The Rest of Forever

by Kate Aaron

When they were eighteen years old, Paul told his best friend that he was in love with him. Scared and stupid, Jack ran away. Seven years later, haunted by what he lost, Jack returns to claim the man who'd been his since they were four years old. But has he left it too late?

Photo Description: Two shirtless men embrace, seconds away from kissing. The black-haired man looks down at his lover, one hand holding his face; his thumb just brushing against the smaller man’s parted lips. His lover’s eyes are closed as he leans towards the other man’s chest, his expression longing.

This story was written as a part of the M/M Romance Group's "Love is Always Write" event. Group members were asked to write a story prompt inspired by a photo of their choice. Authors of the group selected a photo and prompt that spoke to them and wrote a short story.

Read the story online or find it in Love Is Always Write: Volume 8.



WARNING. This book contains explicit scenes unsuitable for readers under eighteen. It also contains buckets of angst, crying in the rain, a jealous boyfriend and a very lonely bear.

Available free from Amazon

Genres: M M Romance, Romance, Contemporary, Friends To Lovers, Short Stories, LGBT, Gay

40 pages, ebook

First published May 17, 2012

About the author

Born in Liverpool, Kate Aaron is a bestselling author of the #1 LGBT romances What He Wants, Ace, The Slave, and other works.

Kate swapped the North West for the Midwest in October 2015 and married award-winning author AJ Rose. Together they plan to take over the world.

Reviews

[Exina]

Paul and Jack once were best friends, up until Paul confessed his love for Jack. Jack, “young and dumb as fuck,” and thinking love is only a fairy tale, runs away. After a long line of one-nighters and seven years of longing, Jack is back to his hometown, trying to win Paul’s heart back.

The Rest of Forever is a wonderful second chance story. The connection between Paul and Jack is undeniable and beautiful. The story is told from Jackie’s viewpoint: his narration is intense, his feelings are palpable.

He's called me Jackie since forever. As much as I protest I hate it, I don't and he knows. I probably tell him five times a day to stop calling me that, but if he ever did I think I'd shrivel up and die.

Highly recommended!

[Drusilla]

Starting the week with something short and beautiful.
This is a second chance story whose narrator Jackson didn't exactly make a sympathetic impression on me. A longer book might have made me think twice about continuing to read about the stupidity he started in his youth. And he doesn't really deserve to be forgiven by Paul.
But, it's a short story and, as I said, it's beautifully written.
Also, the heartbreak in the second part of the book is so intense that I shed tears. And books that make me cry always win.

I’m hurting more than I ever thought possible and I want to die. How can I live knowing Paul will never be mine, that my last hope has gone? Why would I want that life? I struggle to catch my breath, gulping for air, the sound rasping against my bruised ribs as pain lances through my chest like I’ve been stabbed. 😭💔😭

[Heather K (dentist in my spare time)]

I loved this charged, angsty, free read from Kate Aaron. It was SO emotional and well-written. I felt all of their emotions and was completely sucked into the story. Don't miss this novella!

[Steelwhisper]

This is so utterly lovely, erotic, romantic and realistic at the same time that it gives me one huge warm fuzz of wellbeing. Sweet and hot in the very, very best sense! Major kudos for pulling off a love triangle in a believable and ethical manner, drawing out the conflict and misery from the upright behaviour of the intruder. Just wonderful.

[Ele]

I always wanted to read something by this author, and this free short seemed like a good choice.

It was unexpectedly good, and there was something original about the writing, I can't really pinpoint. Rough around the edges and gritty, but also sensual and poignant.

And, although, it ended far too abruptly for my taste, these last few lines left me deeply satisfied.

Very well done. I'll definately check out more from this author.

[Gigi]

Wow! Lots of serious emotion in this one! I cried during almost 70%. Well worth the tears, an almost perfect friends-to-lovers story about a man with terrible timing.

Highly recommended!

[Arthur]

I'm against the tide here, but I don't feel sympathetic for character who made a mistake in the past (and present) and somebody else has to pay for it. It maybe strange, but my favorite character in the story is Curt. He fell victim to somebody else's bad decision. That the main character is an asshole doesn't mean Curt is one too. Yes, he's rude sometimes, but how do you feel having a boyfriend that clearly cares more about somebody else?

[Zuzu]

I didn’t rate this the first time I read this. I can’t say I really liked this story as it’s WAY too angsty for me. But it was well written and has an HEA.

