What We May Be: An MMF Romantic Mystery

by Layla Reyne

  He tilted his head, beckoning her inside. When she didn’t move to get out of the car, he pushed off the door and crossed the walkway to where she was parked. He propped an elbow on the corner of her windshield. “You want me to get in the car?” He eyed the passenger seat on the other side of her. “We can leave right now if you’re not ready for this or if you don’t want it.”

  Her gaze flicked in the direction of his feet. “You’re barefoot.” Then back to his face, all the beautiful angles thrown into sharp relief by the moonlight overhead and the shadows cast from behind. “And you want this.”

  “I do, but you will always come first, Charlotte.” His serious-as-a-heart-attack expression gave way to a smirk. “Shoes or not.”

  She leaned her head back and laughed at the moon and stars above, a little of the tension leaving her. “I want this too,” she admitted. “So much it scares me.”

  He pried one of her hands off the wheel—not all the tension was gone—and linked their fingers together, setting them on the open window. “Talk to me.”

  “We have to tell him about Mom. I think it’s relevant to the case.” She skated her thumb along the side of his as she recalled Sean’s words from the cemetery the other night, recalled where she’d found him. “I think he might already know.” No surprised jerk, no wide eyes, no inhaled breath. “You’re not surprised,” she said.

  “I think it might have to do with why he stayed away,” Trevor said, surprising her. He stroked a thumb across her palm, calming the flare of nerves. “Either way, we have to talk about it, case or not. No more secrets.”

  “What if it pushes him away again?” she said, putting words to her fear.

  “I don’t think it will, but if it does, we move on.”

  “How with all of us in DC?”

  Trevor chuckled and slid along the outside of the door, closer to where she was leaned back against the headrest. “It’s DC, Charlie. Not Hanover. It’s a big fucking town. What other excuse you got?”

  She closed her hand around his and drew him down, his forearms resting on the window ledge, his face only a few scant inches from her own. The kiss in the locker room today wasn’t enough, neither were the kisses earlier that month or all the kisses of ten years ago. “I want this, Trevor. I don’t want to lose what this might be.”

  He leaned forward and their mouths met, glided together as if it were the most natural thing in the world. More of that comfort, more of that sense of home. Her lips parted, and Trevor’s tongue dipped inside, taking his time and kissing her so thoroughly, so perfectly, she had to close her eyes and catch her breath when they finally parted.

  His fingers twisted in her hair, and his lips rained soft kisses across her face. “I want this too, Charlie, and I will fight for us this time.”

  With that knowledge, Charlie’s eagerness overcame the fear, and she climbed out of the car. Hand still clasped in Trevor’s, she tugged him toward room twelve. Toward the other person who would make that sense of home complete. “Let’s go fight for him too.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Trevor followed Charlie back inside the motel room, and Sean’s gaze went immediately to their joined hands. One corner of his mouth hitched up, and he did such a piss-poor job of trying to hide it, ducking his chin and pretending the scotch he was pouring was the most interesting thing in the world, that Trevor laughed. “You’re not fooling anyone.”

  “Who said I was trying to?” Smiling, Sean capped the bottle and set it aside. “Outside on the patio? I can pull out another chair.”

  “Inside.” Charlie untangled their hands, claimed a glass, and led the way to the seating area. She gestured at the room around them. “What I have to say needs to stay inside these four walls. Just between the three of us.”

  “All right,” Sean said as he lowered himself onto the near end of the couch.

  When Charlie claimed the chair, Trevor joined Sean on the sofa, sitting on his other side. As soon as his ass hit the cushions, Charlie tossed back her scotch and bolted up. Sean moved to stand too, but Trevor put a hand on his thigh. “Let her get this out.”

  “But I know.”

  Charlie froze midstride between the dining table and them, her dark eyes connecting with Trevor’s, then skipping to Sean’s. “You know?”

  “I know how your mother really died that night. Do you?”

  He knew.

  Trevor was caught between relief and pissed-off anger. What exactly did Sean know? How long had he known? Why hadn’t he said anything? Apparently, pissed-off anger was winning, his white-knuckled grip on Sean’s thigh eliciting a hissed, “Trev.”

