...Dear Sir...

It was the obvious way to start a letter, especially when addressing a man that Scott was very used to calling sir.

For several seconds, Scott stared down at the piece of paper set neatly in front of him. If only the rest of the letter would come to him as naturally as those first two words had. He closed his eyes, but there was no hiding from what he needed to say. There was no way he could be careful and consider each word either. He’d drive himself mad if he tried to make the letter as perfect as the one he knew Joe really deserved to receive.

When Scott opened his eyes, the blank page glared back at him, as if daring him to place his pen on the surface. The stained wooden top of Scott’s dresser surrounded the intensely empty white paper.

A mirror was attached to the back of the dresser. Scott really wished he’d been able to move that aside as easily as he’d pushed away all the junk that had accumulated on the dresser’s surface. The moment Scott looked up from the paper, it was impossible for him to avoid his reflection.

He met his own gaze and every taunt that small-minded bullies had thrown at him over the years hit its target all over again.

What the hell did he think he had to offer a man like Joe?

He was fat and stupid, ugly and clumsy, a stuttering little fool who no one would ever want to touch, let alone love.

“No.” Scott said the word so loudly, he shocked himself into looking away from his reflection. He glanced down at the paper once more.

This time, he didn’t even allow himself time to take a deep breath. He started writing. The pen moved over the notepaper more rapidly than it had in any exam through which he’d ever sat while he was in school.

Barely permitting himself to think with the conscious part of his brain, Scott just wrote as fast as his pen could move. The letters that appeared on the page weren’t neatly formed, the sentences weren’t properly structured, but none of that mattered. Scott doubted Joe would give a damn if he wrote in Shakespearian verse or text speak.