Until I Saw You (Until I Saw You #1)

by Dianna Roman

“Ugh. No, thank you,” he groans. “Uh, I don’t think it’s a good idea to feed him those,” he cautions. “I can still taste his farts from the drive home.”

Maybe in another life, there’s a gay Riley for a guy who’s gotten everything wrong in this one.

“We take chances on people, the same way they take chances on us. If we didn’t, everybody’d be alone.”

Going blind might have been the best thing that ever happened to me. It brought me Harper.

Twenty minutes into the most terrifying game of darts I’ve ever played, we’ve attracted several onlookers who, like me, have probably never seen a blind man throw darts. Like everything else he does, he excels at it though, only hitting the wall beyond the board a few times. And the question on my mind about him growing bored with me, certainly isn’t happening tonight.

How have I fallen for a straight man who’s a gay Don Juan? Whatever liquid he wants me to be, I’m a puddle on the floor.

All I can think as I blink stupidly at the darkness in the room, at the heat of my lover in front of me, shying his face away from mine is that I love him. I love him so much that I’d give him anything. I just wish that anything wasn’t the absence of me.

“I don’t need you. Not in the ways you think.” Turning his body toward me, he grips my hand. “I need you to be happy. I need you to laugh at me and with me. I need to know when you’re sad so I can hold you and cheer you up. And I need you to stop finishing the job that asshole started. You said the other day that you’ve got nothing to offer anyone. That’s him talking. That’s not what I think and not how you should think about yourself. Nobody should beat you up anymore, including yourself.”

“I miss you,” he whispers. “I miss you too,” I confess. “Then…can we try again?” Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

“I love you. I love you so much it hurts. I thought I had to stop it before it hurt me even more, but it only made it hurt worse being without you.” As his head drops to my chest and he clutches onto me, I close my eyes, absorbing the gift of his confession. “I’m sorry I hurt you,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to my neck. “I’m so sorry.”

“I think I’ve been ready for you my whole life.” Riley. My Riley.