Charles26

So do I. Matt is the sort of youngster I would have liked to have been; Kitt is probably closer to the reality (though my father certainly wasn't THAT bad!) But I fear that Kitt will come in for a lot of grief before the end.

I couldn't have put it better myself, so I won't try. Of course the ending leaves all sorts of practical questions completely open but it deals firmly with the key one: they are a couple and they know it!

Apparently the only one even slightly surprised by events was Noah. Somehow I'm not surprised by that. But yes indeed - very cute. Mills & Boone?? Pul-lease. That's not fair😛Much better quality!

Noah's success means more to Jackson than his own (possible) glory. I guess that's what love is all about. Lovely chapter.

Perhaps the only certainty offered by this chapter is that, sadly, Oliver's ankle will never be fully restored. But in exchange Oliver has Julien, and Julien has Oliver. We don't know how - they don't know how - but I have no doubt that they will find a way to stay together for the long term. Probably the very long term. Neither may talk all that much but they do communicate effectively. And they love each other. I'm just sorry that we've come to the end of the story. And if the discussion about each chapter got somewhat lively from time to time it's because we cared about the story and we cared about Oliver and Julien - and I think that's an outcome any author can take pride in. So, my thanks also @Kevin Snell

It does, doesn't it. Noah sitting there with his head resting on Jackson's shoulder - it's about as intimate as you can get in public without risking arrest. So in the unlikely event that anyone in the club didn't already know, they surely must now. And that's great, since they are obviously perfectly comfortable with it. But sooner or later the fans are going to wake up to it too. I wonder how they will take the news.

Je souhaite qu'il ne parte pas - qu'ils ne partent pas. "Close enough to an answer." I think they both want to stay together but are edging oh so very slowly to making that commitment. "“What do you want?” Julien said. ... the answer was simple and the simple answer frightened [Oliver] more than any complicated one would have." Very nicely put.

Oliver's feet in that icy cold water... It reminds me: we were walking in the Pyrennees just on the snow line in early July some years ago. We had to cross a shallow stream and the only realistic option was barefoot. It was snow-melt and cold. (And we had to return the same way later!) But I saw toad-spawn and tadpoles very nearby. When I reached in to scoop them up the tadpoles didn't swim away - they didn't have the spare energy - but somehow they survived. Amazing. (I put them back, of course!)

Losing someone you love is never likely to lead up to a happy ending, exactly, but this comes as close as makes no difference. Good story and thank you @Boy Mercury X

I wonder just how much sleep they got. It will be a shame if it puts them off their game when they finally get to the rink😍 Great chapter - got there at last.

Hmm. Do I gather that Dixie Mae is not greatly loved by the readership? Whatever happened to "hate the sin but love the sinner" or indeed "judge not...". But I agree she seems to have got some of what was coming to her!😁

Well. After the trauma of the previous chapter, this is a relief. But there will be a lot of healing required.

There are, naturally, other "back story" elements that remain unexplained. Perhaps they will never be explained, like Tolkien's cats of Queen Beruthiel in the Lord of the Rings (though his son gave the game away much later), and just add to the richness of the story tapestry. Even so, I'm curious. Most obviously, what happened with Oliver's father that he is so rarely mentioned? Is it connected to his mother's inability to discuss important emotions directly? Does it have a bearing on Oliver's compulsion to manage things and people? And what happened to Julien, that he should favour one knee when sitting? I had thought it might have been the same accident as Thomas, but seemingly not.

Reconstruction. First, the ankle. It was never going to be easy. In "The Boot Comes Off" we are told "Julien walked at Oliver’s pace ... the pace was faster now, closer to the rhythm they’d had on the trail before the injury, but not the same. It wouldn’t be the same. Oliver knew this... It was a fact. He accepted it." The question is whether that is a temporary thing or, quite possibly, a permanent one. This chapter's walk leaves that unanswered. Second, their relationship. Walking together has defined what they do together and it's hardly surprising that they will want to start again. Another metaphor, perhaps. I find it interesting that though he doesn't say too much and he's not especially demonstrative, Julien is always there, he observes everything, especially concerning Oliver, and he responds as the situation requires. And precisely because he's not especially demonstrative, his gestures carry a lot of weight when they do put in an appearance. I do think Julien is trying to mend his great flaw just as much as Oliver, but the fear he is fighting to overcome is probably more acute than Oliver's.

