The Missing Piece of Me

After my parents died in a fire, I grew up in the foster care, aged out, and became a fire fighter myself. And I’ve built a good life for myself. Great job, nice home, good friends. I’m… happy.

Except for the one day each year—my little brother’s birthday—when I let myself unlock the memories that hurt. 

Memories of him.

My little Newt. 

He was just two years old when our parents died. He didn’t even remember them, which meant he only had me. I was thirteen, and Newt was all I had left, the most important person in my whole world.

The one person I swore I’d never let down.

But the foster system didn’t care about my promises. They also didn’t care about keeping us together. 

And eventually, they took him away from me altogether.

I tried to find him once I turned eighteen, but it was impossible. He was lost forever, and a piece of my heart went missing right along with him. A piece I’ll never get back.

That was ten years ago. 

I moved across the country. I built this life for myself. And out here, nobody knows I even have a brother, because it hurts too much to remember what I lost. 

Well, one person knows. My best friend, Leon. But only because he walked in on me while I was drowning my sorrows on Newt’s birthday a few years ago. 

And today… today Leon told me that the boy I pulled out of a fire last night, the unconscious one who still tried to cling to me as I tried to hand him off to the paramedics, to Leon—

He told me that boy’s name is Newton.

But it can’t be my Newt. Because sure, it’s an uncommon name, and yes, the boy’s eyes were my Newt’s eyes when they fluttered open for a moment as I hauled him out of the building, and okay, Leon checked the hospital records for his age, and it’s… it’s the same as my little brother’s.

But the boy can’t be my little Newt, because if I let myself hope for the impossible and find out it’s just another dead end, it will fucking devastate me.

But if it is him…

Fuck, if it’s him, I’m never going to let him go again. 

And I’m going to love him so damn well, in every single way possible, that it’s makes up for the fifteen years we were kept apart.

The Missing Piece of Me is a 26,000-word erotic m/m gay romance. You can find more books by Becca Vale on Smashwords and get a free one by subscribing to her newsletter.