The Lonely Heart Read Online Free PDF Page A

meal that much. Having Isaiah and Josh at the table had almost made him feel like part of a family again.
    “Josh is a great kid,” he said awkwardly. The silence was growing and, while Isaiah seemed completely at ease, it was making Grady nervous.
    “Yeah, he is.” Isaiah’s lips turned up in that charming half-smile that Grady loved so much. “Smart and stubborn. He’s gonna grow up to be quite a man.”
    “How’s he handling his mom’s death?” Grady asked, scrubbing at the sauce stains on a plate.
    “Surprisingly well, but I get the feeling they weren’t very close. Josh has spent most of his life at some boarding school.”
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    “Wasn’t he a bit young?” Grady couldn’t imagine a mom, any mom, sending a toddler away like that.
    Isaiah shrugged, eyes dark with some nameless emotion. “I think so, but I gather it was a special school for kids with disabilities. Guess she thought it was best for him.”
    “Still doesn’t seem quite right.”
    Silence fell over the kitchen, both of them feeling awkward now. Grady searched for another topic, but his brain seemed to have stuttered to a halt. He handed a plate to Isaiah.
    Their fingers met, tangled for a second, and it was all Grady could do to keep from groaning even at that brief touch. Damn, he was pathetic. Grady looked away before Isaiah could see and identify the longing in his eyes.
    He cleared his throat. “So, riding lessons,” he said, grasping at the first idea that sprang into his head.
    Isaiah grinned. “Yeah. Josh has his heart set on learning to ride.”
    “You don’t want to teach him?” Grady asked curiously. He would have thought it would be something Isaiah wanted to do—pass on that kind of knowledge to his little brother.
    “There’s plenty I can teach him besides riding a horse. I figure since you usually stick pretty close to the main barns during the day anyway, it would give you two a chance to get to know one another. After all, he’s ours…here. You know.”
    Isaiah’s cheeks flushed red as he stumbled over his words. Grady felt a deep sense of pleasure spread through him before he shook it off. Isaiah hadn’t meant it that way, of course. Just a little conversational blip.
    “I’ll look forward to it,” Grady said. Damn, he had hoped that wouldn’t sound as awkward and formal out loud as it did in his head.
    Isaiah gave him another strange look, the same one he’d been turning on Grady all evening. They finished the rest of the clean-up in silence. Isaiah gathered Josh soon after and they said their good nights.
    Grady closed the door and stood there for a minute. He dropped his head forward, thumping it on the wood.
    “Stupid,” he cursed himself in a soft voice. “So stupid.” He couldn’t have thought of something to talk about, something to do, to prolong the evening? No, of course not.
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    Probably just as well, since apparently he was an anti-social idiot who couldn’t figure out how to hold a decent conversation.
    Grady locked up the house and flicked off the lights before trudging upstairs. He fell face-first onto his bed with a groan. He rolled onto his back and grabbed a pillow, yelling into it in pure frustration. For eight endless years he’d watched Isaiah with respect, then admiration, then a confusing turmoil of feelings that had sorted themselves out into something ridiculously like a teenage crush. And just like a teenager, at the first real social opportunity he’d got with the man who starred in most of his dreams, he’d choked.
    Grady shoved the pillow aside and climbed off the bed. Maybe jacking off in the shower would help him sleep. It had become a regular part of his routine lately. A depressing one, in some ways because, as usual, he would picture Isaiah there with him.
    And, as usual, it was all in his imagination. And very unlikely to ever turn into reality. After all,