One small uncertainty removed: Eric has died. Not that there was much doubt, but... So far, so sad.

Dare I even ask the question? Is Noah ... growing up? (Gasp.) Not being a hockey expert, I had to concentrate (a bit) on what exactly was happening on the ice but the overall picture is clear enough. Jackson and Noah can be a joint key element in a winning team even without being the exclusive goal scorers. And it looks as though that will be good for their inchoate relationship as well. Another lovely chapter in a heart-warming (and funny) story.

My immediate reaction was "thank goodness for that". And after careful consideration and two re-readings my current reaction is "thank goodness for that". "and inside the apartment two men who had been careful with each other for weeks were no longer careful, and not being careful was its own version of trust." isn't exactly explicit but it says a great deal - much more about the way their relationship is developing than about whatever exactly they are doing in the bedroom. It seems that Oliver has also discovered something about how to talk to his mother. "the difference was in what he was about to do, which was tell her something that mattered. Something he’d never done in eleven minutes on a Sunday." I think that he is becoming much more comfortable, with others of course but also with himself. And I think that Julien is at last escaping from what he "normally kept behind the stillness—the cost of six years of leaving, the exhaustion of it, the loneliness that walked beside competence and self-sufficiency and looked, from the outside, like peace." and is finding true peace with Oliver.

I wouldn't say that Jackson has had quite the same road to Damascus moment as Noah had in the last chapter but he's definitely moving in the right direction. They'll get there in the end.

Perhaps because he isn't? Julien admits he was basically looking for an excuse to walk away because he was so afraid of caring and then losing.

In that open conversation neither of them used the word "sorry" but each of them offered an honest explanation and each of them offered himself to the other. I would say that saying sorry is easy but baring your soul is hard, especially when you do it to the the person you care most about and most fear losing.

They both want the relationship to work and each has been honest about the great failing that he brings to it, and for both of them offering that honesty has been painful and difficult. And I think that they are both decent men, if admittedly imperfect, and if they go on to build a life together, as I think they will, they will be doing so knowing each better "warts and all" from the start than very many couples ever manage to do. All in all, a remarkable conversation. But they do love each other. Meanwhile I am astonished that it should be permissible or even potentially useful to ask for a second opinion on the original accident report. However you look at it, this is not "procedural". It must be agonising for Julien, poor guy.

Indeed yes. Bingo! Noah is no longer in denial. Jackson, meanwhile, is in the treatment room or with the trainers. I wonder what he is thinking. But they're at least half-way there!

Not just the French. An acquaintance of a friend who lives in Girona has two passions. One of them is wildlife preservation, and he has bought land and constructed a viable wildlife reserve. My friend took us to meet him and visit his reserve. It's really very impressive. His second passion is Catalan independence. He doesn't speak English, I don't speak Catalan. He speaks bad French, mine is better. He can speak excellent Castillian ("Spanish"), my Spanish is significantly better than his French. So of course we spoke... French. He refuses point blank to speak Castillian inside the borders of Catalunya, whatever the circumstances, though he is quite happy to speak it in other areas of Spain. For him it is the language of the foreign, occupying power. His reserve, his choice; but it did make communication very laboured!

Nor could I, to be honest. But it is very Christian; Matthew 6.34 "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

“Continuez. En français.” Perhaps a little disappointing but in the time and place pretty certainly highly significant. Julien ne tutoie pas encore. Plus tard, si tout va bien ? Oliver's conjugations haven't mentioned "vous" yet... Oliver's struggle to master French, to put together a new language and a new way of speaking from disordered fragments by just doing it and coping with the mistakes, is a moving metaphor for his parallel effort to assemble a new way of living and of loving. And that, of course, is something he is desperate to accomplish and to demonstrate. Meanwhile Julien still has his own painful struggle as the demands of the insurers stretch out interminably, threatening to crush him. Not the most comfortable of chapters in what is not the easiest of stories, but excellently written.