Cane23

Aww, how charming!

This is serious, can Danny heal Ryder's shifting ability? Some serious action is waiting our guys!

Human curse - how will the cartels make profit if a small worm can bring eternal youth, health, peace, libido and big dicks...?!? 😱

What a powerful ending to the chapter!!! What Alexander is really saying is: You’re not Brad. You never have been. You’re something else - something I can’t joke with that way, because it means too much. Alexander doesn’t want Lyn to treat him like Brad. So, Alexander is sending a message: I tolerated him for you. But don’t ask me to enjoy it. Alexander is making two incredible honest statements in this chapter. Jealousy - not only about Brad as a rival, but it is also about being the third wheel, the one excluded from a kind of emotional intimacy he couldn’t admit he wanted. “keeping things to myself is wiser,” - interesting line for someone who always speaks what's on his mind. This is not a break in character - it’s a deepening of it. Alexander’s refusal to speak isn’t a failure of his honesty; it’s an evolution from boyish cruelty to adult restraint, from cold clarity to emotional ambiguity. And that ambiguity is where intimacy begins. Brad, once again, misses the emotional pitch entirely. He talks about wedding stress, about Gretchen, about Alexander scoring - as if he and Lyn are still frat boys, unchanged. What’s painful is that Brad is not malicious - he’s sincere, but shallow. Still, at the end of that chapter - when he hesitates, when Alexander notices he “didn’t want to let you go,” and Lyn senses “something unsaid” - that’s the moment when Brad’s mask slips, just for a breath. For the first time we can see that Lyn is opening up a bit, in his own way, and that’s one of the quiet triumphs of this chapter. He’s still performing, still wearing the polished exterior he’s perfected over the years, but he’s no longer hiding entirely behind it. There’s a subtle shift happening: the mask is softening, cracking at the edges, even while he’s still acting. But with Bella, it is the place where he shuts down. This is the one relationship where Lyn cannot perform, cannot sparkle because Bella doesn’t give him space to exist. Finally - the mistress of the ceremony herself! Director and the main actress of this bizarre, pompous and suffocating dinner! This scene is so well written, that even I, as a reader, felt the unpleasantness of sitting on that table! Bella exerts social dominance in subtle but decisive ways. The dinner is hers, not Brad's; she controls access to him. Her matchmaking-style seating strategy is not only controlling but also subtly humiliating. Both Lyn and Alexander are miscast actors in Bella’s dinner play, this 'social theater, and their discomfort quietly allies them again - two brilliant, conflicted men orbiting Brad, still pretending that history hasn’t changed everything.

This is really nice, bitter-sweet story. The most amazing thing about it is the honesty, devoid of all clichés and melodrama. Some friendships are meant for ever, and some loves are never meant to be...

I'm really impressed by you guys, making theories about worms and pandemic... All I can think of is thirteen hundred horny men getting permission to f*ck around relentlessly. My naughty mind... 😜

I was peeking at @Laura S. Fox patreon - Liar and Wolf are finished!

I know, that's why i'm saying...well, at least you like mustard!

I could bet you are a coffee man!

I can imagine situation when, upon return, Kieran starts hugging and kissing Desmond and Ash...they'll think he's finally gone completely mad! 🤣 Who would say that a gossip girl with lavender tea could make such a huge damage... I've expected some resistance and manipulation, but such evil and destruction...wow! Btw, Halric might be manipulated and bewitched, but he is still an arrogant prick! The words: “Crazy pregnancy magic…” were...🤬 Somewhere deep, my romantic soul believed Thalion might be alive... Zereth's punishment should be to go through the same torture!

I've burnt out the last time! Broken people have exhausted me, so...I'm leaving the broken hearts to you, my friends! I'm trying to just enjoy the reading... 😎

Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh, I feel my temperature risin', mm Help me, I'm flamin', I must be a 109, mmm Burnin', burnin', burnin' and nothing can cool me, yeah I just might turn into smoke, but I feel fine 'Cause your kisses lift me higher Like the sweet song of a choir And you light my mornin' sky with burning love

That's what I'm waiting for!

Lyn has learned that love in this house is a negotiation - never freely given, never without its cost. And even when his mother tries, she offers a gesture too late, wrapped in vanity and abandonment. That’s what makes the coat such a loaded symbol: it’s what he needed, but not when he needed it. Just like her love. The belt and the coat in this chapter are not just gifts. They are emotional instruments, symbolic extensions of the mother’s control, her unpredictability, and her deeply ambivalent way of expressing love. The belt is suffocating. It’s not a gift of love. It’s a collar disguised as fashion. The coat 'frees' him, but not freely. It’s given after emotional submission, and it is still marked by her limitations. It’s release with a trace of guilt. Lyn learned to wear his mask at home, long before college, long before Alexander or Brad. The performance he makes during the phone call with Brad is devastating - it shows his emotional double life and the painful price he pays to belong, especially in the eyes of Brad - the one person whose approval matters more than truth.

Maybe not selfish, more arrogant and opinionated and... definitely 'a real piece of work'! When I wrote perfect, I've been thinking about his mask, his Persona, seen by Lyn. Everything seems big at Alexander - big bank account, big chests, big cock... Well, it is the shallow impression full of prejudices, including the Brad's 'stories' which might be, as well, exaggerated. Both Brad and Lyn don't really see Alexander. They don't see behind the mask. And what is there, what kind of hidden insecurities and dramas. It is not easy to maintain the family expectations. All he wanted is Lyn, but his family expected him to get married, have children...and now, ten years later, he is divorced and doesn't seem very happy. Alexander's pining for Lyn and Lyn's pining for Brad makes them more similar than they are aware of it.

