Blackbird Fly Home — Kendel Duncan

Sometimes life will surprise you Sometimes it will disappoint you Sometimes it will kick you in the balls Sometimes it will make you so happy you feel like you can fly And sometimes, just sometimes, it will do all of those things. The kick in the balls, both literally and figuratively, happened to Noah Pierce a long time ago. Ten years to be exact, when, to cap off a brutal and horrendous four-year relationship with the man who claimed to love him, that man buried a butcher knife in his side. It was the final wound in a seemingly endless cycle of bruises, cuts, breaks, sprains and other things that sent him to the hospital. He thought he was going to die. But when he opened his eyes in that ER room and saw a stranger with kind yet determined eyes looking back at him and with his boyfriend nowhere in sight, Noah knew that life was going to change for him. And it did. For ten years he was stronger, he was better, he was……hollow. He didn't realize that last part until he saw one man. One pair of haunting blue eyes beside the very man who had ruined Noah all those years ago. One pair of frightened eyes. One pair of hollow, hopeless eyes that Noah couldn't have walked away from if he tried…..because someone else hadn't walked away from him all those years ago. Noah didn't realize it at the time, but by saving Jesse Miller from the clutches of his ex, he was going to learn to fly…..