Love never dies
an excerpt

“So, knight errant returns!” Grant exclaimed as he spied Jay, and the blonde fond himself cringing. He knew he had not been around much… so, all right, he had not been here once since that blasted charity charade.

He’d kept busy, preparing some of the most evil midterm exams he’d ever come up with, reading tech comedy backlogs, grading essays – did the freshmen get more dim every year or what? – And in general Not Thought Of Her.

And failed pretty much. She ha been stuck in his head, that little smile, the way she had immediately started prying into his personal life. What had happened between him and Helen was none of her business!

At the thought of his ex wife, he felt a slight stab of regret and longing. But he had known for a long while that he had not been the one to make Helen happy. He never had. Annabelle, on the other hand, made Helen absolutely ecstatic….

He sank into the thoughts of Helen, of the family they never had, of the eighteen years they had spent together as he sat down, nursing a beer. Grant’s son, Luke, was DJing and the music was not something he would ever find himself compelled to dance to.

“Well, you know what they say about ducks. If it dresses in black, if it wear its hair long, if it is at a goth club on a Saturday night…”

”It still says goth sucks.”

”I believe the traditional reply here is ‘ you wish.”

“The last goth I was with? Did. Quite frequently.”

”So you know what you’re missing.”

No, he would not think of her, not again! Thinking of Helen, of how things should have been.. it brought back more memories of how things had been – how they had separated, how he’d gone to Ireland... how he had not worn his ring for the first time in ten years during those first months and the rush of freedom it had brought, even though….

Jay shuddered and finished his beer in a single long swallow. He needed something stronger but he knew he was approaching a slippery slope – he would not let himself go, he would not get into the point where…

“What the hell is going on?” Grant’s voice shook him out of his morose thoughts. “Shit, man, you are acting like someone’s dead.”

Jay shook his had. “Not dead,” he said. Thanks to me.