Sugar (The Beginning Of Always Book 3), page 1
SUGAR
THE BEGINNING OF ALWAYS
BOOK THREE
E.M. LINDSEY
Sugar
E.M. Lindsey
Copyright © 2024
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Any events, places, or people portrayed in the book have been used in a manner of fiction and are not intended to represent reality. Any resemblance is purely coincidental.
Cover by: Temptation Creations
Editing: Sandra with One Love Editing
Content Information: mentions of past child neglect, past foster care trauma and abuse, PTSD, abandonment trauma, on-page panic attacks, vision loss, vision-loss grief and coping, and erectile dysfunction.
CONTENTS
EM Lindsey Links
Sugar
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Also by E.M. Lindsey
About the Author
EM LINDSEY LINKS
EM Lindsey's Website
Free Short Stories
EM Lindsey's Amazon Account
EM Lindsey on Instagram
EM Lindsey on Bookbub
SUGAR
If Juno could describe his life in three ways, it would be:
A little lost.
A little happy.
And maybe a little hopeful.
At least, he was hopeful, but he stops feeling that way when a diagnosis falls into his lap and his entire world turns upside down. Panic sets in and he can no longer remember what it's like to see a light at the end of any tunnel.
Enter Piper, stage right. Juno has been crushing on the older man from behind his bakery counter since Piper started his mall security job. And just as Juno is certain everything around him is going to crumble, Piper appears and makes Juno an offer:
A single trip with a bucket list for everything Juno can reasonably see before he goes blind.
It’s not a cure. It’s barely hope. But it is something no one else can give Juno. And it helps that whenever Piper touches him, when he kisses him, it gives him visions of forever.
He’s terrified what the future is going to look like, literally, but he’s starting to realize there’s still a promise of happiness. He just needs to learn to let himself be vulnerable, and that’s the only real battle he has left to fight.
Sugar is the third book in The Beginning of Always series. It contains a swoony, steamy, age-gap, friends-with-benefits relationship, baked goods, northern lights, Jupiter’s moons, picnic dates, waterfalls, a road trip to remember, and the most tender-hearted happily ever after.
CHAPTER ONE
Juno’s laugh felt half-hysterical as it lodged in the back of his throat. His life wasn’t exactly known for the best possible outcomes in the worst situations, so he wasn’t expecting good news when the doctor had called him in after all his tests.
He just wasn’t expecting this.
He’d come in for the test thinking the doctor would tell him that he was straining his eyes and that he was going to need big Coke-bottle glasses or something. Or maybe laser surgery.
The idea of Lasik scared the absolute fuck out of him because he’d read up on it, and they cut into the eye while the person is awake, and shit goes dark. Like, entirely blind. Then they zap around and do whatever it is the surgery does and boom.
Let there be light.
Or whatever.
Of course, he also hadn’t expected the barrage of tests the doctor ordered when he first went in with the fuzzy spot in the center of his left eye. He figured the doctor would do that annoying, bright light thing and give him a prescription or something. Hell, maybe even send him to an eye specialist.
The point was he expected this to be a fixable problem, like everything else in his life. Not the best, but not the worst. Not…not this. The doctor sat in front of him and said a bunch of words in a tone that no one ever wanted to hear. It was medical jargon that sounded like Latin, and Juno had been alive long enough to know those types of diagnoses were never good.
“The things we do know about it,” the doctor said when Juno asked him exactly what it all meant, “is that it’s genetic. It comes through the mother’s line. We also know there’s no cure. There’s not even a treatment for it.” Well, fuck. The man wasn’t sugarcoating shit, was he?
Juno swallowed, and it felt like there was a boulder lodged against the back of his tongue. He tried to clear his throat. “So what? I’m going blind?”
“Yes.”
Yes. Just like that. Yes. Not even a “we’ll see what happens.” He’d never wanted someone to lie to him so much in his life.
He tried to laugh, but it came out like a sob. His breath was trembling as he exhaled. “So…how long do I have before it’s all gone?”
“That won’t happen.”
Juno stared at him. “You just said—”
“I know,” the doctor answered, looking apologetic. “I didn’t mean to scare you. This condition doesn’t cause total blindness. The only problem is we won’t be able to accurately predict how much of your vision will be left. I can say in my experience most of my patients retain a significant portion of their peripheral sight. That’s something to look forward to.”
Peripheral sight? He was pretty sure he knew what that meant, but not exactly. Was that the shit he saw out of the corner of his eye? How was he supposed to function with that? What would that even look like? Right now, his left eye looked like he was having a migraine-induced blind spot…but on steroids. It was massive and static grey, and if he closed his right eye, it obscured a lot. And it was still growing.