To finish the job...so, the 'clairvoyants' have made some sort of a plot. Did Cassandra have something with the disappearance of Theodore's pack? Is the Ryder's pack next? Theodore calls Ryder a liar... All of this looks very suspicious. Theodore might be arrogant and aggressive but, is he, actually, fighting Ryder believing he is defending himself? It looks like Cassandra sent Ryder not to find his mate but in order to alphas kill each other!

@LittleBuddhaTW I've been so happy to see you posted your new story. Someday Out of the Blue is one of the best stories I read (I read it, actually, on another site first and then came here to post Review). Characters, plots...everything is amazing. Mental health tag has made me think for a second, am I ready for a hard topic now... Nevertheless, knowing your writing style, I'm sure you'll find the best way out for your protagonists! All the best, Cane

The longest day! 🌞🌞🌞

I liked that parody as kid! Not sure how impressed would be now...

I agree that Rory's reaction is not very dignified, still, let's not forget one thing - he doesn't know what we know! 😉

From Rory's pov it is Kieran who is thinking with his dick and jeopardize both their relationship and mission. I know it's frustrating, but Kieran was fast jumping to conclusions so many times before so...as you said, Kieran will learn from this a lot! Trust should never be taken for granted!

Legend has it @kbois wrote all the stories for the last year competition! 😜

My thoughts exactly!!! Hormones might push Rory to the extreme but, even without that, from his pov Kieran's behavior really looks suspicious. Add the court gossip and... voilà, there's drama! But, let aside nonexistent triangle, a really beautiful relationship is developing between Kieran and Garran. Garran is becoming a big brother Kieran never had. Kieran's father was cruel dictator. For Kieran, Desmond was a 'weak' priest boy and Craft was more servant than the teacher. When the things calm down and truth comes out; this brotherly bond will mean a lot to both Kieran and Garran. The kind of Rory and Desmond were making before shit started.

This is interesting... What if we strip away pain, betrayal, power, guilt, and even complicity, if we put aside all the ways Nick and Bobby could or should have worked - we’re left not with what’s easiest or healthiest, but with what is most elemental. Looking through that lens, we can say - Adrian is the love of Nick’s life! So, even if Nick couldn't stay, even if Adrian hurt him, even if it was Bobby who gave him softness and care - Nick didn’t just love Adrian, he was shaped by him. We can argue Adrian destroyed Nick’s idealism, or cracked open his darker self, or lured him into the very power games he swore to resist. But we could also say Adrian saw him first. Before Bobby. Before the masks solidified. Finally, Nick loves Bobby, but Adrian is the love of his life. Not because he should be or he deserves to be. But because he always was. Saudade...this beautiful scene between Rafel and Nick is not a movement in the Symphony, it is fado! Rafael is important because he helps Nick stay in the world. Before Rafael, literature was Nick’s refuge and his disguise. It allowed him to feel without exposure, to confess without consequence. Books gave him language for pain but also gave him a way to evade his own. In that sense, literature was Nick’s most elegant form of escapism - a controlled space where he could grieve, love, and remember without having to risk being seen in real time. Rafael disrupts that, not by replacing literature but by restoring its purpose. August - the dog. Octavius Augustus - the first Emperor of Rome. He didn’t call himself king, didn’t seize power. He became power by playing the part of modesty. This is exactly Adrian’s pathology - he performs virtue, curates intimacy, builds an empire around himself through charm, wit, and control while denying (even to himself) that he craves to be adored, obeyed, indispensable. Like Augustus, Adrian never said aloud, I want to rule your world, he simply ensured that he did. So, when August the dog appears to Adrian - gentle, faithful, lingering after the death of his former owner, it’s as if the ghost of the empire Adrian built (and destroyed) is returning to him in an innocent form. Also, August is the month of transformation (Christian holiday Transfiguration is in August) - the arch between the heat of summer and the decay of autumn. This is Adrian’s August moment: a transition from domination to surrender; from the illusion of control to the embrace of grief. A dog, unlike lovers or followers or patients, cannot be manipulated through charm or fear. August’s affection is unconditional, his gaze unflinching, his presence unavoidable. He doesn’t leave when Adrian says something cruel. He doesn’t escalate or withdraw. He simply stays. In that sense, August is the first companion Adrian cannot destroy. Finally, if we look down that beach, who do we see? Man with the dog. Is it Adrian...or, maybe, Richard? If Adrian reaches that place not as exile, not as punishment, but as a way to sit with what is true then he is not becoming Richard the neighbor. He is becoming Richard the Self - the stable, quiet center of the psyche that Adrian had never touched before. We thought Richard was just a side character, but maybe, he was a mirror of Adrian’s potential all along. And who knows, maybe this transformed, “Richard-like” Adrian could become an adviser to other lost souls. But it would not be in the way he once would have done it - with charisma, persuasion, cleverness, or domination. It would be in the way Richard did it: by being present, not performing; by listening deeply, not diagnosing; by asking questions, not giving answers; by embodying a kind of quiet authority, born not of superiority, but of survival.

LOL, I could understand a bit of Lyn's annoyance with Alexander...seems like too perfect to be truth. Reminded me of ladies commenting Chris Hemsworth at The Graham Norton Show.