The Alcove (Lavender Shores Book 7) by Rosalind Abel

Author:Rosalind Abel [Abel, Rosalind]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wings of Ink Publications, LLC
Published: 2018-05-28T16:00:00+00:00

Miraculously, sleep found me relatively quickly. However, it didn’t last. I woke up around two in the morning, fully alert and riddled with stress.

I sat straight up in bed, flaring out my senses, attempting to detect any movement in the night, sounds outside the door or rising up from the bookshop. There was nothing. No sound of Neal, no sense of alarm.

Even so, I crept from my room, and carefully opened Jasper’s bedroom door.

He was asleep, that quiet, peaceful breathing of his calling to me. Reminding me how it had felt with him dreaming in my arms.

I closed the door and returned to my room. It wasn’t Neal I was sensing, nor danger that had woken me up completely stressed out. I didn’t even think it was my unshakeable desire for Jasper; though I wasn’t sure how hard I was actually trying to shake it.

Gradually, I became aware of my father’s voice, just little whispers in the night. As I listened, it was joined by the other men in my family. By the officers in my precinct, the casual conversations and jokes and commentary in the locker room, the offhanded comments my partner would make in the days back when we patrolled the streets.

They hadn’t even hurt, not really. They’d just been the way it was. Just statements and jokes of reality.

A reality to let me know that the other whispers that tickled my ear back then were the temptations of death and destruction. Feelings and lies that weren’t even true to who I was. Couldn’t be. I was a man. A cop. A Wallace.

The voices grew louder as I began to pace, floorboards squeaking under my feet, cutting through the silence of the night and threatening to wake Jasper.

On impulse, I left the room, shut off the alarm, and tiptoed to the bookshop. As I lifted a copy of Lavender Love from the counter, I had a strange sensation, like I was Adam accepting the apple from Eve’s hand. Though not religious, not in the slightest—none of the Wallace men were—the thought was nearly enough to cause me to put the book back.

Ridiculous, completely ridiculous.

I took the book back upstairs, reinitiated the alarm, and started to go back to bed. I halted in the doorway, the bed looking lonely, depressing. Looking over my shoulder, I studied Jasper’s alcove, bordered by shelves of books, the soft streetlights glowing against the starry sky.

Unsure if I was invading Jasper’s space or not, I walked over and fit myself in the nook, on the opposite end of where Jasper sat. Invading his space or not, it was preferable to going into his bedroom and invading his body, even if I knew I’d be welcome.

Even so, I propped the book on my legs and began to turn the pages once more. Each photo, each story, offered its own set of whispers against those in my mind. Against things that I’d believed to be true about myself. Against things that I’d believed to be facts about being gay in general.

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