  He eased his hold as Charlie stepped closer, gripping the back of the chair. “It wasn’t a stranger who ran Mom’s car off the bridge. It was my brother.”

  Sean nodded, encouraging her to go on.

  “It was raining, and he was speeding, racing to come get me from a date gone horribly wrong.”

  “Craig Rowan?”

  She nodded. “I called Trevor and Cal, I…” Her words drifted off, eaten by the lump in her throat she visibly strained against. “Another something that was my—”

  Nope, they weren’t going there again. “Don’t say it,” Trevor interrupted. “We went through this after we got the letter. It was not your fault. If anyone’s to blame, it’s Craig.”

  “The letter?” Sean asked.

  “From Cal,” Trevor told him. “We got it the day after the funeral.”

  If Charlie’s guilt over Mitch’s and Cal’s deaths had been crushing, it had been twice as bad when she learned the truth about Alice’s. They’d hashed it all out that night over homemade pasta, a bottle of Chianti, and several boxes of tissues, discussing and dispelling the guilt and anger they both felt, and ultimately concluding Craig was the party truly responsible for that awful night their senior year of high school. He’d been the one who’d set in motion the tragic chain of events. That said, Trevor had had to remind Charlie of that on the regular the past month, her tendency toward self-blame compounded by the losses that just kept coming.

  “The same day I left again?” Sean asked, and when Trevor nodded, he lowered his chin and ran a hand over his nape. “Fuck, I’m sorry.”

  Charlie circled the chair and sank back into it. “Is that when you found out?”

  Sean lowered his arm. “No, I found out the first time I tried to come back to you.”

  Trevor almost bolted up himself at that revelation, but Sean clasped his leg, keeping him seated. “Let me get this out, please.”

  Trevor simmered down and Sean removed his hand, reaching out to snag his glass for a long swallow. “We need to go back a little further first,” he said. “To the day we graduated police academy.” Trevor sensed this was the part of the story he’d gotten some of the other night. “I got a call from Marie in the parking lot right after the ceremony. You two had already left for the house to get things ready for the party. Cal was there with me and overheard the call. Saul was in emergency surgery. They weren’t sure he was going to make it. Cal told me to go, and he’d let you two know what had happened and why I’d left in such a hurry. I gave him my new badge, my necklace, and the wedding band I’d proposed to you with for safe keeping.”

  Trevor touched the base of his throat where his necklace used to rest. “You had yours on you?”

  “In my pocket, since I couldn’t wear the necklace with the uniform and since we hadn’t announced the engagement yet.”

  Trevor’s heart and stomach sank, betrayal a heavy boulder dragging them down. And if he felt that way…

  Charlie trembled where she sat, her face a ghostly pale. Thank goodness she’d sat back down because Trever didn’t think she’d have the legs to stand. He sure as shit didn’t. “He told us you left and weren’t coming back. He gave me the badge, and Trevor the ring and necklace.”

  “I figured maybe that’s what happened when you wouldn’t answer my calls.” Sean tossed back the rest of his scotch and slid his glass onto
the coffee table next to Trevor’s. “I tried to come back anyway, once Saul recovered, but then Cal used his badge to hold me up at the airport.”

  Charlie’s trembling took on a different tenor, morphing into anger. “He did what?”

  “That’s when he told you about Alice?” Trevor asked. He shared Charlie’s mounting anger, but Sean needed to get this out and they needed to hear the full story, once and for all.

  “He said I shouldn’t come back and cause another scene,” Sean continued. “That you both were furious I’d left, that if I came back it would be worse, that our unconventional relationship would draw more unwanted attention, and that others would use our drama to their advantage against the Henbys and against you with HU. They’d dig and find out the truth.”

  “Others like the Rowans.” Trevor propped his elbows on his knees and scrubbed his hands over his face. “Craig was just back in town. He came at me at Pearl’s about a week before your police academy graduation, saying the reign of the Henbys was over, and I wouldn’t be protected anymore. That he’d use his pull with HU to get me kicked out of the doctoral program. Cal was with me.”

