Love In Slow Motion (Love Beyond Measure #2) - E.M. Lindsey Page 0,59

Julian confirmed with a quiet sigh. “Lord Byron. The poem isn’t wrong—love means getting your heart broken sometimes. It’s a wound that bleeds but never bleeds out. You will always wake up the next morning.”

Ilan’s hands were shaking. “You’re about to tell me it’s worth it, aren’t you?”

“I think so,” Julian said. “Sometimes Archer and I fight, and it feels like…it feels like it did before, because I’m scared that it’s all one big lie. But it never ends the same way. He doesn’t walk out. He stays, and we fight more, and then suddenly it stops feeling like I’m suffocating. And when it takes me longer to recover, he loves me until the world stops spinning.”

“I want that,” Ilan whispered, hating himself for showing that weakness. “But I don’t know if I’m strong enough for it.”

“Sometimes I lie awake at night and think about you being lonely,” Julian replied. “And I think about how much I hate how far away I am now, because you were there for me at my worst, and I can’t be there now.”

“Yes, you are,” Ilan argued. He pushed himself up and squinted against the sun. “You’re here for me right now.”

“But it’s not the same,” he shot back. “You never used to need me.”

“Julian…”

“I don’t want you to need me, even when I miss you so much it feels like someone cut off a limb,” he said, and Ilan felt like the world was cracking beneath him.

“I miss you too.”

Julian let out a very soft sigh. “I don’t think that just because I found Archer, everyone’s meant to find someone like him. But even as deaf as I am, Ilan, I hear it when you talk.”

“Hear what?” Ilan asked, his voice raspy.

“Like maybe you already found the person you were looking for, but you’re too scared to reach out for them.”

He wanted to fling himself into the ocean and swim until he reached the shores of France, just so he could hug his best friend because no one—no one—got him the way Julian did. Even when they didn’t talk for months, even the strained year that Julian had cut him out when he was with his ex—Julian was part of him.

And it was exactly why he wasn’t allowed to fall in love with Fredric, even if it was damn-near too late.

“What if he’s just not the right man? Because I don’t think…I don’t think it’ll work. So, what the fuck do I do?”

“You go on a date with Preston,” Julian said. “And then maybe you go on a date with someone else. And you keep doing that until someone comes along and makes you want to pause. Love isn’t a race, you know. Not always.”

And he knew that, but Ilan wasn’t sure he could stand up against a love that happened in slow motion.

Chapter 14

Sliding down onto the cool tiles, Fredric leaned his head against the wall and sighed. His back reminded him he was getting too damn old for this shit, but if he couldn’t sit on his knees for five minutes and clean a toilet, how was he going to perform in the bedroom? The comparison was ridiculous enough he couldn’t help laughing, and he was still chuckling at himself as he peeled his gloves off and felt around for his phone.

He’d left it in the doorway, and it had been buzzing while he was scrubbing. His finger passed over the screen, and the voice chirped that he had a message unread.

Hudson: This is a long shot, but I was wondering if you maybe wanted to give a second date with me a try?

Fredric swallowed thickly, unsure how to feel about the message. He hadn’t bothered to try and contact Hudson again—he hadn’t responded to any messages from the app. He told himself it was because he was waiting for someone to come along and feel right, but the reality was, he was shaken from his afternoon in the garden with Ilan. He knew the man was charming. He’d been play-flirting with Fredric for years, and Fredric would be the worst liar if he hadn’t said that there were moments he wanted it to be real. Maybe not Ilan himself, but he wanted someone who was effortlessly charming and wanted to use that to make him feel good.

But something had shifted that day, and it had taken him back to a moment before Bryce’s wedding. Jacqueline was staying in her sister’s cottage, and Ilan had showed up with scotch and an