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Attraction. Love.

I couldn’t even think it out loud.Love.I knew all about love. I had loved my son with everything I was from the day I first met him. It had been an undeniable bond, and that violently passionate nature he possessed? I knew it because I had it too. Just in a more subtle way.

Attraction, though? A complicated beast that I wasn’t sure I’d ever truly mastered.

Or maybe I was, again, just lying to myself. I was not attracted to Dylan Scotland. I had absolutely no intention of him being anything but a very dear friend.

A friend whom I hugged. A friend whom I had shared a bed with. And there was absolutely nothing weird or wrong about that.

I roared in frustration, grabbing a pillow and hurling it across the room.

Then I rang my son, because I needed to hear his voice.

“Dad,” he scolded me, looking at the state of me, sat topless on the bed.

“I know it’s evening time here and far too early over where you are, but I pulled an all-nighter with Dylan.”

“DAD!” he shouted as Gray appeared on the screen. “You what?”

“We worked.” Oh, hell. “Look, he had to get a load of paperwork organised, and I helped him.”

“Of course you did,” Gray smarmed while Reuben made disgusted noises at me.

“We don’t want to hear about your sex life.”

“Stop!” I shouted. “It’s not like that.”

“Of course it’s not.” Reuben grimaced. “Dad. Stop it. Whatever you’re getting up to with that hot neighbour, we don’t want to know.”

“I hope you’re getting some,” said Gray.

I hated him. Honestly. What had I been thinking? But then he appeared on screen and smacked a loud kiss on my beloved son’s cheek, and I suddenly loved them both again. Because they were happy, and that made me happy.

“We’re friends. I’m allowed to have friends.”

“Dad, you’re pathetic. Just own up. You think he’s hot. We already know that.”

“He’s a handsome man.” I’d said it before, and now I regretted even having mentioned him. At all.

“Have a fling, Dad.”

“I’m a straight man, Reuben.”

That made the two of them explode into hysterics.

“What was it you said to me back then? ‘You may not be gay, but your boyfriend is’?”

More laughter as I took it all back. Again.

“You may be a straight man, Dad, but you’re also pretty delusional.”

“I’m nothing of the sort,” I tried to defend myself. What were they on about? Well. I knew. We’d had these discussions once or twice, mostly when the subject of me dating and meeting women and again me refusing to engage in their pathetic games of going on dating sites and signing myself up for all sorts came up. I had no interest in that.

“I’m too old,” I tried weakly. The two of them just laughed again.

“No, you’re not. You said it yourself. You’re lonely. If you’re not going to hang out with the hot neighbour, then maybe you should take that lady out for a glass of wine.”

“Who?” I knew full well who they meant.