Perspectives #3
Love can slip through the smallest crack in the door.
While most of his friends have moved on to “real” careers, Jon Buchanan is content skating through life as a part-time waiter and gay porn star. Firmly single thanks to a previous relationship disaster, he focuses his spare time on Henry, a dear friend dying of cancer. And with Henry’s happiness paramount, Jon is on a mission to help Henry meet his recently discovered grandson.
Isaac Gregory hasn’t set foot outside for the past year. He has everything he needs delivered, and his remaining family knows better than to visit. When a complete stranger shows up claiming to be his grandfather—with a distractingly handsome younger man in tow—his carefully structured routines are shaken.
Despite his instant attraction, Jon senses Isaac is too fragile for a relationship. Yet tentative friendship grows into genuine companionship. And when Henry’s health begins to fail, they realize Fate brought them together for a reason.
Note: This book was previously published by Samhain Publishing. No significant changes have been made. Please read with tissues handy.
As usual, when each new installment in a series concentrates on a new couple, I have a hesitancy to let the new pair into my heart because I am not ready to let the last one go yet. With AM Arthur's Perspectives series, I was dead set on knowing no one could possibly reach me as wholeheartedly as Tristan from book 2, The World as He Sees It, did. Boy was I wrong. Isaac Gregory may not have passed Tristan in my heart but he burrowed in right next to him. I am by nature a very shy person having grown up in the boonies and an only child, I tend to keep to myself as well but it does not compare even an iota to what Isaac deals with. When he lets Henry and Jon into his home, their lives are forever changed. With The Heart as He Hears It, the author shows us just how much one person can truly change our lives, how strangers become friends, lovers, and become home. Truly a great read filled to overflowing with heart, all the strength and weaknesses that come with letting someone in. I cannot recommend this series enough, you won't be disappointed.
Original Audiobook Review September 2020:
RATING:
AM Arthur
A.M. Arthur was born and raised in the same kind of small town that she likes to write about, a stone's throw from both beach resorts and generational farmland. She's been creating stories in her head since she was a child and scribbling them down nearly as long, in a losing battle to make the fictional voices stop. She credits an early fascination with male friendships (bromance hadn't been coined yet back then) with her later discovery of and subsequent love affair with m/m romance stories. A.M. Arthur's work is available from Carina Press, SMP Swerve, and Briggs-King Books.
When not exorcising the voices in her head, she toils away in a retail job that tests her patience and gives her lots of story fodder. She can also be found in her kitchen, pretending she's an amateur chef and trying to not poison herself or others with her cuisine experiments.
It has been over four years since I read The Heart as He Hears It and it is as beautifully told today as it was then. Isaac is just, well I just want to protect him, tell him it's okay to be mindful of the outside world but at the same time make sure he knows he's strong enough to face what is out there. I can see parts of myself in Isaac and yet I am completely blown away by not even beginning to imagine what thoughts are rattling around inside his head. Don't think that last sentence is a negative judgement of Isaac, no it's more of a statement of how complex and yet completely relatable character he is.
As for Jon, well if I met him on the street and he behaved the way he is I'd think he's too good to be true, he's too considerate but lets face it, he has his flaws too which is why he and Isaac are so perfectly suited. Friendship plays such a huge part in this tale and for me that is what makes this entry in AM Arthur's Perspectives series so amazing, so real, so heartwarming.
This is my first audiobook with the narrator Guy Locke and he did an amazing job. I could feel Isaac's anxiety, I could see Jon's compassion, and not to be too clever I could hear their relationship unfold. Because his narration reached all my senses, it made AM Arthur's words that much more incredibly gripping.
Jon studied Isaac, his gaze taking in…something. “May I ask you something?”
“Of course.” His chest flushed with anticipation.
“How do you feel when you’re with me?”
Isaac tried to push aside the anxiety still attempting to blur his thoughts, an old friend that wanted to be part of the conversation. Only anxiety wasn’t allowed in, not this time. He shuffled through different words, emotions and adjectives, searching for the one that best described how he felt about Jon. How Jon made him feel, despite being a near-stranger, bigger, stronger and far more experienced in pretty much everything. Jon still made him feel… “Safe,” Isaac said.