  “Dad, Cal, and Abel would all have been kicked out of the department too,” Charlie said. “For covering up the accident.” Her gaze shot to his. “And Craig was still pissed at you for breaking his nose at that party the night of the accident.”

  “And you”—Sean reached for her hand with one of his—“would blame yourself, for all of it. Cal feared that more than anything, and so did I.” He took Trevor’s hand in the other. “I didn’t want to risk your futures. I didn’t want to do anything that might bring harm to you or your family. And I was likely going to have to take over Paxton sooner than expected. I couldn’t ask you to leave your family and your futures here in Hanover. Not when they were just beginning.”

  Trevor closed his eyes, mentally rewinding to that day that had begun so beautifully and ended so tragically. A proposal, a graduation, an abandonment. Except that last one wasn’t true. Cal had intervened, again prompted by fucking Craig Rowan. The course of their lives had been irrevocably altered a second time. But even if it was about protecting them, how could Cal do that, to Charlie, to him, to Sean? How could he live—Trevor’s mental film reel fast forwarded to the answer. Cal hadn’t been able to live with himself. “The overdose,” he mumbled.

  Sean’s gaze darted between them. “What overdose?”

  “About a year after you left, Cal almost OD’ed. A friend called me from a bar over in Southport. Cal was strung out on pills and halfway through his second bottle of vodka. I found him at a nearby motel, unconscious.”

  “He barely made it,” Charlie said, voice a mere whisper, some of the anger leeching out as realization dawned for her too. Pieces coming together.

  Trevor stood, circled the coffee table, and sat on the arm of Charlie’s chair. Needing to be near her as he finished telling Sean this part of the story. One of the other worst times of their lives. “I sat by his hospital bed for the next forty-eight hours, convincing him to live.”

  Charlie laid a hand on his thigh and leaned against his side. “We never knew what set him off. Took him a lot of therapy and a new partner to train to recover and refocus, but he never completely shook the sadness.”

  The guilt. On multiple levels.

  “We talked to Abel,” Trevor said. “After Mitch and Cal died and after we got Cal’s letter. Cal didn’t remember anything after the accident that night.” Charlie shivered and Trevor wrapped an arm around her shoulders, offering and taking comfort as the memories crept even closer. “He woke up at home the next morning, barely a scratch on him, the previous twelve hours a blank. Abel told him he’d hydroplaned and run off the road several miles short of the bridge. Mitch made sure the police reports said Alice’s accident was a hit-and-run.”

  “We were eighteen.” Charlie sniffled and wiped at her eyes, stopping the tears before they fell. “Abel told us he and Dad thought the guilt would crush him, that it would crush me.”

  Trevor hugged her tighter. “Not an unfounded concern.”

  “When did Cal learn the truth?” Sean asked. “He never let on while we were at HU.”

  “It didn’t come back to him until police academy,” Charlie said. “In bits and pieces.”

  None of them had seen it, but Cal’s life had been spinning out of control, and Sean had unwittingly been caught in the storm. Trevor reached out, drawing him to them, wrapping an arm around his waist and holding him close too. “I’m sorry, baby.”

  Sean wove his fingers into his hair. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you both.”

  Charlie cut off his lament, reaching three fingers up to his lips. “You felt a duty to Marie and Saul. You love them, Sean. We’re not going to hold rushing to their side against you.”

  “I know what it’s like.” Trevor rested his head on Sean’s chest and nuzzled into the heat. “When good people take you into their family and ask nothing in return. You want to give them everything back.”

  Sean kissed his head. “But you were my family too.”

  “And you were still trying to protect us,” Charlie said. “Even though Cal told you we didn’t want you here anymore.”

  “We should have come looking for you,” Trevor said. “Fuck, I debated it half a dozen times. I was so fucking angry and hurt, but Cal talked me down every time.”

  “Me too,” Charlie whispered. “I can’t believe he…” Her words drifted off again in the same sea of anger and regret that Trevor was wading through.