[Kelly (Maybedog)]

This was romantic and sweet and adorable and I loved it. It wasn't perfect but it was very enjoyable. Except when I was crying. Because I did. A lot. For example:

"I clutch at the ache, wanting to tear it out, wanting to rid my shattered heart from my chest and fling it from me. My wet shirt plasters itself to my skin and I half-expect to see the russet bloom of blood soaking through as I look down. How can pain this intense not show a wound?"

The pain was described very well, although he's quite obsessive about his long lost love to the point that it would have been really freaky scary in real life. I also don't really get why it took him so long to go back.

I did want Jack to tell Paul many of the things he thought to himself but I understand in the book we don't need repeating and there wasn't really a good time to keep the pacing right.

The main character's self-deprecating comments about his look in which he describes a gorgeous man are annoying and unnecessary. One really funny comment, though was:

"I live in fear of going grey...because I know when I do I'll look like a fucking badger..."

I really liked how at the end, Paul didn't blame anything on Curt, even though Curt was an ass at the end. I'm glad everything was just about Paul and Jack.

4.5 stars rounded up to five because the writing was so good.

[Sarah (is clearing her shelves)]

25/6 - Starting this now (as in, in the middle of another book) because it's short and I'm very behind on my reading challenge and because I'm 'watching' footy with my dad and lights aren't allowed to be on while watching the footy, so *light bulb* eBook on my laptop. To be continued...

30 mins later - Good writing, good characters. I just wish so much of the story hadn't been spent in Jack's head, there's too much time spent with Jack berating himself for not realising his true feelings earlier and not enough face-to-face interaction between Jack and Paul. Definitely made me wish it had been made into a full length novel.

[LenaRibka]

Between 2,5 and 3 stars

I feel a bit pity for this novella, but from the other hand, I don't know how it could have been written differently.

The writing was very good and emotionally intense.
The beginning of the story was very promising.

But then it was lost somewhere in the middle and sunk in the histrionic melodramatic of the 1st person's POV.
I never got warm with the MCs.

And almost skipped the last sex scene.

Not a good sign normally.

Though I can imagine that you can like it. It is not bad, it was just not for me.

[Jade]

This made me cry. I don't like to cry but I couldn't help myself. It was beautiful. Thank you for your story.

[Aeren]

Me ha gustado bastante, el drama justo que iba buscando, la narración es fluida y no llega a resultar empalagosa, perfecto.

[Asia]

doszlam do wniosku ze uwielbiam te wszystkie friend to lovers. no uwielbiam. kto bedzie cie najlepiej znal, kto bedzie dokladnie wiedzial czego potrzebujesz, kto wybaczy ci rzeczy najglupsze...slowa najglupsze czyny najglupsze. przyjaciel... sołsołśłit:*

[Serena Yates]

Short, hot, and fun, this free story is about two men who have been best friends forever. In this case, they both know they're gay though, and they split up when Jackson 'ran away' seven years earlier. In this nice variation on the 'best friends' theme, we get to see the story from Jackson's point of view; he is the one who did the running, only to come back regretting that he didn’t have the courage to admit he loves Paul rather than evade his feelings.

Jackson has a problem, since Paul now has a boyfriend, clearly having moved on. Jackson has to figure out what to do, because one thing is certain: he loves Paul more than ever and he wants to have a relationship with him that goes far deeper than friendship. He only recently started to understand his own confused ideas about friendship and love, and how they don’t have to be mutually exclusive. As much as he wishes it was easier to reconnect with Paul, he has a lot to make up for, and he knows it.

Paul is a great guy and I really felt for him. All the signs he gave before Jackson even left were always overlooked, and even though he was courageous enough to tell Jackson about his feelings before the man ran off, Jackson left him behind and broke his heart. The pain is still visible, but it takes the much older Jackson quite a while to figure all of that out.

Told with a great sense of humor, and including some pretty funny observations, I enjoyed this story a great deal. If you like to read stories about second chances, if you enjoy lots of emotions and romance without sappiness, and if you're looking for a short read that will make you smile, give this one a try.

[Vivian]

Brilliant. This story made me laugh, a lot, and want to cry at the same time. The scathing, yet self-pitying retrospective is hysterical and the pain is tragic.

One of many, favorite quotes:
I live in fear of going grey – at twenty-five, a possibility that gets more likely by the day – because I know when I do I’ll look like a fucking badger, and then I’ll have to dye it.

[Richard]

I read this wonderful little book over the holidays and gave it a 4 star rating. I just reread it and apparently I was quite a Scrooge during Christmas.

I have added the deserved 5th star.

40 pages of wonderful.

[Andrea AKA Catsos Person]

Many thanks to the author for participating in the DRitC event, hence, a 4-star rating.

