Justin O'Dwyer is 19. Four days ago, his mother died of a drug overdose, and now Justin is back in Enterprise, Oregon, trying to figure out how to raise the younger siblings he's afraid of losing to the foster system. Justin is completely out of his depth. Harper is six, and hates him. Wyatt is four and doesn't remember him. And baby Scarlett, at fourteen months, has never even met her big brother before. When Scarlett gets sick and won't stop screaming, and when Harper runs off in the middle of the night, Justin is at the end of his tether. In desperation, he knocks on a neighbor's door begging for help.<br><br>Del Abbot is 38, and living in his grandparents' old place in Enterprise after his marriage broke down and he lost his restaurant in the divorce. He's a chef, even had his own show on cable for a while, but now he's looking for a new start, if he could just figure out what exactly that entails. When the O'Dwyer family barrels into his life one night, Del can't refuse to help. What begins as a trip to the hospital becomes a regular child-minding gig while Justin struggles to find his feet. And the more time Del spends with Justin, the more they both want more than friendship. But small town life comes with its own bigotry, and, in Justin's case, that bigotry has always been close to home.<br><br>When an act of violence threatens to destroy the small family they've built, both Justin and Del need to put aside their pasts and reach for their future together.

Family Recipe

Del made dinner while Justin was handling his car issues. Del was proud of him for having found a way to potentially do it cheap. Del would’ve paid for the fixing of course, but he had only offered once and then raised his hands in defeat at Justin’s expression.


Yeah. Del got it. He remembered being young and wanting to make his own way. In some ways, he’d fucked that up majorly. He’d let go of what he’d accomplished when he’d met Clyde. After that, he’d gone where Clyde had wanted to lead them as a couple, not where Del might’ve wanted to go as a professional individual.


It was time to change things, but he didn’t want to be a Clyde, either.


When Justin came back from figuring out the car situation, he seemed defeated and tense, and definitely not ready to tell Del what was going on inside his brain.


That was fine; Del didn’t have to know every thought in Justin’s head. People deserved privacy. He knew Justin would tell him when he was ready.


Chapter 55