Falling for the Pet Doctor by Crystal Lacy

Author:Crystal Lacy [Lacy, Crystal]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-02-16T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Tyler squeezed Felix’s shoulder as if he could somehow take away Felix’s pain through osmosis. It would’ve been so easy to absorb that grief, to deal with it the way he’d dealt with his own for so many years. He wanted to take it for Felix, to bear it so he didn’t have to. If only that were possible. But it wasn’t, so Tyler held on and hoped that just being there with Felix helped.

Felix’s confession made him think about the last time he’d seen Terrence. He couldn’t even remember the words they’d spoken to each other that day before Terrence’s accident. It hadn’t been anything acrimonious, just a distracted goodbye as Tyler glanced over some journals in bed and Terrence pulled on his jacket to head out into the cool December morning.

The only thing worthy of note that morning had been that Terrence never came back. Tyler had gone over his memories of the morning over and over, trying to remember if he’d told Terrence he loved him. If they’d kissed that morning. If they’d even kissed goodnight the evening before or if they’d both been too busy to really give each other the time, to stop and appreciate what they had. Try as Tyler had, he hadn’t been able to remember.

“We all have regrets. That’s life. I know that’s little to no comfort, but you can’t stop death, Felix. Sometimes you can’t even halt it for long enough to say goodbye.”

Felix lifted his head from his watercolor sketch. There was a blue smudge on his cheek right on his jawline from where he’d scratched an itch earlier. “It sounds like you’re speaking from experience,” he said, curiosity peeking out from under his dejection.

Tyler hummed in acknowledgement. He was thankful when Felix dropped his gaze back to the paper instead of asking him to elaborate. He didn’t think he was ready to talk about Terrence with Felix yet. Not when they’d spent the entire night in the bed Tyler used to share with Terrence, making love like they couldn’t get enough of each other, like there were no ghosts in Tyler’s closet just waiting to leap out at them.

“I shouldn’t miss her,” Felix whispered. “We didn’t even get along.”

“There must have been some good times thrown in with the bad.”

Felix shrugged. “When I was little she used to make these thick sweet potato fries covered in sugar. They were so good. One time I ate the whole batch, but she wasn’t even mad. Just patted me on the head and told me I ate like a good boy.” Tyler watched as Felix’s eyes brimmed over with tears, some of it splattering onto the paper, mingling with the paint and making it spread.

“Sorry,” Felix mumbled. “I don’t know why that makes me cry. It’s a stupid memory. Not even a sad one. Not even the best thing she ever did.”

Tyler rubbed soothing circles on his back, just like he had the evening they’d shared their first kiss. “Doesn’t matter. You don’t need to justify your tears.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.