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.

Pieces

“I’ve been thinking, too. I love you. I’ve always loved you.”


Josh opened his mouth to reply, but Patrick held up his other hand.


“Let me finish. I fell in love with you in high school. I know, probably some people would say it was just a teenaged crush or puppy love or whatever. I just know when we met in high school I never wanted to be with anyone else. That summer my dreams came true or I thought so.”


Patrick tried to pull his hand out of Josh’s grasp, but he wouldn’t let him. He wasn’t going to get to pull away from Josh. He would have his say, too, when Patrick finished.


“You were my first time. Did you know that?” Patrick asked softly.


Josh swallowed the lump that seemed to come from the pit of his stomach to rise up in his throat. “I thought…maybe, but you seemed to know what you were doing, so I wasn’t sure.”


He nodded. “It burned, but it didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would.” Patrick looked away. “I’d been using some toys.”


Chapter 20