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

And there was a deeper fantasy, one even more absurd, that Justin didn’t want to look at too closely. It was the one where that didn’t matter to Del because he was that good. And someone that good deserved better. And that deeper fantasy came with a deeper fear too, because what if Justin asked if they could stay with Del and Del said no? Even imagining that happening felt like someone had stabbed a cold blade through Justin’s gut. And he didn’t think Del would say no—Del was good—but he also didn’t want Del to want him to move in because it was the solution to all Justin’s problems. He wanted Del to want him to move in because he loved Justin and needed him in his life, and he was too afraid to ask if they were there yet.


It was complicated and terrifying and confusing, and Justin’s eyes pricked with tears as he scrolled through his messages.


Hey. Everything okay in there? Missed you guys at breakfast.


He wished now that he’d said he missed Del too.


Chapter 62