And in the two weeks since his appointment, it had almost doubled in size.
“Is that a joke? Look forward to?”
“I don’t make jokes with my patients who are losing their vision,” the doctor said flatly.
That was something, he supposed. Juno was definitely a man of dark humor. You didn’t survive the foster system the way he did without it. He’d been raised by his grandmother until he was two and then unceremoniously lobbed into the arms of a CPS caseworker after she died because no one was willing to take him in. He was forgotten.
Unwanted.
He got exactly two birthday cards from his caseworkers in the sixteen years he spent bouncing around foster homes and centers for troubled kids, and that was about it.
Well, one time at the group home he’d lived at when he was with Miles and Oliver, they’d baked him a cake and built a fort out of sheets and old pillows. That had been the best birthday he’d ever had. It was still rough, and he got by because he learned how to laugh at himself.
But he wasn’t laughing now.
He squared his shoulders and focused on the doctor’s face with his good eye. “Explain to me what’s going to happen in very small words because I’m freaking out right now, and all that shit you said about retinas and genetics and whatever…none of that stuck.”
The doctor smiled. He was an older man, but he wasn’t unkind. He sat forward on his rolling chair and let his hands hang between his parted thighs. “At the moment, we don’t know exactly what’ll happen. This condition is inherited, but it’s different in everyone. So while you can ask your mother if she—”
“Yeah, I don’t have those. I was a foster kid,” Juno interrupted quickly.
The doctor looked down and heaved a sigh. “Okay. Well, with this condition, some people don’t show symptoms. Some lose vision in one eye. Some in both. Some lose a significant portion of their visual field, and some people only lose the very center. There can be a secondary condition, which we call LHON-plus, but that doesn’t affect you. If you want me to explain that—”
“No. Uh…just…what do you think will happen to me?”
“It’s hard to say,” the doctor answered. Those words infuriated Juno to the point he felt irrational. “As I said, it’s impossible to predict. Right now, I can tell you that you have about thirty percent of your visual field, but that’s less than the last time you were here, so it’s likely still progressing. As of today, your right eye shows no vision loss.”
“So there’s a chance my right eye might be fine?”
The silence was telling. Then the doctor said, “There’s a chance your right eye might be fine.”
That was probably the sugar Juno had been looking for at the beginning of the appointment. The lie was as bitter as the truth. “So what you can see with my case right now, what does that mean?”
“With the current progression of vision loss according to the optic nerve scan, you’re likely to lose quite a bit more central vision, and it’s very likely you will be colorblind.”
“So, not totally
“No,” the doctor said. Juno’s stomach felt like it was twisting in on itself. He wanted the fucker to get to the point. “As I said, you will retain your peripheral vision.”
Juno felt like he was losing his mind, and he knew he was being annoying, but he just didn’t understand. Maybe it was the shock. Or the denial. Or whatever the fuck he was feeling. “I don’t get it. I need more details. I need to know what’s going to happen to me.”
“I understand, but that’s all I can give you right now. You’ll need regular scans to measure your vision loss. The longer it progresses, the more we’ll know. The most I can do is hazard a guess as to what will happen. Which I will, but you must understand this is my professional opinion and not medical advice.”
Juno swallowed thickly, then nodded. Why not. It would either be better or worse than what he said, but at least there wouldn’t be any huge surprises. “Yeah. Let me have it.”
“My guess is that you’ll lose vision in both eyes.”
A blow, but Juno expected that.
“You’ll lose a significant enough portion of your central vision to register as legally blind. You’ll benefit from a white cane…”
“What about a guide dog?” Juno asked.
The doctor smiled. “Eventually, sure. Guide dog schools generally require proficiency in using a cane. You can do that with blind services here once your vision is severe enough to qualify. You likely won’t be able to read print—maybe large print, but it’ll depend on your eye fatigue. Audio will be your friend. Voice-over, screen readers…”
Juno’s ears began to ring, and he swallowed several times until he felt a clicking sensation. Fuck. He was panicking. “Okay, okay,” he breathed out.
“Mr. Roman, I am so sorry to deliver this news,” the doctor said. It was the first time he apologized during the meeting, and it sounded strange. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear that.
“I mean, you do this all the time, right? I’m just a statistic.”
“You’re a person, not a statistic. And I might do it all the time, but it never gets easier. It’s the worst part of my job. Please understand that you’re going to be angry. And sad. Scared, frustrated…every negative emotion you can think of.”
“What about denial? Because that sounds really nice right about now.”
The doctor laughed. “Denial is fine right now, but don’t let it lead you to doing anything stupid. Like driving a car when you really shouldn’t be.”
Fuck, he was going to lose his car. He was going to lose so much of his fucking independence. His hands began to shake.
