guilty for all manner of reasons. We can even feel angry, including at the person who passed, whether there’s any rational reason to or not. That’s okay and it’s valid, and you and your fellow attendees are invited to express those feelings whenever and however you need to.”

He adjourned the session not long after that. I was right behind Rick and Lee as they headed out.

“West Virginia lets you get fishing licenses online,” Lee was telling Rick. “And I saw a bait shop on the way here. Maybe twenty minutes out.”

“Good thing I brought my gear!” Rick laughed. Then he glanced over his shoulder at me. “Hey, you want to join us? This guy says there’s some great trout in one of the lakes near here.”

“No, thanks.” I managed a smile. “Fishing’s not really my cup of tea. Good luck, though!”

They didn’t push, and they headed upstairs, probably to get online and obtain their fishing licenses. When I stepped out onto the front porch, some of the guys were talking about going golfing, and Javier, Colton, and Dave were trying to decide if they could hike around the smaller lake near the cabin and still be back in time for a seminar they wanted to attend.

The atmosphere was definitely low-key. I got the feeling this was exactly what a lot of us needed—something relaxed with tons to do. Keeping busy was a great way to keep our minds off things, and there were also less busy activities in case we wanted to let our minds land on those things.

So… what did I want to do?

I didn’t feel particularly social today, especially not after the heavy conversations during that session. I was, however, surrounded by gorgeous scenery, and I’d absolutely come prepared.

And that was how I ended up on the end of the short dock at the lake with a piece of cold press watercolor paper taped to some canvas board on an easel. Sandbags kept the easel still, and I’d taped the canvas board in place so a sudden wind didn’t send it flying into the water. Lesson learned the hard way.