Something New

by Cameron Dane

  Braden tucked in his shirt, finished doing up his buckle, and strolled to Abby’s side. “You look particularly lovely this morning.” He pecked a kiss to her cheek. “Isn’t that reason enough to look at you?”

  “Fine.” Abby rolled her eyes at the man’s innocent act. Her pale skin was blotchy without her moisturizer, and her hair could be mistaken for Medusa’s without the product she used daily to keep the frizz to a minimum. “Don’t tell me.”

  After putting on her shirt, Abby turned to the sink and grabbed the one-use toothbrush she kept in her purse for emergencies. Rodrigo had been able to locate one extra in his medicine cabinet, so it had gone to Braden.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Abby watched Braden move in behind Rodrigo and reach around his waist to get that extra toothbrush. They both put their toothbrushes under the water at the same time, and Braden chuckled as he said, “The one thing you didn’t count on when designing this house was the need for three sinks.”

  Rodrigo bounced back and forth between paying attention to applying paste to his brush and looking at Braden in the mirror. “There’s plenty enough room for me to add a third if you want it.”

  “Nah.” Braden dipped down and kissed Rodrigo’s bare shoulder. “I don’t mind sharing.”

  His smile growing, Rodrigo reached back and ran his hand down Braden’s outer thigh. “I did notice that.”

  Abby was enjoying the banter and play between the men when Braden braced his hands on the edge of the sink on either side of Rodrigo and pretended to grind his crotch into Rodrigo’s ass. Teasing in return, Rodrigo dropped his head back on Braden’s shoulder and made loud, exaggerated moaning noises. In between the fake moans, they laughed together as they simulated sex.

  Suddenly, the bathroom swam in front of Abby’s eyes, and she saw Braden’s jeans around his hips, his ass exposed, and heard him shout hoarsely in a way that terrified her all the way to her core. Only, it wasn’t Braden’s voice or even his dark head bent over Rodrigo that she heard and saw anymore. And it wasn’t Rodrigo’s dark head turned toward Braden’s neck. Instead, red hair flamed hot, and the back of a blond head concealed faces caught up in a passionate kiss as bodies merged into one, the image partially obscured by intermittent dark slashes.

  Like looking through a vent.

  “Oh my God.” Abby covered her mouth and stumbled backward, not stopping until her legs hit the bathtub ledge. Her limbs the consistency of heated rubber, Abby dropped to sit, mindless of anything except the images flashing like oncoming traffic in her mind. “He wasn’t fighting.” The shout Abby had originally thought she’d heard while eavesdropping on her father in the den changed from something full of anger to something released in the throes of exuberant lust. “He was having sex.” In her mind, below the short blond hair, Abby saw a thickly corded, masculine neck and part of a wide, bare shoulder and arm.

  Oh dear Lord.

  She looked up, blinking, and found herself back in the bathroom with Braden and Rodrigo crouched at her feet. “He was with another man.”

  Braden pushed Abby’s hair out of her face. “Who, honey? What are you talking about?”

  Half pointing in the direction of the sink, Abby didn’t know what to do. Moving her arm—her whole body—felt like a foreign thing. She squinted and tried to bring back the imagery. “You and Rodrigo were playing there, and the way you were positioned triggered the rest of the memory. I heard that low shout, and back then, in my mind, I filled in the blanks with anger and a fight, but it wasn’t.”

  The pictures in Abby’s head flashed back and forth between Rodrigo and Braden, teasing, to something much more aggressive—set in a den with entirely different men. “My father… That day we talked about…” Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, oh Jesus. Abby didn’t know how to process such visual information about her own parent. “He wasn’t yelling at someone on the phone or in person.” Rodrigo and Braden shimmered before Abby’s eyes, and her voice cracked. “In his den, against the desk, my father was making a noise that I thought was shouting, but it was really a sound he made while having sex with another man.”

  “Dios mío.” The rest of Rodrigo’s Spanish muttering occurred under his breath. He finally shook his head, and when he looked up at Abby, his eyes burned like he wanted to hit something. “And you saw it?”

