Golden Leaves: MM Romance Novella: High Angst * Second Chance * Age Gap - MM Low-Steam Contemporary Age Gap Romance Novellas, #4

A middle-aged, recently divorced engineering professor goes back to his hometown in the middle of a sunny October. Unexpectedly, he bumps into a former student of his. A man who once confessed his love to him, and whom he had rejected in return. Whatever it was between them, it broke back then. But things have changed. And the professor kind of wants to fix it now.

AUREN STONELAKE

Auren Stonelake is a fifty-five years old, introverted engineering professor. He had a happy childhood, loving parents, and two sets of doting grandparents. His happy start in life prepared him for many things. But not for getting cheated on.

He got cheated on by his wife after over a decade of what he thought was a happy marriage. A marriage that had already resulted in two children whom he loves more than life itself. As if his life wasn't complicated enough already, a year after he had finally put the betrayal behind him and decided to stick it out for everyone but himself, an odd young man attends his lecture. And then his office hours. What was at first just casual chats with a possibly smitten but well-mannered youth turns into… mutual interest. Only for it to fall apart and leave professor Stonelake even more hurt.

With a record like this, professor Stonelake doesn't lead the happiest of lives. With both of his kids attending a college in a different city, and his ex-wife out of his life and remarried already, he has a lot of time to dwell on it. And what better place is there to get lost in your own thoughts, or, on the contrary, to escape them, than your beloved hometown and childhood home? Especially when you unexpectedly get a week off in the midst of a golden autumn.

JAMES GOLDEN

The eldest of five. No contact with all of them. A childhood of parentification, surrounded by dogs and the children of people too lazy to fix their own lives before they bring another life into this world. James's homelife did not start out well, and it only got worse once the first hellion was born.

His romantic life wasn't much better. A string of age gap relationships, with each one of them crashing down after his refusal to either "make amends with" or outright parent the people he had the misfortune to be related to, once the subject of family came up. Having a married, middle-aged man reciprocate his feelings as James experienced the least physical yet the most intense love of his life, only for that man to act the same as all the others had, certainly did not help.

James isn't over that middle-aged man. And he's pretty sure he never will be. He knows he'll never have him again, and, maybe, he never had him to begin with. But now, James can at least go anywhere he wants. Even if he has to go there alone. He can go and see all the things he once thought they'd see together. Starting with that man's hometown.

*** ONE EXPLICIT SCENE. NO PENETRATION. ***