Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 58874 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 294(@200wpm)___ 235(@250wpm)___ 196(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58874 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 294(@200wpm)___ 235(@250wpm)___ 196(@300wpm)
Jule smiled.
“Happy?” Tor asked.
“Yeah. Fuck him. Nobody gets that far up my ass except you.”
“Glad that’s handled.” Tor reached his arm out and caressed Jule’s nape. “Anything I need to know to prepare for this dinner with your mother? Because I’m thinking I shouldn’t approach it like you’re approaching the drive over.”
“Approach it however you want.” The light changed and he drove forward. “She’ll either get on board, or it’ll be the last dinner I have with her.”
“Jule.” Tor’s voice was low, serious.
“What?” He flicked his gaze toward Tor.
“She’s your family.”
“You’re my family. You, Ty, Trey, Trav, Tan, Mags, Mikey. Plus Jenny, Carley, and your other cousins, their kids. We have plenty of family.”
“We do. We have a great family. And she needs to be part of it. She’s your mother.”
“I’m done hiding you.”
“From everything you’ve told me, she cares a lot about you. She invited us to her house for dinner. That’s not hiding anything.”
He clenched his jaw.
“Is this about your dad’s parents? Have you heard from them?”
“Yeah.”
“And?”
“Nothing good.” He shook his head. “Not sure if they could have gotten there with us anyway, but after everything that happened…” He shrugged.
“We’ll figure it out.” Tor put his hand on Jule’s thigh, the pressure warm, comforting. “Tell me about your mom’s husband.”
“Langston Bennett. They’ve been married for a few years now, but I don’t know him well. He’s a pretty quiet guy. Divorced. Has a couple of kids who live out of state. He’s a federal judge now but he worked at my mom’s firm a long time ago, that’s how they know each other.”
“Do you like him?”
“Seems decent.” He parked in front of his mother’s house. “He’s nice to my mom.” He thought of his father and the husband he had been. “She deserves to have that.”
Tor squeezed his leg and looked out the window. “Need a minute?”
He nodded and closed his eyes, letting the feeling of Tor’s hand on him and the sound of his quiet breathing push away the disappointing memories so they could go inside and make better ones.
Chapter 18 – Age 30
“Call off the search parties, he’s alive!” Lydia said as soon as Jule answered her phone call.
“Hey, Lydia. It’s been a crazy month. I’ve been meaning to call you back.” After the awkward evening a few years earlier when Lydia had come into his apartment and heard him with Tor, they’d established a better friendship. They had continued to serve as one another’s plus ones for their social obligations, and they spent time together beyond that. True to her promise, Lydia never told anyone about what happened that night and she also hadn’t pressed Jule to talk about Tor specifically or his dating life in general.
“Uh-huh. Is this the part where you come up with a believable explanation for why your thumbs weren’t working well enough to send a single text over the past five weeks? Because I was worried to the point that I was seriously considering calling your mother.”
“I’ve been busy with Tor.”
There was a long silence and then Lydia said, “Tor as in Tori?”
“That’s the one.”
“Wow. You’re actually acknowledging him. I didn’t expect this. I’m not prepared. I need to dig out my list of invasive questions.”
“How about you skip the questions and come meet him instead?” Jule wanted to integrate Tor into his life openly, but it was proving to be a challenge because he really didn’t have much of a life. They’d had dinner with his mother and her husband Langston, but that was the end of the list. His mother’s parents were on a European cruise. His father’s parents were still livid that he had a personal relationship with the son of the woman who led their son astray, not to mention Tor also being the son of the man who killed him, so Jule wasn’t talking to them. He had never interacted socially with his work colleagues so it wouldn’t make sense to start now. And he didn’t have friends apart from Tor and his brothers. Lydia was the only exception.
Another long silence and then, “This is Julian Sterling, right? Because the name on my screen says that’s who I called and the voice sounds right but the words aren’t adding up.”
“Is that a no?”
“Are you kidding me, it’s an absolute yes. I’ll pick up dinner and be there in half an hour.” Lydia sounded giddy.
“You don’t have—”
“Hanging up before you change your mind! See you soon.” The call ended.
Laughing to himself, Jule tossed the phone onto his bed. Intending to fill Tor in on their new dinner plans, he made his way out of the bedroom and over to the kitchen. And then he caught sight of Tor and lost his train of thought entirely. He was leaning against the counter, drinking a glass of water, and wearing cut-off sweatpants and nothing else. The man was insanely hot. And he was all his, not for a couple of days at a time. Permanently his.