Love In Slow Motion (Love Beyond Measure #2) - E.M. Lindsey Page 0,48
exasperated, but he also sounded dejected, and Ilan hated that. “Hudson was a good man—and it should have been a good date, but it was painful,” he stressed, dragging a hand down his face. “I know I can do better, I just…need to know where to start.”
Ilan wanted to tell him no, wanted to tell him this was the worst idea he’d ever heard, but he couldn’t look at Fredric Pedalino and let those words escape his lips. “Fine,” he said, regretting everything. “One practice session, and I’ll whip you into shape as best I can. But I’m not going to be able to do anything unless you start to come to terms with being worthy of romance.”
“I know I can do it, but…”
“No,” Ilan said, and against his better judgment, he leaned forward and laid his hand over Fredric’s. “No buts. Just like Julian, you are the sort of man who deserves to be swept off your feet and carried to the stars.”
Fredric said nothing, but he let out a sharp breath, and the moment between them simmered.
Chapter 11
Fredric had three messages with potential dates, but he was refusing to commit until he had at least one trial run that wasn’t going to end with his total and utter belief that he was a lost cause. Ilan had defended him with a sort of careful passion that he’d come to expect from the younger man, and it had stayed with him most of the day.
After Ilan agreed to help him, Fredric got a proper tour of his house, walking down the precarious dock he could feel bowing under their weight. “Tell me we’re not about to crash down into the water,” Fredric said, his hand tight on Ilan’s arm.
Ilan laughed and gave him a pat as they came to stand at the very edge, and it was a little more stable than the rest. “I’ve already scheduled a repair, but it’ll hold. The wood’s got water damage from a couple of floods. I don’t think the previous owners spent a lot of time here.”
Fredric took in a breath and turned to face the water. He could feel it, the dampness of the air and the way sounds just sort of floated and disappeared across the vast space in front of him. One of the most difficult things Fredric had come to learn about blindness was losing relativity beyond what he could touch.
He often forgot things existed beyond the reach of his fingers or the walls in his house. The months he spent at his beach house right after the stroke had been learning the basics. How to get up, how to move from room to room—even unfamiliar ones—without crashing into walls. He learned how to pour cold water and hot water. He learned it was easier to put toothpaste on his tongue than on the toothbrush and how to pin his socks together before washing them so they would always stay matching.
His therapist started sensitivity training him because he wanted to learn braille, and by the time he was done with that, he knew each of the spice jars and each of the boxes in the cupboard just by picking them up. He didn’t mix up his shampoo for body wash, and he knew his clothes by the feel of the fabric.
But the day the woman put a cane in his hand and told him they were going to walk to the end of the street and back, he had his first real panic attack. He was safe inside. He knew inside. He knew where the barriers were and what came after.
He hadn’t realized how profoundly crushing it felt to lose his ability to see the horizon—to have no way of telling how big the space was. It felt claustrophobic and endless all at the same time, and he’d taken two full weeks before he found the courage to go out again.
He did it though. He mastered cane skills so when he went home, he could walk the neighborhood and find the corner shop and go from his office to the little shawarma truck at the end of the street. And eventually, he got his first dog, and the world got bigger, and his understanding of it settled into something manageable, even if he didn’t entirely comprehend it anymore.
But there were moments in his life he missed the view. He rarely told anyone, but the little squeeze around his heart as he tried to conjure old images of the