Jon’s eyebrows crept up. The corners of his mouth quirked into something not quite a smile. “Really?”
“Yes. The first time I saw you on my security feed, I noticed how beautiful you were.” His cheeks warmed.
Jon flat out grinned. “Yeah?”
“You’re kind and patient, and I feel safe because you don’t try to fix me, and you don’t act like I’m broken. My family thinks I’m broken, and I don’t want them to fix me. I just…” Something in Isaac shifted, accepting this new truth. “I need to feel safe, Jon. That’s why I hide. But you make me not want to hide.”
Jon’s eyes glittered. His expression melted into something so warm, so sweet, that it burned in Isaac’s blood in a way he didn’t understand at all. The strange sensation urged him to reach out, to initiate contact of some kind. Deep-rooted fear kept Isaac still, unable to make that first move. Unable to do anything except soak in the wonderment on Jon’s face.
“I think that’s the greatest compliment I’ve ever gotten,” Jon said. His voice was hoarse, strange. Almost difficult to hear, so Isaac paid more attention to his lips. “Is it cheesy to say your strength makes me want to be better too?”
Isaac shook his head. “I’m not strong.”
“You’re stronger than you think. You proved that by letting me and Henry in two weeks ago. You proved it again by going out to rescue a kitten. Twice, by the way. You told me you want to get better, get into the world, and that takes a ton of courage when you’ve lost as much as you have. I know it won’t be easy, but I still want to help you do that.”
“I know you do. I want that too.”
Isaac needed to prove to Jon how much he wanted it. He couldn’t do it with words. Words only went so far when making promises. Actions spoke much more loudly. Swallowing hard against a storm of butterflies, Isaac turned his left hand palm up and slid it to the center of the table, knuckles skidding on the cool wood.
Jon’s gaze traveled from Isaac’s eyes, down his arm, stopping at his hand. His outstretched hand. Jon placed his right hand flat to the table and pushed it forward, a centimeter at a time. Timid. Tentative. Oh so careful. He stopped with his middle finger a bare inch from Isaac’s. Neither of them spoke. For an instant, Isaac forgot to breathe.
And then Jon covered Isaac’s palm with his, warm and strong, so much like their handshake from the previous week. A sure grip that sent a jolt up Isaac’s arm, then right down his spine to his d**k and balls—a reaction that terrified him as much as it made something deep inside of him sing. An acknowledgment of feelings he couldn’t yet voice.
He was holding Jon’s hand, and he liked it very, very much.
Jon’s fingers drifted higher, the tips lightly stroking the inside of Isaac’s wrist in a gentle, soothing rhythm.
Isaac closed his eyes, basking in the simplicity of something so rare as human touch. Human touch that he’d initiated for the simple reason that, in his very core, he’d missed it. Early hugs from his mother. Back slaps from Pappou. Brief, one-armed embraces from Yia Yia. Wrestling with his cousins when they were children.
Jon’s hand in his made his body hum with joy as much as it made him want to cry. Isaac had made a connection. An actual, real connection with another human being unlike anything he’d had with his family. This ran deeper, past his fear and his walls and into his soul. This was something he could trust.
Pressure and heat around his hand increased, the squeeze subtle, but Isaac’s eyelids flew up. Jon was smiling at him, perfect teeth flashing white, his eyes dancing with beautiful things.
Isaac reached his other hand out, and Jon caught it in a sure grip—a lifeline that would never let go. “I don’t understand this,” Isaac said.
Jon drew their locked hands together in the center of the table, all four in one tangle. “This is what attraction is, Isaac. This thing you’re feeling. You don’t have to act on it, but does it feel good? Safe?”
“Yes.” It felt unlike anything Isaac had experienced. Was that it? He was attracted to Jon, so all of the good things like trust and friendship came along with it? Perhaps so. “I do feel safe. And good.”
“I’m glad.” Jon’s gaze flickered lower, toward Isaac’s chin. No. Mouth. “You have no idea how much I want to k—hug you right now.”
