The Parsonage Boys

Tristan MacDonald has spent his whole life doing what’s expected—model minister’s son, steady hand at the community thrift store, keeper of every secret that might crack the image he’s supposed to uphold. His quiet, orderly world works only because no one ever looks too closely.

Then Bowen Matthews walks in, assigned community‑service hours and carrying the kind of guardedness that warns people not to get too close. Bowen has learned the hard way that trust is dangerous, kindness is conditional, and stability is something other people get to have. Tristan’s warmth feels impossible—no one is that good without wanting something.

But week after week, the edges soften. Bowen starts to see that Tristan’s gentleness isn’t an act. Tristan starts to understand that Bowen’s sharpness is armor, built by a boy who’s been left behind too many times. The walls they’ve both lived behind begin to crack.

What grows between them is something neither expected—something that asks for honesty in a world that punishes it, and gives two boys who’ve always braced for loss a reason to stay.

Join Best Selling Author C.C. Black for this tender, grounded story about second chances and the slow, stubborn work of learning to trust someone who might actually deserve it.