  Abby nodded, the feeling jerky and unnatural. “Just for a second.” Abby’s psyche recoiled against the idea of going back into that moment of new memory to catalog everything again, but she forced herself to delve in quickly and grab some details. “My dad is covering the man, like Braden was just doing to you. The only things I can remember seeing in that moment from the other person are the back of a blond head and a thick shoulder and upper part of an arm.” Every word Abby spoke felt like it was coming out through sandpaper. “I think my eight-year-old mind must not have been able to accept or process what I was seeing, so I jerked away and covered my face.”

  “Like you did the other day in the attic,” Rodrigo said.

  “Yes. And then I must have blocked it out entirely, along with the murders.” Elbows on her knees, Abby held her head in her hands, exhaling a shaky breath. “Jesus.” She scrubbed her face. Careful what you toss out into the universe. “My dad really was cheating. Just like my mom.” She shrugged, her shoulders almost too heavy to move them. “Maybe that guy killed them.”

  “No.” Braden bracketed her head with his big hands and shifted her to face him directly. “It’s shocking as hell, and I’m sorry you saw one of your parents being unfaithful, as sorry as I am that you heard them being murdered. No eight-year-old should have that kind of information in their head about a mother or a father with a man or a woman. But it’s not relevant to the case. Remember”—he brushed the pads of his thumbs under her eyes, drying skin—“it’s your mother who said baby and knew the murderer. It’s still whoever she had the affair with we have to focus on and find.”

  It felt tight, but Abby forced herself to smile for Braden. Or at least to stop frowning. “Right.”

  “But maybe they both knew, Bray,” Rodrigo said, thumping his fist on Braden’s thigh. “Maybe they each knew about the other’s affair, and if we find this guy, he could tell us if Richard ever told him the name of Elaine’s lover.”

  Braden’s lips thinned, and his stare narrowed. “I can think of one blond man I’ve come across who possibly had his own secrets to hide and thus much more personal reasons for blocking this investigation than we originally thought.”

  Oh no. Abby’s inside churned between sickness and rage. No, no.

  “The priest?” Rodrigo voiced Abby’s horror.

  “I’m not saying definitively.” Braden put his hand on top of Abby’s, automatically easing her distress, as if he’d been able to read her mind. “But it would give reason for his desire to shut down an investigation that would require looking deeply into the Gaineses’ personal lives. I might have a new set of questions to ask Father Jim now. I need to talk to the captain, but maybe I can even bring our priest friend into the station and help make him a little bit more nervous about his circumstances.” Lifting out of his crouch, Braden took a seat next to Abby on the tub and tucked her close to his side. “If nothing else, the implications could intimidate him enough to loosen his lips about the information he’s protecting about Elaine.”

  “Damn, Crenshaw.” Kneeling close, Rodrigo rested his arms alongside Braden and Abby, closing them in. “That’s why you’re the cop, and I refurbish houses. I would not want to sit across a table and drill a priest about his secrets and lies. If you’re wrong—and pardon the way I say this—you’ll get crucified.”

  His hand tightening at Abby’s waist, clutching her, Braden grimaced. “I’m not saying I’ll like doing it, but sometimes you have to unearth places people don’t want to see in order to get to the truth.”

  “Ohhh my goodness.” Abby looked upward, mentally seeing beyond the ceiling to the blue sky outside…and even higher above to what she had always been taught exi
sted far beyond the clouds. “This is weird. It’s so strange and unnerving and bizarre.” She blinked a handful of times and brought her gaze back down to find Braden’s and Rodrigo’s waiting for her. “I had no idea when I started having these nightmares that I’d learn all this.”

  “Do you want to stop?” Braden asked.

  Two faces that always had a smile for Abby as a child, two sets of ears that never seemed to tire of listening to her fanciful tales, and two sets of arms that took turns holding her when she was sad or scared or hurt still whispered over Abby’s skin and into her heart today, buffeting her with new resolve. “No. They’re still my parents. Someone still broke into our house and butchered them. They still deserve justice so they can rest in peace.” Abby looked upon these two new beautiful, masculine faces that gave her extra strength today, and her throat went tight. “We all do.”

  “Then let’s get something to eat so we can get going,” Braden said. “I’ll drop you both off”—Rodrigo’s truck was still at Abby’s place—“and then I’ll go have a chat with my boss.”

  “Come with me.” Rodrigo shot to his feet and pulled Abby and Braden upright too. He drew them to his sides, then led them to the kitchen through the media room, saying, “I make an even better breakfast than I do dinner.”

