Just a Bit Unhealthy

Gabriel lifted his gaze to him, his eyes the only color on his pale face. “You told me to walk on my own.” A crooked smile curled his lips. “That was me walking on my own. I think I did pretty well, don’t you think? I scored two goals.”
Jared stared at him. “Don’t do this to yourself.”
“Why? Why do you care?”
Jared stepped closer and hauled him to his feet. “Are you trying to make me feel guilty? Is that it?”
Gabriel shrugged, looking aside, his jaw clenched.
Jared chuckled, shaking his head. “Are you kidding me? So what am I supposed to do? What? Stay by your side, watch you build a family, and be alone for the rest of my life?”
“You said you love me,” Gabriel said, still looking aside, his voice tight. “If you really loved me, you wouldn’t leave me.”
Jared inhaled sharply. “You can’t use this against me. Not this. Do you have any idea how much this sucks? Unrequited love isn’t fun.”

“You’re a weirdo,” he said, stroking Gabriel’s nape and dropping a kiss in his hair.
“But you love me anyway, right?” The neediness in Gabriel’s voice was impossible to miss.
“I love you,” Jared said. The words tasted bittersweet on his tongue, but it was also a relief to be able to say them. He tipped Gabriel’s face up and dragged his mouth gently across Gabriel’s jaw. “I love you.”
Gabriel practically melted into him, tucking his face into the crook of Jared’s neck. “I love you more,” he whispered, brushing his lips against Jared’s throat. A chaste kiss. Chaste words.
But there was nothing chaste about the way his body reacted. Jared’s heart was hammering in his chest, the familiar mix of want and longing, pain and euphoria coursing through his veins.
Jared closed his eyes and wondered if this was how it felt to be between heaven and hell.

⋰⋱⋰⋱⋰⋱*So lacking in depth, but I couldn't find anything else*⋰⋱⋰⋱⋰⋱

“I’m not depressed,” Gabriel said again, as if repeating this would make it true. “I’m just…I just have to wait it out. It will pass. It will. Jared said so.”
Claire cringed at the desperation mixed with belief in his voice. Jared said so. That thing was very far from passing.
What was it? Some kind of messed-up dependency? Love? Could platonic love be that strong? She didn’t know. She was afraid to ask. Afraid of the answer she’d get.
“You miss him,” she murmured, clenching her hands together.
Gabriel laughed. It was a horrible sound. “Miss? I don’t miss him. I…” He trailed off.
When he spoke again, his voice was barely audible and full of resentment, “I just feel empty. Incomplete.”
Claire bit her lip. God.
“It’ll pass,” he whispered hoarsely, grabbing her hands and squeezing. “It will. I promise.”
His grip hurt, but she didn’t complain. “Okay,” she said with far more conviction than she felt. For their child’s sake, she had to believe in that.

“Jay, don’t do this. Please. I can’t—I can’t—”
“You can,” Jared said.“It’s time to walk on your own. You already did it once. You can do it again. This…our relationship…it’s not healthy for you.”
“I don’t give a fuck.” Gabriel squeezed his arms tighter around him. “This is what I need. You.”

“You know the most fucked up part?” Gabriel said, his voice muffled a little. “If Claire falls in love with someone else, I’ll let her go. It would suck, but I would respect her decision. Because I want her to be happy. But it’s different with you. When I imagine you loving someone else—someone else being more important to you than me—it drives me mad. You’re mine. Mine and no one else’s.” His hand fisted Jared’s shirt. His voice became tight. “It’s fucking silly, but I honestly feel like—like you were created for me and no one else has the right to have you.” Gabriel chuckled, still hiding his face in Jared’s shoulder. “Say it: I’m a weirdo. I’m sick.”

⋰⋱⋰⋱⋰⋱*A bit disappointed*⋰⋱⋰⋱⋰⋱

Gabriel bit the inside of his cheek, feeling a physical ache in his gut. He became acutely aware of the sound of the clock’s ticking. Time, slipping away.
He didn’t know what to do.
So he did what he always did when he felt lost, or angry, or upset: he closed his eyes, burrowed closer into Jared’s side and pretended the problems didn’t exist.
He was good at that—as long as he had Jared.
As long as he had Jared.
The clock ticked away.

Oh, Jared, Jared. What's your excuse for being a shoe-debris-catcher? Huh?

That this is an M/M story excuses nothing, silliness transcends sexual proclivities. I won't say much to spoil because the Book Blurb does a spiffing job of that.

Essentially, the entire series is premised on the evolution of hetero men who find themselves thrust into situations that make them question their sexual orientation notwithstanding they'd never been so inclined.

What bothered me about this story was the lack of respect. You cannot be in a sexual relationship with someone while emotionally entangled with another. It happens sure, but that doesn't make it acceptable, IMO. You cannot have a child with someone, be neglectful of said child and mother, who BTW are living with you while obsessing over another to the point you bring said person to live in the same house with you, the GF and the baby.

That the said other person is a man, is hardly relevant. If a guy had done the same with a woman he was obsessed with, the GR community would probably go apoplectic, brimming with righteous hailstones and indignant fire. While we may likely overlook the living in the same house thing however, crawling into bed- at every opportunity- to snuggle with the OW/OM cannot be ignored! Dress it up as an obsession, warped love, childishness or whatever, still, it's crass.

Aside from these, to find that the OM is, at 30, a decade older than the love interest, begs the question: Jared, why are you a shoe-debris collector? That the younger love interest is hetero and one who tells us (though he acts otherwise) he has zero sexual interest in the OM, makes this all the more disturbing.

I simply could not root for Jared as I had zero respect for his choices. Likewise Gabriel, who acted poorly toward his GF/baby mama and his baby. Love doesn't always conquer all.

