Love In Slow Motion (Love Beyond Measure #2) - E.M. Lindsey Page 0,6

him one more time before I go?”

Fredric smiled widely and gestured for her to go ahead. She didn’t hesitate to drop to her knees next to him, and the warmth of her there—the proof of her presence beyond her voice—settled him. This was home. Or, at least, it was becoming home. It was a terrifying leap off a cliff that didn’t seem to have a ground beneath it, but if this was free fall, he’d be happy meet the ground with arms wide open.

Chapter 2

Ilan used to think that his overall bitterness and distaste for love and relationships would have made sense if he had shitty parents who hated each other. If he had grown up in a house of sharp words and sharper claws, the way Julian had with his mother.

But that wasn’t the case. He grew up humble, yes. Poor by the standards of every other child he went to school with and tormented because his uniforms were always second-hand and his shoes were always a size too small. But he was loved. Obscenely and completely.

He was their only child decades into their marriage, but not really a “miracle baby” even though they were a lot older than most when he was born. His mom had always said they took one look at him and decided he was so perfect, they didn’t bother trying for another.

Being the only child got to his head during his years where empathy was an abstract concept, and he cared more about getting his way with everything. Then he was disabused of the notion that he was special the moment he set foot on St. Alban’s campus. Within five minutes of standing on a playground in his second-hand uniform, facing kids who zeroed in like his poverty was bait, he’d been pushed down and punched in the gut and the hem of his shirt was torn.

He endured it for a week—eating lunch alone, listening to people laughing behind his back, nicknames that were cruel but not clever. And just as he felt the spiderweb cracks give in to the pressure, ready to shatter every confidence he’d ever had, Julian appeared.

He’d been out sick, but suddenly the attention shifted to this chubby boy with a massive scar under his lopsided nose and big, clunky hearing aids that he couldn’t hide under all his floppy hair. He walked with his arms wrapped around his stomach and his eyes staring at the floor, and he didn’t react to the taunts, but Ilan had a feeling he still heard them.

And something about that boy told Ilan he might be the most important person he’d ever meet. So, he walked up to the next bully that opened his fat mouth, curled his hand into a fist, and punched him,

Blood followed, and wailing filled the hallway, and Ilan was dragged off to the principal’s office and suspended for two days. His dad might have lost his job, and he was given a thorough lecture where his mom laid on guilt thicker than she ever had in his life. But he regretted nothing. In fact, when he got back to school, Julian was waiting for him at the fence, looking like he might throw up on his shoes, but there was a bravery in his face that made Ilan want to curl his larger body around that boy and protect him.

“You punched Christopher in the face. Are we friends?” Julian demanded the moment Ilan walked up.

The smile that spread across Ilan’s face felt like it was going to make his skin crack. “Yeah. We’re friends.”

It was as simple as that.

Two days later, Julian dragged him by the hand to meet his dad, who was standing at the far end of the fence with his hand around a long white cane. Julian was half-out of breath when he spoke, because even then, his legs were only half the size of Ilan’s. “My dad’s blind. Do you know what that means?”

And he did. Their rabbi was blind, though he’d only actually met him face to face a couple of times. “He can’t see?”

“Nope,” Julian said. “He’s nice though. Not like my…” and then his words died, and Ilan felt like there was something very big and very important that had just gone unmentioned. But the time for pressing him was over because they’d reached the man, and he let Ilan go to take his dad’s hand and tugged on it. “This is Ilan. Can you come inside and meet his dad? Please?