Colin pulled Joshua back against his body and murmured in his ear. “You’ll be an honor roll student inmyclassroom!”
Joshua smiled and nuzzled his hair. “Do I get extra credit?”
Colin’s voice dropped an octave. “Yeah. But you’ll have toworkfor it.”
After David and Nate left, they climbed the stairs to their bedroom, worn out both physically and emotionally. “Josh, how long has it been since the explosion?”
“You don’t remember?”
“I’ve lost track. I swear I have.”
Joshua lifted his head and stared at his husband.
Colin stood beside their new chest of drawers, leaning on it with one arm, his head low. After a moment, Joshua moved to his side.
“My darling, it’s been almost seven months since the explosion. But a lot has happened in that time. You lost two friends. We lost our home. You lost yourself. You went to Ireland, you came home again, you returned to the CAO, you became a law professor…” He paused and drew in a deep breath. “And somewhere in the midst of all that change”—he kissed Colin with infinite tenderness—“you found yourself again.”
Colin stared into his eyes, breathing slow and deep. When he finally spoke, his voice was low and filled with love. “Without you, I’d still be wandering that dark, lonely road.”
Joshua’s smile was soft, but he shook his head, his palm lifting to rest against Colin’s cheek. “Please don’t underestimate your own strength, Colin.”
“I don’t. But I also know where that strength comes from.”
Later, they lay in bed together, quiet, close. Until, finally, Colin shifted. “Want me to read you a bedtime story?”
“I’d love it.”
He reached to one side and drew up his journal.
Joshua smiled as Colin thumbed through the pages, the leather cover soft and worn from travel. “I’m glad you keep it close by.”
“Wasn’t my plan,” Colin said, a touch of humor under his breath. “But the damned thing just found its way up here.” He opened it near the middle, where the paper had wrinkled from a light rain. His finger paused on a passage. “Here,” he said, clearing his throat gently. “This one’s from Galway. The morning I started walking.”
Joshua tucked closer beneath the blankets, his hand resting lightly on Colin’s chest. “Read it to me.”
And Colin did. Slowly, his voice steady, low, still laced with the echo of faraway wind and the crunch of gravel under boots. It wasn’t a love letter, but it was. More than a memory. More than a moment. A description of sea air and the smell of peat smoke, the feel of a stone wall beneath his palm, the search for the ancient, green postbox, the way the sky opened like a promise he wasn’t sure he deserved.
But amid the words filled with pain, guilt, aching loss, and a passionate love of Ireland were words like ‘my beloved,’ and ‘my soul can’t breathe without you.’
And by the time Colin closed the journal, Joshua’s cheeks were wet. “Thank God you came home,” he wept.
Colin turned, pressing his lips to Joshua’s temple. “Just know this,” he said softly. “I never once forgot where home was.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
THE START OF SOMETHING REAL
The hallway outside Slaughter Hall, Room 284, buzzed with energy—first-week nerves, the rustle of backpacks, the low thrum of whispered gossip.
Colin stood just outside the door, one hand resting on the knob.
The placard beside it read:
Criminal Procedure – Professor C. Campbell-Abrams.
He exhaled slowly. Steady. Focused.
This wasn’t court. It wasn’t home. But it mattered—more than he had ever expected.
