Free All of the Voices by Bailey Bradford Page B

several seconds before looking at Carlin. “He’s why you didn’t come visit, isn’t he?”
    “Yeah,” Carlin admitted. “He…I kept him with me as long as I could, but none of the medications the psych’s gave him helped at all, and Dad kept getting worse. Leaving him…I just couldn’t do it. Aunt Mary knew. She wasn’t close to my Dad, I don’t know why, maybe that’s the way of some in-laws. Maybe she didn’t think he was good enough for her little sister, but she understood a son’s love for his father.”
    He took the wallet from Matt and looked at the photo. His father’s once-lively eyes were so lifeless, his entire expression flat. Carlin swiped at a tear that slipped from his eye and wondered how pathetic he appeared to Matt.
    The bed dipped and Carlin glanced up as Matt sat beside him. Matt put an arm around his shoulders and twisted his torso around until Carlin found himself enveloped in a tender hug. Matt’s ability to shift from horny and demanding to comforting and sweet threatened to make Carlin bawl like a baby. Definitely not attractive , he thought.
    “Where’s your dad now?”
    Carlin tipped his head up to look at Matt, soaking in the concern in those blue eyes.
    Guilt ate at Carlin and he feared Matt’s judgement, but he wouldn’t lie to this man.
    “He was endangering himself, slipping out of the house despite the nurse I hired to watch over him while I was at work. The first time it happened, he was gone for three days before the police found him, scared and filthy, curled up asleep under a bridge where a lot of homeless people sleep. He was screaming at the voices in his head, and someone called the cops.” Carlin looked away as he forced himself to continue. ”After the third time, when it took over a week to find him, I had to face the fact that keeping him with me was selfish. I ALL OF THE VOICES
    Bailey Bradford
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    didn’t want the guilt that would come with putting him in a private facility, and I didn’t want to lose my dad. I put him on the waiting list for the best psychiatric facility in the city.
    He was moved there a little over three weeks ago.”
    Carlin’s chin was clasped in a firm grip. Matt tugged and Carlin gave in, turning back to face him. Matt rained soft kisses on his lips, his eyes, the top of his head. Each kiss opened something up in Carlin, tiny embers of warmth that bloomed and spread to chase away the desolation he felt when he thought of what he’d done to his dad.
    “You didn’t have any choice, sweetheart,” Matt said with an assurance that blotted out a chunk of Carlin’s guilt. “You did what was best for him despite how it hurt you. Then your aunt died…and I’m so sorry. You’ve lost so much in such a short period of time.”
    Maybe he had, or maybe he’d lost his father and Aunt Mary a long time ago. One to an insidious illness, the other to distance and responsibility.

    ALL OF THE VOICES
    Bailey Bradford
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Chapter Six

    Matt couldn’t stand to see Carlin hurting. He almost wished he hadn’t seen the picture of Carlin, smiling although his eyes were tinged with sadness, and his father, a tall, burly man who looked as if his personality had vanished and left behind an empty shell. But Carlin had needed to hear that he wasn’t at fault, needed someone to help assuage the guilt he obviously felt, so for that reason Matt was glad he’d discovered the photo.
    Now, however, Matt wasn’t sure what he should do with the man in his arms. Would he be taking advantage of Carlin if he suggested they pick back up where they’d left off before Matt had opened the wallet? What kind of pervert did it make him to even be having thoughts of fucking a man so clearly grieving?
    But he could almost hear the clock ticking down the hours left for them to spend together, and while Matt might not be in love with the man, he liked what he’d seen of him, physically and personality wise. Once Carlin went back to New York, all Matt would have