LOGINChapter 235 Paper TableclothsThe cooking class was held in the back kitchen of a restaurant that smelled of garlic and old bread. Aaron had signed them up under the name *The Carters*, which Leon only discovered when the instructor greeted them as brothers."We're not brothers," Aaron said."Cousins?""Neighbors," Leon said quickly.The instructor, a round, cheerful man named Dominic with flour permanently up one forearm, looked from one of them to the other. "Whatever you say. Aprons are on the hook."There were six other couples. A retired pair in matching sweaters. Two college girls who kept giggling. A man who had clearly been dragged there by his wife and kept checking his phone. Leon felt very small and very ordinary, standing in a borrowed apron with a wooden spoon, and he realized he liked it. Nobody here had read a word of his book. Nobody knew who he was.The dish was fresh pasta."We start with a well," Dominic said, pouring flour onto the counter and pressing a hollow in
Chapter 234The ListAaron arrived at nine on Christmas morning with a notebook.He stood on the porch in a scarf that his housekeeper had clearly knitted, holding a small paper bag of pastries in one hand and a spiral notebook in the other. His hair was damp. His grin was the dangerous one, the one that meant he had been plotting."Absolutely not," Leon said."You haven't even seen it.""You're holding a notebook. That's always a bad sign.""It's a *list*." Aaron stepped inside, kicked the snow off his boots, and gave Leon's mother a kiss on the cheek that made her blush. "Merry Christmas, Mrs. Carter. I brought croissants. Don't tell anyone they're from the bakery.""They look wonderful, dear.""They're mediocre. I'm a coward about baking."Leon's father looked up from his armchair, where he and Daniel were sorting letters into piles by year. "Is that the boy with the notebook?" he asked mildly."It's a list, sir.""Of what?""Everything Leon and I never got to do." Aaron held it up
Chapter 233The Offer on Christmas NightLeon took the call in the church parking lot, sitting in the passenger seat of his mother's car with the heater off and his breath fogging the windshield.He had meant to wait until they got home. But Delphine had said *no matter how late*, and his hands wouldn't stop shaking, and Aaron had stood at the car window with snow on his shoulders and said, "Just call. I'll hold the door."So he called.She picked up on the first ring."Leon. Merry Christmas. I hope I haven't interrupted anything.""My father just gave a sermon that made half the parish cry.""Good heavens.""It's a long story.""I look forward to it." Her voice was warm and dry, but under it he could hear something brighter, a thread of barely contained excitement. "I'll be quick, because I suspect you'd like to go home. Harlow & Vane has made an offer."Leon stopped breathing."It's the house I mentioned. Spring list, hardcover debut, a first print run that I'm told is, and I quote,
Chapter 232The Sermon He Didn't WriteSt. Brendan's was full by seven.Leon had never seen it so crowded on Christmas Eve. People stood along the back wall in their good coats, and children sat cross-legged in the aisle with candles in paper cups. The air smelled of pine and wax and wet wool. Somewhere near the front, a choir of nervous teenagers was running through the last verse of a carol.He sat in the second pew between his mother and Daniel, who had borrowed one of Matthias's old ties and kept straightening it. In the pew behind them, to Leon's complete astonishment, sat Aaron, next to his father.Gerard Blake hadn't been to church in a decade. He looked as though he'd been invited to a hostile negotiation. But he'd come, and Aaron had caught Leon's eye across the nave and given him a small, nervous, lopsided smile."Is he all right?" Daniel whispered, nodding toward the altar.Leon looked up.His father stood in the sacristy doorway in his white vestments, one hand pressed aga
Chapter 231The Man with the BoxDaniel Reyes arrived on the twenty-third, in a rented sedan, forty minutes early.Leon watched from the upstairs window as the car crawled up the street and parked at the curb. A thin man in a long gray coat got out, stood on the pavement, and did not move. He held a cardboard box against his chest with both arms. He looked at the house for a long time, the way a person looks at a place they have only ever imagined."Dad," Leon called down the stairs. "He's here."There was a pause.Then a sound Leon had never heard in this house, a chair knocked sideways, and his father's footsteps going very fast, then very slowly, then stopping dead in the hallway."I cannot open the door," Matthias said."You don't have to. I'll get it.""I cannot open the door, Leon. My hands are..." He held them up. They were shaking so badly that his wedding ring clicked against his watch.Leon came down, took one of those hands in both of his, and held it until the trembling ea
Chapter 230The Last Day of AutumnDecember came in quietly, with frost on the windows and a gray light that never quite became morning.Everything had changed, and nothing felt different. Leon still woke at six. He still walked the same blocks to the same school with the same backpack. But the whispers had thinned into something almost ordinary, and by the second week of the month, a girl he'd never met stopped him in the hall to ask if he'd sign her copy of a printout. He stared at her for a full five seconds before he managed to say yes.The scholarship was reinstated on the ninth. The board's letter arrived with an apology so carefully worded it almost wasn't one, and a line at the bottom confirming that the missing funds would be recovered and redistributed. His father read it twice at the kitchen table, folded it into precise thirds, and said, "Well." From Matthias Carter, it was practically a parade.Daniel Reyes called every Sunday now.Leon heard them through the study door s
Chapter 1Leon was hunched over his desk, the blue glow of his computer reflecting on his sweet filled face. His room was filled with silence and the only sound slicing through the air was him clicking away at his keyboard. The words he typed didn’t register in his eyes. Instead, they took form, i
Chapter 5By the time Leon had walked through the front door of his house, the world began to spin. The fever had not subsided. If anything, it had gotten worse. His face burned as the hallway seemed to titled as he walked through it. The familiar scent of Oakwood drifted through the house, mixing
Chapter 4The entire classroom was plunged into an eerie silence. It didn’t take long for the sound of flesh slapping together to resume. The squelching sounds coming from Aaron sliding his cock in and out of her wet hole filled the air.Leon was a trembling mess. His heart slammed against his ribs
Chapter 3The ice bath had left Leon trembling throughout the night. When morning reached, the cold has turned into a burning fever than clung on to his skin. His head throbbed with a dull ache, and every joint in his body hurt like he had run a marathon race in his sleep.For a moment, he consider







