Eight Months Without You

By Nell Iris

Can Sami and Joakim’s relationship survive accusations of cheating, a thrown wineglass, and eight months of silence?

Hurtful words and a thrown wineglass in a fit of jealousy tear Sami and Joakim apart; fiery tempers and stubbornness keep them from making up. But then, after eight months without a single word, just as Sami is about to make the first move, Joakim shows up, eager to make things right.

Can they overcome accusations of cheating and eight months of silence? Are conversations, confessions, and planning for the future enough? Will the love they still share conquer all?

• Language: English
• Publisher: JMS Books LLC
• Release date: Nov 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685503239

Nell Iris

Nell is a forty-something bisexual Swedish woman, married to the love of her life, and a proud mama of a grown daughter. She left the Scandinavian cold and darkness for warmer and sunnier Malaysia a few years ago, and now spends her days writing, surfing the Internet, enjoying the heat, and eating good food. One day she decided to chase her lifelong dream of being a writer, sat down in front of her laptop, and wrote a story about two men falling in love. Nell writes gay romance, prefers sweet over angst, and wants to write diverse and different characters.

Book preview

Chapter 1

When I open my front door and am faced with Joakim, my first thought is, he’s wearing his Christmas sweater. Why is he wearing his Christmas sweater? It’s August.

My gaze flits from his sweater to his chest, up his neck, to his face, and back down to the sweater, unable to settle, trying to drink all of him in at once.

I rub my forehead. His Christmas sweater? That’s where my mind goes? Not what are you doing here? Not where have you been these last eight months? Not why didn’t you call or why now after all this time of silence? Not even it’s in the middle of the night?

No, it’s the stupid, garish sweater. Make Love, not Lutefisk, it says on the chest, and underneath the text is a huge fish wearing a Santa hat. It’s the ugliest thing I ever saw; Joakim’s sister Ellen gave it to him a few years ago because It’s ridiculous and Joakim’s weakness is ridiculousness.

The sweater is the reason we started talking to each other the first time we met; I’d been tricked into sitting on the jury of an Ugly Holiday Sweater Competition held at my neighborhood pub owned by a friend of mine. Joakim won in a landslide and my first words to him as I handed over the prize were, Good Lord, man, where did you find that monstrosity?

My question made him smile, and it transformed his face from serious and somewhat harsh to stunningly handsome. It was like the first drink of water after running for ten kilometers, like watching my favorite hockey team win the cup, like the first glimpse of the bright red Mustang I couldn’t afford when I saw it at a car show at twenty.

Perfection. That’s what it was.

And the way to Joakim’s heart was apparently through his Christmas sweater, because he waggled his eyebrows, leaned closer to me, said, Admit it, you just want to peel it off me, and that was that. We fell into bed later that same night.

Despite that fond memory, I still hate—or at least strongly dislike—the sweater. Especially in August, after not seeing it—or him—for eight months.

Hey, Sami, he says when all I can do is stare with my heart pounding in my ears. My mind is blank, and I have no idea what to say, or if I even could say anything at all because my mouth is so dry. Not even the breathiness in his voice when he says my name helps.

I’m frozen. An ice sculpture.

Why is he here? Now? Eight months after our relationship ended spectacularly with a screaming match, a thrown wineglass exploding on impact with my crisp white walls—forever staining them deep burgundy—and Joakim storming out of my apartment?

Not that I knew it was the end at the time, but it’s been a long time since that night ten days before Christmas, a long time without hearing a word from him, and I can take a hint.

But I’ve been a dick, too, to be honest. I haven’t exactly blown up his phone trying to contact him either. At first, because I was a mess of steaming anger and piercing pain caused by the accusations he’d hurled at me, and when he hadn’t come back for days, confusion had set in. When days grew to weeks that grew to months, resentment had settled in my gut.

He was the one who left; if he can’t be bothered to call me, I won’t call him either.

Ridiculously childish for a man in his late thirties, but I can hold a grudge.

Unfortunately.

And by now, too much time has passed. Eight months without contact, without a single word from either of us or without an official ending to a two-year-old relationship we both were convinced would last forever.

How did that even happen? What kind of people are we who can do shit like that to each other? What kind of coward can’t pick up the phone and call his partner after a stupid argument? And who throws a glass at someone’s head and walks out without looking back?

I can’t think about that night. When I do, my chest grows so tight I can hardly breathe, making me lightheaded and dizzy. So I’ve been trying to forget him like he must have forgotten about me.

It’s getting easier.

At least that’s what I try to tell myself.

If someone saw me when I wake up in the middle of the night, reaching for my phone, hovering my finger over his name for long, slow minutes, they’d probably think otherwise. They’d see that