Resilience by Bailey Bradford Read Free Book Online

carried around.
    Well, maybe not all the hurt feelings, Adam acknowledged to himself. He’d have liked to think he was irresistible, after all, but he wasn’t quite vain enough to pull it off. Still, he needed to think about what’d happened, and his own resolutions. Admittedly, as Jameson had pointed out before Adam’s move here, it had probably been really stupid to think he could spend the rest of his life alone. He was only thirty, not ancient by any means.
    Sometimes, though, he felt older than Methuselah. Used up and empty, or at least he had felt that way. But Todd had changed that, even if Adam hadn’t realised it until he’d been kissed.
    God, it reminded him of that sappy Disney movie. He closed his eyes and started a visual reel, narrated by his voice tinged with more breathiness than he’d ever exude.
    And so, the sweet young prince fell into a deep sleep, so deep he appeared to have passed away.
    (He tried the word ‘dead’ but it clashed with the whole Disney thing and singing birds in the background.) His friends… Scratch that… He slept on the cold stone floor until one day, a strong and handsome man searching for…searching, found the sweet young prince there.
    Stunned by the prince’s beauty—
    Adam laughed until his jaws hurt. Geez, he’d turned into such a chick. Not a bad thing, considering what a man-whore he used to be. It’d taken moving away, removing himself from the situations, rather, for Adam to figure out why he’d not valued himself more. That was what it’d been, he knew that now. He hadn’t liked himself, hadn’t loved himself for sure.
    He didn’t want to think about the reasons why, either, but Jameson’s ditching him hadn’t helped. Honestly, Adam was surprised he hadn’t sought out temporary comfort—the kind that really was no comfort at all, just left him feeling sleazy and worthless.
    “Don’t sit here and kick yourself now,” he muttered. It was all well and good to criticise oneself and work at improving, but dogging himself was a habit he’d been trying desperately to break. It had been negative thoughts that had driven him to be careless with himself.
    Sparky whined and Adam groaned as he pushed up to his feet. The concrete was not
    comfortable at all. At least Sparky had a nicely padded bed to lie on. Adam would grab one for himself after he checked Sparky over again. Then he’d sit back down and maybe drift off for a couple of hours, and dream about Todd’s kiss.

    It took Todd almost half an hour to be able to drive away from the clinic—from Adam.
    First he was shaking so bad he couldn’t even get in his vehicle, then he just couldn’t leave.
    He wanted to go back inside and touch Adam, kiss him again and maybe talk to him. Todd was really afraid talking would be a mistake, though. What would he say? I’m gay, but don’t ever intend to come out of the closet ’cause my family’s violent and crazy and—
    Besides, he’d never said the actual words out loud, not even to himself. Somehow he
    just knew his parents would find out, would hear the words carried on the wind or
    something, and he was truly scared of what would happen then. His father especially still bullied him, and Todd was as big as him, but his dad was stronger, physically, and the hold he had on Todd? That was much harder to escape than anything else.
    But the more he sat there and thought about Adam, his deep brown eyes pleading, the
    soft, wet feel of his lips giving beneath Todd’s, the way Adam had clung to him and whimpered… Todd thought he might be a stronger man than he’d ever expected to be.
    Eventually, anyways.
    He drove back to his place, running through different options in his head. If he could get Adam to agree to keep things discreet, just between them, that would be ideal. However, Todd knew secrets never really remained such, and he didn’t think Adam was the kind of man who’d take kindly to being hidden away. Then again, Adam hadn’t given off even a