Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'm very fond of Alan. He has a lot of character development over the course of the books, but most of it is off the page, since the books are from Dave and Nick's perspective. That's why I started writing these stories in the first place, for Alan's sake. Then the project expanded to include other characters as well. I've toyed with the idea of writing a whole novel about Alan and Matt, but I have a million other projects so it would have to wait.
Funny thing about this chapter... I hadn't really planned a reconciliation with Nick's mum. I'd been focusing on Nick and Dave, their relationship, how to get them back together again, and then a reader asked me about it, and it was like... oh. Yeah, I should probably give everyone some closure there. So I think I wrote this chapter after I had finished the rest of the book. I'm happy with the way it turned out.
I think people warmed up to him considerably after this. As for Dave's parents, you'll soon have all your questions answered.
Thank you so much! I had a very nice day. Thanks again for commenting! ❤️
Thank you. I'm glad you think so. This chapter and the one before were hard to write, because there's so much pain. But I think there's a lot of hope too. Thanks as ever for commenting!
Yeah, poor Patrick especially, I think. He turned into such a good guy... Not what I had planned for his character originally at all. Thanks for reading and for commenting again!
It's not an excuse, not by any means. But I still feel kind of sorry for him, in spite of it all. Internalised homophobia is such a destructive thing. This story was never meant to make him seem like a better person, but it was meant to make him more human. More complex. Thanks for reading it despite the subject matter, and for taking the time to comment.