If someone asked me to describe our love story, I would only need to use two words. 

Before and After. 

• • • •

When I met Leonardo Ricci, he was determined I would only be a fling, while I was certain he was my forever. 

Seven years later, we’re the perfect couple. Happy, married, and in love-in sickness and health, till death do us part. 

At least until the unthinkable happens. 

Now we can’t look at each other. We don’t sleep in the same bed. We can’t even be in the same room. The loss is too great and the pain runs too deep. 

But this man is the love of my life. I convinced him once, and I would be damned if I couldn’t do it again. I would be damned if I couldn’t fix what we broke.

Content Warning: Please be aware that a stillbirth occurs on page, as well as mentions of suicide and alcoholism.

Two halves of a whole, Arlo Bishop and I were both unwanted kids brought together by the foster system. Dealing with the aftermath of neglect and abandonment, we grew up side by side and found solace in one another.

We wanted.

We needed.

We loved.

Desperately.

But somewhere along the way, Arlo wanted and needed and loved drugs more. So, I did the only thing I could and broke my own heart to save his.

Now, four years later, I’m back in L.A. and face-to-face with my past. Not only does the pain and hurt of our mistakes linger between us but so do our feelings.

I didn’t plan on a second chance—fear of history repeating itself making it hard to forgive and even harder to forget. But with only one touch, one kiss, I was taken back to where it all started.

Two halves of a whole, Arlo and I were made for each other. But we were no longer the unwanted foster kids.

We were grown men.  

And I wanted nothing more than him. 

I couldn’t tell you when I fell in love with Gael Herrera, but I wish I knew how to make it stop. 

Falling in love with a straight man is a rookie mistake. But falling in love with my soon-to-be-married-to-a-woman best friend is nothing but heartache. 

Through all the years, and all the men I’ve fooled around with, he’s always been at the back of my mind. An unrequited crush I wish I could shake. A dream that was never going to come true. 

When I whisk him off to a surprise bachelor party weekend in Vegas, I surrender to the idea that this is an opportunity for me to finally let go of my feelings for him and say goodbye. 

But after a heated exchange and an even hotter kiss, everything I thought I knew about our friendship changed. 

Maybe I had it wrong. Maybe, after all this time, we were more than best friends. Maybe, just maybe, he felt it too.