Isaac’s gut burned in a totally new, unexpected way. A good way. The last hug he’d allowed had been on the day of Yia Yia’s funeral, from his cousin Grace. Afterward he began side-stepping hugs, and the family stopped offering them. “I haven’t been hugged in a really long time.”
“I kind of guessed.” Jon’s smile went soft, almost shy. “Is that okay? Are you doing okay?”
“I’m fine.” He actually was fine.
“May I hug you, Isaac?”
Instead of allowing the question to throw his insides into knots, Isaac calmly examined it. He liked touching Jon, and he liked it when Jon touched him. A hug was something offered between friends and family, and they were definitely friends. And he trusted Jon enough to know that if Isaac asked him to, he’d let go.
“Yes,” Isaac said. “I’d like to try that.”
Jon’s smile was wide and beautiful, joy going all the way to his eyes. “Okay.”
Somehow they both stood without letting go of each other’s hands—except they were kind of holding each other by the wrist now, a firmer, more powerful grip. Jon came around to his side of the table, slowly obliterating the space between them. Isaac’s shoulders tightened and his back tensed, an instinctive reaction to proximity that he couldn’t stop. Jon noticed and froze with less than a foot of air separating them.
“Is this okay?” Jon asked.
Isaac rolled his shoulders, forcing himself to relax. “Yes. Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. If it gets to be too much, tell me, all right?”
“I will.”
“Good.”
Isaac concentrated on their hands, warmed by this new, intoxicating connection to another human being. It made Isaac want more than his closed-off life in this house. Jon shuffled closer, the spice of his cologne and the heat of his body living things that wrapped themselves around Isaac.
Their eyes stayed locked, Jon’s flickering with both intent and trepidation. Isaac had no idea what his eyes said to Jon. Yes, please, it’s okay, I’m fine, he hoped. Slowly Jon let go of his hands, leaving Isaac’s skin cold where they’d touched—until one landed on his shoulder, while the other rested gently on his hip.
“Still okay?” Jon asked.
Isaac’s heart flipped, overjoyed at how patient and careful Jon was being with him. “Yes.”
Jon’s hands slid toward his back, one down over the shoulder, the other up past his waist. He leaned in, his chest pressing gently against Isaac’s, an unfamiliar but very welcome weight, until Isaac was enveloped in a one-sided embrace. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, enjoying the scents of cologne, sweat and something earthier beneath it—the unique scent of Jon. He relaxed into the sensation of heat and pressure everywhere Jon touched him.
The angle of the embrace left Isaac’s arms free. He wanted to hug Jon back, but hugs were bigger than holding hands. He worked against the stiffness that had overtaken his limbs, forcing his right arm to move to Jon’s waist, fingers brushing cotton and the shape of a belt. He got his left arm working too, and rested his palm lightly on Jon’s shoulder. As much as he wanted to mimic Jon’s posture, he couldn’t make his hands stray from those points.
His heart thundered in his chest and blood pulsed in his temples. Everything about this felt right, like everything he’d been missing for a very long time. A part of a puzzle he’d been too scared to acknowledge was unfinished. He unknotted himself enough to rest his chin on Jon’s shoulder, putting Jon’s ear close to his mouth. Jon hugged him a little bit tighter and leaned his head against Isaac’s—another contact point.
He wanted to ask Jon what he was thinking, what he was feeling, but Isaac couldn’t find the words. All he had were unexpected and joyous emotions, and speaking might ruin it all. Except he had to say one thing. One thing to show Jon how important this was.
“Thank you,” Isaac whispered.
More than hearing the words, he felt them rumbling through his chest as Jon answered, “You are so welcome.”
“Of course.” His chest flushed with anticipation.
“How do you feel when you’re with me?”
Isaac tried to push aside the anxiety still attempting to blur his thoughts, an old friend that wanted to be part of the conversation. Only anxiety wasn’t allowed in, not this time. He shuffled through different words, emotions and adjectives, searching for the one that best described how he felt about Jon. How Jon made him feel, despite being a near-stranger, bigger, stronger and far more experienced in pretty much everything. Jon still made him feel… “Safe,” Isaac said.
Jon’s eyebrows crept up. The corners of his mouth quirked into something not quite a smile. “Really?”