“Do you have someone you can speak to about this? Friends or family?” the doctor asked quietly.
He did, but he didn’t. He wasn’t about to burden his friends with all this. Oliver was fresh off his honeymoon, and Miles was getting settled in his new relationship. He’d handle it until he wasn’t falling apart, and then he’d let them know.
“Yes,” he lied.
The doctor looked at him. “As for your job?”
“I own a bakery.”
The man perked up. “Easily done blind.”
Was it, though? Was it easily done blind? He’d already been struggling to make his rent, and if he had to take time to learn all this new tech and whatever else was coming his way, his shop was going to fall apart.
He’d already been considering closing down and finding a bigger place to live so he could start up an online bakery, which seemed to be more popular these days. But with having to adjust to this on top of everything else? He was so fucking screwed.
Why was this happening to him? How was this fair?
“It isn’t fair,” the doctor said, and Juno startled. He hadn’t realized he was talking out loud.
Juno’s gaze snapped up, and he closed his right eye, staring at the blob in his left. That was his future. Maybe worse. “How long until I know about my right eye?”
“A few weeks to a few months. Sometimes as long as a year. After a year, you can breathe easier.”
He blinked, and for a second, he swore he saw a bit of blur, but then it was gone. He was probably being hysterical.
“I don’t want to do this,” he let himself admit aloud.
“I understand. Therapy will help. Learning new adaptive technology while you can still see will help,” the doctor told him. “Denial is fine, but don’t leave it until you’re struggling to learn a bunch of new things without a safety net because it won’t be there forever.”
Juno closed both eyes. Darkness like that wouldn’t be his reality, at least. He’d still have something. His breath trembled in his chest again.
“How do I get a cane?”
“I’ll have the front desk give you some pamphlets,” the doctor said. “If your vision gets worse before you can get through them, there are websites with audio navigation.”
Juno felt cold all over. “Is that all?”
“Make an appointment to see me in four weeks.”
He nodded and didn’t move until the doctor got up and opened the door. The lights in the hallway were too bright, but he forced himself to look at them until his retina burned. He trailed his hand along the wall and let his left eye look down at his shoes. He could still see those. That was nice, even if the colors were all kind of…wrong and muddled.
He checked his phone as he stepped up to the receptionist. He had to be at work in an hour, and he’d make it if the bus wasn’t running late. He’d been too afraid to drive—afraid that he’d spontaneously go completely blind between one blink and the next.
Now that he knew that wasn’t true, maybe he’d go on a few more rides before he lost his ability to. But maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe he’d just call it a day and get some cash for the car that was useless to him now. Or, at least, would be in the future.
“Does two o’clock work?”
Juno blinked up at the woman. “Sorry. I was lost in my head. When?”
“Wednesday.”
Four weeks from then. He could close up shop in that amount of time. He could find a new place to live. His lease was almost up anyway, and he could transfer the money he was paying in all rent to a bigger apartment. It wasn’t much, but it was something.
“Sure. Thanks.”
He collected his paperwork and the stack of brochures, too afraid to look down at them. Except he did, and the man on the front was about his age, and his eyes were open and they looked normal, but he was holding one of those blind people canes like Juno would have to, and…fuck.
He darted into the waiting room bathroom, and in spite of knowing everyone would be able to hear him, he sicked up everything he’d eaten that morning.
He couldn’t do this.
He couldn’t fucking do this.
Baking was always something that had calmed Juno down. He’d gotten into it when he was too late in picking electives his junior year and ended up with a culinary class. He hadn’t been great with all the savory stuff, but they’d gotten into cakes and cookies, and he realized he had a skill that surpassed some of the students who had been baking with their parents for years.
He hadn’t gotten into any of the colleges he applied to before graduation, so in the end, he’d applied for a baker apprenticeship at a shop near his first apartment and then had gone to work for anyone who was hiring in the city.
He made just enough to get by in a shitty little studio, bouncing from job to job until he’d found a little Polish shop run by an immigrant woman, Hanna, and her daughter. They loved him profoundly, and Juno felt like he was finally home.
He’d lost touch with Oliver and Miles in that time, and while he missed them like a limb, he felt settled. Then Hanna died, and Lena gave Juno a chunk of her inheritance because she loved him like he was her brother. She moved to London to be with her girlfriend, and Juno found a spot in the dying mall and opened up Sugar with the money he’d been given.
And things were great. Until they weren’t.
Until foot traffic got worse and bills got more expensive. And now, his vision was going.
But he could still do this, damn it. He could do his actual job. He used to joke that he could bake wedding cakes blindfolded, and, well, he supposed life would put that to the test. He almost laughed.