Flashback: Jackie and Paul were childhood best friends who realized high-school that they were both gay. They both sneak into bars to find men for hookup sexual encounters, but only Jackie “hooks up.” Paul isn’t interested in random sex. He wants sex to mean something, besides, he’s in love with his best friend (surprise!). Paul eventually tells Jackie he’s in love with Jackie. Jackie rejects his love (surprise!), because he believes it will “ruin” their friendship and leaves town and has broken Paul’s heart.

Now: After years of random sex, and never having a boyfriend or any type of committed relationship, Jackson realizes that he loves Paul and returns.

The story is Jackson’s 1st person POV impressions and experience of first-time love and all of the agony and ecstasy that it involves, especially when the object of affections has a boyfriend. An emotional roller coaster.

[Bubbles Hunty Honest & Direct Opinions]

The writing was really good. The story wasn't my style though.

The mc was way too slutty for me (the stereotypical gay slut)

The reader doesn't really get to know the other guy at all or even know the mc really. The story is almost entirely made up of depressing thoughts or slutty memories.

I felt really bad for the one guys boyfriend for over a year (six months of which the MC was back in the picture). And the whole thing with him seemed like it was just written so you would sympathize with the mc and not care how much that poor guy was getting screwed over in this whole ordeal. And I never warmed up to the mc and he was right he didn't deserve the other guy.

And it ends kind of a abruptly. Like what happened with guys boyfriend? He lived with him, where did he move? Did he care at all he led him on for a year? Six months of which was with mc back in the picture.

So yeah not a story for me, but like I said the writing was good and kept me reading to the end so three stars and it's free...

[Nicky]

Another free ebook from All Romance Ebooks, which I really have to stop looking at now. It's got more of a build-up than the other books I've read from there recently, but since it revolves around strong emotion, the fact that I didn't connect with the characters got in my way. I skimmed the sex scene -- I'm not interested in sex scenes where it's all about bodily fluids and so on; I'm much more interested in sex scenes as a moment of connection/communion, and without the emotional investment, this whole story fell flat.

It's quite a typical storyline, really, too, which doesn't help: best friends in love, one guy runs away in fear, spends the rest of his life regretting it and eventually tries to fix the situation. Yawn.

[CrabbyPatty]

3/5/16 - Edited to add a written review. Do you regret something you said or did when you were 18 years old? Yup, me too. For Jack, it's running away from his best mate Paul when Paul told Jack he loved him. After looking for love in the big city, he returns home only to find that he had it all along and threw it away.

This short story packs a huge emotional punch, and it's gut-wrenching to read Jack's realization what "the rest of forever" for him could become.

[~ Dαni(ela) ♥ ♂♂ & semicolons ~]

3.5 stars

[Janeylou]

4.25 stars

[Akknieszka]

♥♥♥

[Gaufre]

Lovely short story.

[Ami]

3.5 stars
Seven years ago, when they were just 18 years old, Paul told his best friend, Jack, that he loved Jack. Unfortunately, it scared the heck out of Jack because he wasn't ready for such love. Only when he was away from Paul, did Jack realize his own feeling. Now, seven years later, he returns home -- only Paul already has someone new ...

...

Awwww, the angst!! The story is quite emotional. Written from Jack's point of view, we get him lamenting about the past (where he rejected Paul) and present (where he realizes he truly loves Paul, and that it's too late because Paul has a new lover).

I can't help wanting Paul to ditch his new boyfriend and takes Jack back. I guess the story makes it easy, because Paul's boyfriend is a d*ck. I know it's cliché -- and it probably will make a more complicated (if not better) story, if Paul's boyfriend is kind. But well, for a short story, this quite delivers.

[Wendy❤Ann]

Wow – It felt like my own inner anxiety kept rising the further into the story I got. Jack learned his lesson of loss in a spectacular way, but thank God for second chances. It was perfect that the story was told from Jack’s POV – it really upped the emotional tug and made someone who could have been perceived as a jerk (yeah, okay, he really “was” a jerk at one time) seem human and worth rooting for! This one made me laugh and made me sniffle a time or two. Simply put, I loved it!!!

[Neko]

This is seriously the most beautiful story I have ever read.

I was on the emotional roller coaster of my life. I will never, ever forget this story. Seriously. I actually cried... omg... Just.. just beautiful!!

A. MUST. READ.

[Bati]

❤❤❤❤
na jednym tchu. bez tchu. rozdygotana i szczęśliwa.
reszta wieczności im wystarczy.

[Mirjam]