  “We were twenty-three-year-old kids, including Cal.” Sean curled his fingers around Charlie’s, holding them to his chest, and Trevor kissed her knuckles. “He was just trying to keep his family safe and close. Hanover too, I imagine, from the Rowans. I can’t hold that against him, especially now that I’ve met Craig. And after what Cal told you, together with the badge, ring, and necklace, and with me joining the FBI, you tried to move on because you thought that’s what I was doing too. I can’t hold that against you either.”

  They stayed curled together for several long minutes, wrapped in each other’s arms, grieving the time they’d lost, mourning good intentions that had resulted in pain and anguish, and yet acclimating to a fresh sort of peace that was settling now that the truth was out there. Reality, however, eventually intruded, Charlie’s phone ringing insistently. Trevor told her to ignore it, but after it rang a third time, she rose, kissed each of them firmly but briefly, and retrieved the device off the dining table.

  “What’ve you got?” she answered. A quick conversation later, she hung up, left the phone on the table, and returned to them. “Marshals will be en route with Martin tomorrow morning. She should be here by two. I still don’t know—”

  Sean’s and Trevor’s fingers collided on the way to putting them on her lips. They laughed, the earlier melancholy beginning to fade. “We’ll question her tomorrow,” Sean said. “We’ll get to the bottom of the case, just like we got to the bottom of things between us.” He curled a hand around each of their necks. “I missed you both so much. I want to move forward with you, but I don’t want to compromise your futures or your family now. I won’t hold—”

  Without a second thought, Trevor sealed their lips and let Sean know just how much he’d missed him too. And what he thought about their futures. “I want to move forward with you too.”

  Charlie stepped close, arms circling their waists, making her thoughts on the matter clear as well. “I’m in this too. I want to make it work this time.” Her eyes locked with his. “We fight for each other and our family.” She rose, her lips colliding with his, and it wasn’t like the kiss in the locker room earlier. Or like when his lips had reconnected with Sean’s then or in the batting cage. Or hell, even like their kisses a month ago. None of them were trying to prove anything. They’d all but confessed they were it for each other. Their kisses were a continuation of their catharsis that had started that night and finally been fully realized, years of long
ing finally getting its proper due. Trevor was going to savor this victory and commit every second of it to memory.

  Touching his tongue to Charlie’s lips again, she opened for him immediately. Diving in, he tangled his tongue with hers and she responded—hot, hard, and demanding—eliciting a moan from deep within his throat. He hauled her into his embrace, one arm circling her waist, his other hand curving over her ass and under her thigh, hitching her up against him. The heat of Sean’s body lined up behind him, hands on his hips, and he directed them toward the bedroom. Good thing, as Trevor’s lips were making a survey of Charlie’s neck, his mouth trailing kisses down her throat.

  She wove her hands into his hair, holding him to her. “Yes,” she moaned, grinding her hips against his abs, not hiding her need for him either.

  His dick strained behind the fly of his pants, and when Sean reached a hand around, palming his erection, he damn near dropped Charlie in his rush to thrust into the touch. “Dammit, Sean,” he cursed. “Let me get her to the bed first.”

  Charlie threw back her head and laughed, and he nipped her collarbone for making fun of him. Rotating, he sat on the edge of the bed, Charlie in his lap, and he reached up to hold her face in his hands. Looked higher at Sean standing behind her, shirt gone, blue eyes bright. “I love you both. As much as I did ten years ago. We will make this work. I will make this work.”

  Sean leaned over Charlie’s shoulder to press his smiling lips to Trevor’s. “Fucking romantic.”

  Charlie laid her hands over Trevor’s. “Our fucking romantic.” The sweet words and gesture were belied by the demanding roll of her hips.

  Trevor thrust up to meet her and they gasped against each other’s lips. “Fuck, Charlie.”

  Grinning, she trailed her mouth over his jaw and neck while Sean climbed onto the bed beside them, helping Charlie to undress him. They wrestled Trevor out of his shirt, then Sean flicked open the button of his jeans and reached a hand inside his boxers to stroke his cock. Trevor closed his eyes and braced a hand behind him on the mattress, needing the support as his lust kicked into overdrive. His love and need for these two people fueling the train.