“Yes. The first time I saw you on my security feed, I noticed how beautiful you were.” His cheeks warmed.
Jon flat out grinned. “Yeah?”
“You’re kind and patient, and I feel safe because you don’t try to fix me, and you don’t act like I’m broken. My family thinks I’m broken, and I don’t want them to fix me. I just…” Something in Isaac shifted, accepting this new truth. “I need to feel safe, Jon. That’s why I hide. But you make me not want to hide.”
Jon’s eyes glittered. His expression melted into something so warm, so sweet, that it burned in Isaac’s blood in a way he didn’t understand at all. The strange sensation urged him to reach out, to initiate contact of some kind. Deep-rooted fear kept Isaac still, unable to make that first move. Unable to do anything except soak in the wonderment on Jon’s face.
“I think that’s the greatest compliment I’ve ever gotten,” Jon said. His voice was hoarse, strange. Almost difficult to hear, so Isaac paid more attention to his lips. “Is it cheesy to say your strength makes me want to be better too?”
Isaac shook his head. “I’m not strong.”
“You’re stronger than you think. You proved that by letting me and Henry in two weeks ago. You proved it again by going out to rescue a kitten. Twice, by the way. You told me you want to get better, get into the world, and that takes a ton of courage when you’ve lost as much as you have. I know it won’t be easy, but I still want to help you do that.”
“I know you do. I want that too.”
Isaac needed to prove to Jon how much he wanted it. He couldn’t do it with words. Words only went so far when making promises. Actions spoke much more loudly. Swallowing hard against a storm of butterflies, Isaac turned his left hand palm up and slid it to the center of the table, knuckles skidding on the cool wood.
Jon’s gaze traveled from Isaac’s eyes, down his arm, stopping at his hand. His outstretched hand. Jon placed his right hand flat to the table and pushed it forward, a centimeter at a time. Timid. Tentative. Oh so careful. He stopped with his middle finger a bare inch from Isaac’s. Neither of them spoke. For an instant, Isaac forgot to breathe.
And then Jon covered Isaac’s palm with his, warm and strong, so much like their handshake from the previous week. A sure grip that sent a jolt up Isaac’s arm, then right down his spine to his d**k and balls—a reaction that terrified him as much as it made something deep inside of him sing. An acknowledgment of feelings he couldn’t yet voice.
He was holding Jon’s hand, and he liked it very, very much.
Jon’s fingers drifted higher, the tips lightly stroking the inside of Isaac’s wrist in a gentle, soothing rhythm.
Isaac closed his eyes, basking in the simplicity of something so rare as human touch. Human touch that he’d initiated for the simple reason that, in his very core, he’d missed it. Early hugs from his mother. Back slaps from Pappou. Brief, one-armed embraces from Yia Yia. Wrestling with his cousins when they were children.
Jon’s hand in his made his body hum with joy as much as it made him want to cry. Isaac had made a connection. An actual, real connection with another human being unlike anything he’d had with his family. This ran deeper, past his fear and his walls and into his soul. This was something he could trust.
Pressure and heat around his hand increased, the squeeze subtle, but Isaac’s eyelids flew up. Jon was smiling at him, perfect teeth flashing white, his eyes dancing with beautiful things.
Isaac reached his other hand out, and Jon caught it in a sure grip—a lifeline that would never let go. “I don’t understand this,” Isaac said.
Jon drew their locked hands together in the center of the table, all four in one tangle. “This is what attraction is, Isaac. This thing you’re feeling. You don’t have to act on it, but does it feel good? Safe?”
“Yes.” It felt unlike anything Isaac had experienced. Was that it? He was attracted to Jon, so all of the good things like trust and friendship came along with it? Perhaps so. “I do feel safe. And good.”
“I’m glad.” Jon’s gaze flickered lower, toward Isaac’s chin. No. Mouth. “You have no idea how much I want to k—hug you right now.”
Isaac’s gut burned in a totally new, unexpected way. A good way. The last hug he’d allowed had been on the day of Yia Yia’s funeral, from his cousin Grace. Afterward he began side-stepping hugs, and the family stopped offering them. “I haven’t been hugged in a really long time.”
