Finding You: The Complete Box Set (a contemporary MM romance series)

by Ana Ashley

  “I saw it in my… our dad’s office. He had it with a bunch of papers on his desk.”

  “How old are you?” Max asked.

  “Sixteen. I’ll be seventeen in two months.”

  “You can’t be my sister. You’re too old, plus you look nothing like—” Max stopped himself and got up to pace the living room.

  “She’s not my mom,” Lucy said, raising her voice for the first time.

  Max stopped pacing and was facing the window looking out into the street. It was dark, so I knew he wasn’t looking at anything outside, just his own reflection in the glass. His body was so tense I was wondering when it was he would finally fall apart and what would happen when he did.

  I got up and walked to him. I put my hand on his back and gently rubbed it up and down. He looked at me. His eyes showed such pain and confusion.

  “Lucy,” I said, turning my face to her but keeping my body facing Max, “why are you here?”

  She paused at my question and then tears ran down her cheeks. “I’m sorry.” She gathered her coat and backpack. “I didn’t know what else to do. I thought you could help me. I’m sorry.”

  She was halfway toward the door when Max caught her and held her in his arms. I heard her sob into his chest, so I gave them a moment and went to the kitchen to prepare a drink. I had a feeling cold chocolate milk wouldn’t go down well this side of the Atlantic, but hot chocolate was a universal, heart-mending medicine, so I took three cups from the cupboard and warmed up milk on the stove.

  When I came back to the living room carrying a tray with the hot chocolate, Max and Lucy were sitting on the sofa together. She seemed to have calmed a little but was still quiet. I put one mug in front of her and one in front of Max with a bowl of marshmallows I’d found in the cupboard. I’d never had the combination before, but all the Christmas movies I’d seen as a kid made it look delicious.

  They both filled their mugs until there were no marshmallows left. When they realized what they’d done, they both laughed.

  “My mom died when I was ten.” Lucy took out a photo from the pages of a notebook she carried in her rucksack and showed it to Max. He gasped. The photo was of a beautiful young woman with dark, curly hair down to her shoulders. I presumed she must have had some Hispanic heritage from her looks. She was holding a small baby and looking up at the man standing next to her. I didn’t need to guess it was Max’s dad because they looked very similar, the only difference was that Max had blond hair, a contrast to his dad’s dark, but they both had the same brown eyes.

  “She had cancer. Dad wasn’t around much. Mom used to say he was busy working so he could provide for us. I was actually happy when he wasn’t with us because every time he came to stay, there was always lots of shouting and I used to see marks on my mom’s arms and sometimes on her face after he left. In the beginning, I didn’t notice much, I guess I was too young to understand, but at school, I never saw any of the adults with those blue marks on their skin, so one day I asked her. She got really mad at me and made me promise I wouldn’t talk about it again. She was so upset, so I did what she asked.”

  “You saw bruises,” Max said, and Lucy nodded, her eyes red with tears running down her face again.

  “Just after I turned ten, Mom kept getting sick. We didn’t have insurance, so she never went to the doctor. She died a few months later. I heard a doctor tell my dad she had a rare type of cancer.

  “I used to stay with a neighbor when Mom went to work, so I thought I would stay with her after Mom died, but then Dad came to get me and said I was going to live with him and his wife. I didn’t understand at first.” Lucy stopped for a moment to drink some of her chocolate.

  “I’m so sorry to hear about your mom, Lucy,” Max said.

  I could see he was hanging by a thread, and I was going to suggest we call it a day so I could find a way to calm him down, but then Lucy continued.

  “My dad’s wife was so beautiful. She had this perfect white skin that looked like a china doll, and her eyes were so blue it was like I was looking at the sky. I thought she was going to be my new mom. All I wanted was my old mom, but this lady looked like an angel, so I wondered if my mom had sent her from heaven to look after me.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “She was really mad that I was living there. She kept shouting at Dad. Asking him how he could do this to her. I tried being nice to her and remembered all the good manners my mom had taught me. I tried so hard, but she just pretended I wasn’t there. They both did. There was always a plate with food at the table for me, and they took me shopping for things like clothes and school supplies, but the rest of the time, they didn’t talk to me very much.”

  Max had his face hidden by his hands while his elbows were resting on his knees. I couldn’t tell how he was taking the news that his dad had had a mistress and a child. I also didn’t understand how he didn’t know about it. Where was he when this happened?

  “So you’ve been living with them all this time?” Max asked without raising his head.

  “Yes, until last week.”

  “What happened?”