"Jared owned him: his heart, his soul, and now his body. He belonged to Jared and Jared belonged to him."

"Truth be told, if it weren’t for Gabriel, Jared would have never left the States in the first place. He had left his home and everyone he knew for the young man who had crawled so deep under his skin, Jared couldn’t imagine being an ocean away from him. But in some ways, being so close was far more painful than he had expected."

""This—this is never going to work. And you know it, or you wouldn’t be hiding Claire’s pregnancy from me. That was stupid, by the way. For how long were you hoping to do it? Sooner or later, I would have found out, anyway. Then what?”"

"Did he love her enough to stay with her? He was young and famous and could have any woman he wanted. That was when her friends advised her to get pregnant and tie Gabriel down once and for all. She had listened to their advice. Had it been the right thing to do? Claire pressed her hand to her belly. It had to be."

"“It has nothing to do with pity. I think it’s pretty fair: I give you something you want, and you give me something I want.”[...]“Just think about it and it will make perfect sense.” His expression softened. “You know how much you mean to me. It won’t gross me out if you kiss me sometimes. If it means I get to keep you, I’ll do it happily.”"

"Gabriel licked the corner of his mouth. “Stay with me.”
“What?”
“Stay at my place,” Gabriel said with more conviction.
“What about...your family?” Your son and his mother.
An unidentifiable emotion flickered across Gabriel’s eyes and was gone so quickly that Jared wasn’t sure he hadn’t imagined it to begin with.
“It’s a big house. Claire doesn’t mind. Really.”
Jared knew he should say no. It was a terrible idea. He had no desire to watch Gabriel with his partner and their child.
“Please?” Gabriel’s green eyes practically pleaded him to agree.
Against his better judgment, Jared said, “Only for a few days, until I find a place to stay.”

"You know he can never love you the way he loves me. You will never be enough for him. So what is the point? Stop ruining our relationship! He was sixteen when you two met. He was an impressionable, vulnerable, paralyzed kid and you took advantage of him—you must have encouraged his weird fixation on you. And now he wants to make you happy.” She laughed.

“Don’t you see you’re coercing him into something he doesn’t want? You make me sick. I have nothing against gay people, but why can’t you stay away from the rest of us and stick to your own kind? There’s nothing more pathetic than a gay man pining for a straight, taken guy. You’re—” Claire stopped mid-sentence and paled."

✨Gabriel and Claire's relationship✨

“...I love you.” Gabriel’s voice, soft and sincere, whispering in his mind. “You can’t say I don’t feel it only because I don’t want you that way. I love you in every way that matters.”

Gabriel scowled. “No.”
“You’re adorable,” Jared said with a smile.
Gabriel’s scowl deepened. “See, I’m right. I’m ‘adorable’ to you. I’ve seen you check out other guys— even that prick Tristan—but you never do it with me.”
Jared looked up, as though asking for patience, and exhaled

Jared shook his head to himself. He’d never understood the fierce rivalry between Gabriel and his adoptive brother, Tristan. They were the same age, both orphans, both loved football and both were incredibly talented, but they couldn’t stand each other.

Everyone had thought Gabriel’s career was over before it even properly began—doctors weren’t optimistic about his chances of walking again, much less returning to football—but Jared made him believe he could do it. And he did. The day he took his first steps without falling, Jared hugged him tightly and whispered, his voice full of pride, “That’s my boy.” And Gabriel never wanted to let go. Jared was his. He didn’t know what he would have done without him.

Gabriel squirmed, tightening his arm around Jared’s middle.
A warm, strong hand settled on his nape. “Gabriel?” Jared’s voice was serious now. Concerned.
Gabriel forced himself not to lean into the touch too much. “They are right, you know: I’m really an asshole.”
Jared went still.
Outside, the blizzard whipped snow against the window.
“All right, what’s wrong?” Jared said slowly.
Gabriel shook his head. “Never mind. Just…promise me something?”
“What?” Jared’s fingers started running through his hair.
Don’t leave me.

There was something about that pale, strange-looking boy that brought out every protective instinct in him. He wanted to see him smile. He wanted to see him happy. He wanted to see him healthy. It had become a bit of an obsession, and in the following seventeen months, Jared found himself spending the little free time he had with Gabriel. The boy did have a difficult personality, but Jared didn’t mind. Gabe was like a wounded animal (a puppy, Jared thought affectionately) that wanted help and comfort but tried to hide it. Through trial and error, Jared had learned how to handle him. When Gabriel threw tantrums, Jared just gave him an unimpressed stare; when Gabriel refused to do exercises “because there was no point,” Jared called him a coward and a quitter; when Gabriel was depressed and started to lose faith, Jared pulled him close and held him, whispering sweet nothings until Gabriel smiled and regained his stubborn belief that everything would be all right.

Clenching his jaw, he looked straight in front of him as Gabriel hugged him. “Thanks,” he muttered, his lips brushing Jared’s ear.
Damn it all. Sometimes Jared felt like killing him. But he let himself wrap an arm around Gabriel and pull him closer. He savored the feel of Gabriel’s body against his and drank in his scent as if it was air and he was a drowning man. It was a special kind of hell: to be so close to him and know he could never have him.

Gabriel bit the inside of his cheek, feeling a physical ache in his gut. He became acutely aware of the sound of the clock’s ticking. Time, slipping away.
He didn’t know what to do.
So he did what he always did when he felt lost, or angry, or upset: he closed his eyes, burrowed closer into Jared’s side and pretended the problems didn’t exist.
He was good at that—as long as he had Jared.
As long as he had Jared.
The clock ticked away.

WHAT.THAT.ACTUAL.FUCK.