  Abby welcomed the distraction of watching Rodrigo move around his kitchen like a pro.

  * * *

  “Come on, Bray!” Rodrigo stood at his open front door and shouted into the house. “You’re the one who wanted us to shovel down our breakfast so we could get this show on the road!”

  A second later, Braden appeared from the direction of the kitchen, his middle finger saluting high. “Hey, give me a fucking break, Rigo. When you have to piss, you have to piss.” The man pecked a kiss to Rodrigo’s cheek and smacked his ass as he squeezed past him to the outside. “I’m good to go now.”

  From behind, already outside, Abby said, “You guys are so cute when you bicker.” Rodrigo could hear the smile in her tone. It lightened his heart and pulled a secret grin out of him.

  Anything to keep her spirits lifted.

  “You notice that he’s the common denominator with instigating the bickering”—Braden pointed at Rodrigo as Rodrigo locked his house up tight—“because he does the same cute pushy crap with you.”

  Rodrigo pocketed his keys and moved in close to where Abby and Braden stood. “As long as you both think it’s cute” He put his hand on Braden’s hard stomach but leaned down to brush his lips across Abby’s upturned mouth, savoring the closeness with both of them.

  With a poke to Rodrigo’s ribs, Braden started moving backward down the curved walkway. “I’ll tell you what’s cute,” he said, smiling at Rodrigo, “is this little Bray you started calling me this morning. It’s not exactly original, Rigo”—the twinkle in Braden’s eyes laughed for him—“but I’ll take it.”

  Two big strides had Rodrigo within catching distance. He grabbed the front of Braden’s shirt, dragged the man right back to him, and yanked him down until their mouths were only an inch apart. “You’ll fucking take whatever I give you and like it.”

  “Yeah?” Braden’s breath feathered over Rodrigo’s mouth, the warmth one hell of a foreplay move.

  Rodrigo closed the distance between them. “Yeah.” He whispered the word past Braden’s parted lips and then took him with a slow, easy kiss. Rodrigo grazed and feathered his lips against Braden’s, feeling none of the frantic need to dominate he had from the moment this relationship between all three of them had taken its first intimate turn. Instead of pushing and claiming with force, Rodrigo relaxed his mouth and let Braden work his tongue inside; he just let himself enjoy Braden tasting him with inquisitive little licks that started pleasant sparks but didn’t erupt into a catastrophic inferno. Abby moved in at Rodrigo’s back and started pressing kisses against his nape, warming and protecting Rodrigo from behind while Braden kept his front covered and his mouth busy.

  As much as Rodrigo would have thought the opposite, something in his taking Braden last night had actually settled much of the chaos within him about this odd three-person coupling. Rather than bring his sexuality into question, it eradicated any insecurities about Rodrigo’s place between this pair, where he stood, and whether a ménage relationship could work.

  If it’s me with these two people, it can.

  Just as Braden nipped Rodrigo’s lower lip and Rodrigo was about to drag Abby around to his front for a deeper taste—along with a suggestion that they go back inside and try the pool table out before heading to work—Abby squeezed him around the waist. Hard.

  “Guys, guys.” Abby’s hissing tone and short fingernails digging into Rodrigo’s stomach cut through the haze of lust like a sword. “Rodrigo, you have company.”

  Easing back from the kiss, Braden stepped to Rodrigo’s left, clearing the way to see the new car pulling up the drive. Or rather, the two people emerging from the car already parked in the drive.

  Henry and Mary. What in the hell was Rodrigo’s father doing here with his wife? Rodrigo stiffened to hard as granite. Shit.

  Henry rounded the front of the vehicle, his rough face a mask, with his chin tipped high. His green gaze barely swept over Rodrigo’s and definitely didn’t hold on him. The man also reached the foot of the walkway and stayed put, as if the break between the driveway and the walk couldn’t be breached.

  A casing started to solidify around Rodrigo’s heart at Henry’s rebuff. Rodrigo felt Braden start to step away, so Rodrigo snatched his hand out to the left, grabbing Braden before he could move.

  Mary approached on her own, a flowerpot in her hands and a wobbly smile on her glossy lips. “I noticed when we came for lunch last weekend that you didn’t have a hanging plant for the front of your house.” Her voice rose in accompaniment with her growing, clearly forced, grin. “Everyone should have one. It’s welcoming. We didn’t think you would be here. I was just going to hang it from one of the beams and slip the note in your mailbox.” She thrust the cascade of yellow and green out in front of her. “Here.”