“I kind of guessed.” Jon’s smile went soft, almost shy. “Is that okay? Are you doing okay?”
“I’m fine.” He actually was fine.
“May I hug you, Isaac?”
Instead of allowing the question to throw his insides into knots, Isaac calmly examined it. He liked touching Jon, and he liked it when Jon touched him. A hug was something offered between friends and family, and they were definitely friends. And he trusted Jon enough to know that if Isaac asked him to, he’d let go.
“Yes,” Isaac said. “I’d like to try that.”
Jon’s smile was wide and beautiful, joy going all the way to his eyes. “Okay.”
Somehow they both stood without letting go of each other’s hands—except they were kind of holding each other by the wrist now, a firmer, more powerful grip. Jon came around to his side of the table, slowly obliterating the space between them. Isaac’s shoulders tightened and his back tensed, an instinctive reaction to proximity that he couldn’t stop. Jon noticed and froze with less than a foot of air separating them.
“Is this okay?” Jon asked.
Isaac rolled his shoulders, forcing himself to relax. “Yes. Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. If it gets to be too much, tell me, all right?”
“I will.”
“Good.”
Isaac concentrated on their hands, warmed by this new, intoxicating connection to another human being. It made Isaac want more than his closed-off life in this house. Jon shuffled closer, the spice of his cologne and the heat of his body living things that wrapped themselves around Isaac.
Their eyes stayed locked, Jon’s flickering with both intent and trepidation. Isaac had no idea what his eyes said to Jon. Yes, please, it’s okay, I’m fine, he hoped. Slowly Jon let go of his hands, leaving Isaac’s skin cold where they’d touched—until one landed on his shoulder, while the other rested gently on his hip.
“Still okay?” Jon asked.
Isaac’s heart flipped, overjoyed at how patient and careful Jon was being with him. “Yes.”
Jon’s hands slid toward his back, one down over the shoulder, the other up past his waist. He leaned in, his chest pressing gently against Isaac’s, an unfamiliar but very welcome weight, until Isaac was enveloped in a one-sided embrace. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, enjoying the scents of cologne, sweat and something earthier beneath it—the unique scent of Jon. He relaxed into the sensation of heat and pressure everywhere Jon touched him.
The angle of the embrace left Isaac’s arms free. He wanted to hug Jon back, but hugs were bigger than holding hands. He worked against the stiffness that had overtaken his limbs, forcing his right arm to move to Jon’s waist, fingers brushing cotton and the shape of a belt. He got his left arm working too, and rested his palm lightly on Jon’s shoulder. As much as he wanted to mimic Jon’s posture, he couldn’t make his hands stray from those points.
His heart thundered in his chest and blood pulsed in his temples. Everything about this felt right, like everything he’d been missing for a very long time. A part of a puzzle he’d been too scared to acknowledge was unfinished. He unknotted himself enough to rest his chin on Jon’s shoulder, putting Jon’s ear close to his mouth. Jon hugged him a little bit tighter and leaned his head against Isaac’s—another contact point.
He wanted to ask Jon what he was thinking, what he was feeling, but Isaac couldn’t find the words. All he had were unexpected and joyous emotions, and speaking might ruin it all. Except he had to say one thing. One thing to show Jon how important this was.
“Thank you,” Isaac whispered.
More than hearing the words, he felt them rumbling through his chest as Jon answered, “You are so welcome.”
A.M. Arthur was born and raised in the same kind of small town that she likes to write about, a stone's throw from both beach resorts and generational farmland. She's been creating stories in her head since she was a child and scribbling them down nearly as long, in a losing battle to make the fictional voices stop. She credits an early fascination with male friendships (bromance hadn't been coined yet back then) with her later discovery of and subsequent love affair with m/m romance stories. A.M. Arthur's work is available from Carina Press, SMP Swerve, and Briggs-King Books.
When not exorcising the voices in her head, she toils away in a retail job that tests her patience and gives her lots of story fodder. She can also be found in her kitchen, pretending she's an amateur chef and trying to not poison herself or others with her cuisine experiments.
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The Heart as He Hears It #3
