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 older man kind of wants to fix it now. AUREN STONELAKEA fifty-five years old, introverted engineering professor.
He's had a happy childhood, loving parents and two sets of doting grandparents. His happy start in life prepared him for many things. Except for getting cheated on. 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 hadn't been complicated enough, 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. As he looks back at his own life story, all he sees is a bad husband who makes his hard-working wife cheat. And then, after she graciously gives him another chance, he gets into an emotional affair with another man.
A man less than half his age. only to get his comeuppance and get that man to leave him, too. With a record like this, professor Stonelake regrets many things. And, with both of his kids at a college in a different city, and his ex-wife out of his life and remarried already, he has a lot of time for that regret. And what better place is there to get lost in your own thoughts, or, on the contrary, to escape them, than your beloved childhood home? Especially when you unexpectedly get a week off in the midst of a golden autumn.
Once the opportunity presents itself, professor Stonelake is more than happy to revisit the places he once used to be so happy in. What he doesn't know yet, is that he just might find more than memories there. JAMES GOLDENThe 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 then it came crashing down to the ninth circle of hell through no fault of his own. His romantic life was not much better. A string of age gap relationships, with each one of them crashing down after he refused 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 he experienced the least physical yet the most intense love of his life.
only for him to act the same as all the others had, certainly did not help. Despite all of this, James Golden did manage to get his life together. After dealing with not-so-easy two decades in a chronically ill body, he had made a surprising recovery after getting the treatment he'd been denied throughout his childhood and teenage years. He's also gotten a rather decent paying job. He's made a few investments.
And now he even has his own place and a nice car. He isn't over that middle-aged man whom he met as a college student. And he's pretty sure he never will be. He knows he'll never have him, and, maybe, that man was never his to have, no matter what he did. But now, James can at least go anywhere he wants. Even if he has to do it 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. ***