  Rodrigo couldn’t stop himself from staring over Mary’s shoulder to the imposing blond-haired man standing so stiffly at the foot of the walk. Everything in Rodrigo wanted to race down the walkway and bodily force Henry to look at him with more than a cursory glance. The ease of their conversation at the diner rang in Rodrigo’s head like the hollowest of laughs, mocking him for the chump he’d been to think he might actually have a real father one day.

  After a couple of thick, tense heartbeats, Abby took the plant from Mary. “Thank you. It’s so pretty.”

  “You’re welcome.” Mary glanced between Rodrigo and her husband, and her mouth pulled down at the edge. “Okay, well, I have to get to work. It was good to see you.” She lifted her hand only a few inches from her side in an abbreviated wave. “Bye.”

  As Henry stepped back to open his wife’s door, his gaze slid Rodrigo’s way and finally did hold for that moment Rodrigo had thought he so desperately wanted. Piercing anger showed through during the split second of eye contact between them, and it screamed in Rodrigo’s ears louder than the ugliest epithets Henry could have shouted. Then it was gone. Henry slammed the passenger-side door and moved back around to the driver’s side of his car without ever speaking a word.

  Oh, no fucking way. Rodrigo flashed back to Braden’s uncertainty last night about Rodrigo welcoming a nickname between them in public, and it merged in his head with Abby’s uncensored confession of love as she drifted off to sleep, content and safe in her lovers’ arms. You do not get to pretend you don’t see the people I love, you son of a bitch.

  Rodrigo raced down the walkway and practically leaped over the car in his effort to get to Henry. He grabbed at Henry’s army jacket, jammed him up against the side of the car, and bit out each word through clenched teeth. “You don’t have to sully your precious, pure gaze by looking at me ever again, but you will damn well at least acknowledge that there are two other people stan
ding here. Good people. Decent people. People worthy of respect. But you wouldn’t know that because you saw a woman hanging on my back while I was kissing another man and decided I wasn’t worth even saying hello to anymore.”

  Chips of icy green stared back at Rodrigo at eye level, unblinking, and Rodrigo felt his face twist into an ugly distortion of himself.

  “Nice to know where I stand with you before I wasted anymore of my time,” Rodrigo said with ruthless chill in his voice. “Have a fucking nice day.” With the taste of bile burning a hole in his throat, he shoved off and walked away.

  Rodrigo didn’t get halfway around the front of the car when Henry grabbed him from behind, spun him around, and bowed Rodrigo back over the hood with a hand to Rodrigo’s chest and a finger pointed in his face. “Listen, you judgmental little bastard, because you do not get to walk away from this, making assumptions like you know shit about me.”

  As Henry held Rodrigo down, his voice went low and deep, and possessed as abrasive a timbre as Rodrigo had ever heard in himself. “I step out of my car and see something that doesn’t make a shit-licking bit of sense to me, but whatever, you’re thirty-four years old, and it’s your life. Only there you are in the middle, looking fucking ready to cock your imaginary weapon and blow me to kingdom come before I even speak a word. You don’t say one goddamned word. What did you expect me to say or do when you didn’t even introduce me to your friends? You not only refuse my wife’s gift, but you’re outright rude enough to her to make me want to smack you in the mouth. And all that time, you’re staring at me waiting for me to spew some racist or sexist or I-don’t-the-fuck-know what kind of bullshit, waiting for me to fulfill every one of the nasty little expectations you apparently have of me.

  “Oh yeah,” Henry added, craggy eyebrows shooting upward. “You think I couldn’t see you? I could. I was watching you out of the corner of my eye the whole fucking time, wondering what the hell I ever said or implied to you that would make you think I would call you names or turn you out for anything you do or want or are. But it wasn’t me. I didn’t say anything. I just did my best every time we were together to get to know my son.” He jammed both hands against Rodrigo’s chest. “It was you who decided I was gonna dismiss you, so you judged me first. Nice going. You successfully pissed me off. And generally speaking”—Henry pulled back and pointed as he moved away, snarling just as hard as Rodrigo had—“it’s not good for me to talk to people when I’m this fucking mad.”