A Series of Rooms (Liam & Jonah's Story Book 1)

by A.J. Barlowe

How thin was the line between one person’s responsibility to another and a breach of boundaries?

Jonah let his face fall into his hands and sobbed, one broken, strangled sound that led to another until he was weeping openly without really knowing why. Perhaps it was the lingering guilt that remained despite Liam’s assurances. Maybe they were tears of relief, wrought with inexplicable gratitude that his attempts to push Liam away hadn’t worked. He had refused to take the easy out that Jonah had gifted him, and decided instead to push back. To fight for him in a way no one had ever bothered to do.

Sneaking around wasn’t really in Liam’s repertoire. For that matter, neither was commuting to the city every weekend to live out some fucked up Pretty Woman fan fiction, but hey. Life comes at you fast.

“Maybe you’re too forgiving of me,” Jonah said. “There’s nothing to forgive.”

All his life, Liam had been sheltered from the monsters that only existed in stories and headlines—the parents who put their children out on the street for the crime of existing, and the people who exploited that vulnerability for their own gain. The world was different now that he could put a face to the darkness he had only ever known about in the abstract.

He sat back, watching the scene unfold around him like an interactive Hallmark movie. The graying fathers watching sports and talking about their corporate jobs, the mothers clad in cashmere sweaters and polka-dotted aprons, not a hair out of place. This was the only life that Liam had ever known. This was the warmth of his privilege, to be so secure in his comfort that he could resent it.

if they could have opened their hearts, just a little, to the boy who had come to them for love and acceptance, everything could have been different.

Jonah closed his eyes and wondered what it would be like to see the beauty of this city through the lens of someone who hadn’t seen its ugliest parts.

“I just can’t make it make sense in my head. I can’t understand how I could love you after everything you did, but you couldn’t even love me enough to just accept me for who I am.”