  “Two weeks ago, I was looking for something in Dad’s office, and I saw some papers on his desk. They mentioned you. There was a will and your birth certificate. I didn’t know about you, so I read the papers. It was a combined will leaving everything to you if they both died, but it had an old date and there was a paper with a recent date.”

  “I don’t want a fucking cent from them,” Max said with his fists clenched so tight his knuckles were white.

  I kneeled in front of him. He readily opened his legs to let me get closer. I ran my hands through his hair, and he relaxed under my touch.

  “Baby, why don’t we call it a day and carry on tomorrow?” I was relieved when he nodded.

  “Lucy, do you have anywhere to go?” The way her gaze moved from me to Max told me she didn’t, even if she’d remained silent. I was going out on a limb, but I looked Max in the eyes as I spoke to Lucy.

  “Would you like to stay here for the night? We have a spare room.”

  She looked down at her hands and nodded shyly. “I won’t be any bother; you won’t even know I’m here.”

  My heart broke a little for the young girl, but it filled with pride when Max got up to show Lucy the spare room.

  I left the cups in the sink and went to our room to run the shower, got undressed, and got in knowing Max wouldn’t be too far behind. I was right.

  We didn’t speak as we took our time washing each other. Our bodies reacted as usual, but we didn’t do anything about it. I just wanted to comfort Max. Even without having the full picture, I could tell he was hurting a lot.

  “Do you want to tell me your side of the story?” I asked when we finally went to bed.

  We were facing each other with our hands interlocked against our chests.

  “Not much to tell. I thought I had the perfect upbringing, perfect parents, perfect life until I told my parents I was gay. Joel had told his parents, and I foolishly thought mine would be okay with it. They weren’t. They told me to get out of the house. I was fourteen. Looks like Lucy went to live with them a few years after I’d been gone.”

  Max said it in such a detached way, as though he wasn’t talking about himself, and I couldn’t help the tears that escaped my eyes.

  I had so many questions.

  Max had also been kicked out of his home by his parents, but he’d been so much younger than me. How had he survived? Had he moved in with Joel? The way he’d talked about their time together as teenagers made it sound as though they were occasional sleepovers. Where had he stayed when he wasn’t there? How did he feel knowing his parents had kicked him out for being gay but had allowed Lucy to stay? Why had Lucy run away as soon as she found out she had a half-sibling?

  All the answers had to wait for another day because Max’s hands roamed my body as he said, “Isaac, please make love to me. I need to feel you inside me.”

 
I knew what he was asking for. The escape of focusing on nothing else but the way in which our bodies connected. He was hoping for the pain, the pleasure, and the search for that magical high that was going to make the whole world disappear. There would be nothing else but me and him until exhaustion claimed us.

  I would gladly spend the rest of my life giving him that.

  30

  Max

  It wasn’t like I’d been sleeping well lately, so yesterday’s news had completely shot any chance of letting go and finding some rest.

  My favorite thing in the whole wide world was to feel Isaac buried inside me so deep I couldn’t tell where I ended and he began, so I’d near enough begged him to fuck me so I could escape all the noise in my head.

  Halfway through our lovemaking, I’d changed from chasing the orgasm to fighting it. The more Isaac pushed my buttons, the more I pushed back. He touched, sucked, and licked every inch of my skin he could reach, all while moving in and out of me in a variation of slow and fast-paced thrusts.

  When I finally let go, he swallowed my screams of pleasure with his mouth. I remember little after that, but since I couldn’t feel the evidence of my release, I assumed Isaac had made sure we were both clean before he came back to bed.

  It was still dark when I woke up. Unusually, I was facing away from Isaac and he was wrapped around me. His breath was warm on the back of my neck and the pulse of his heart rate steady against my back.

  I couldn’t remember how or when we’d fallen asleep, but somehow, we’d changed the dynamic. Maybe it was an unconscious move, or perhaps Isaac had decided I needed to be held tonight.

  I reached to grab my phone. It was just after three in the morning. My mind was still deciding if it was late the night before or early the day after, so I unwrapped myself from Isaac and got up to get a glass of water.

  The apartment was so silent it was deafening. Maybe if I listened carefully enough, I’d realize Lucy wasn’t across the hall in the spare room and that last night I didn’t really find out that not only had my dad cheated on my mom for years but he’d also brought home the child from his mistress after I wasn’t good enough to be his son just because I was gay.

  There was no chance of that because when I walked to the kitchen via the living room, I noticed the small body curled up on the rug in front of the fireplace.

  “Lucy?”

  She stirred and then opened her eyes wide like a deer in headlights. She stood up like I had caught her doing something wrong.

  “Why are you sleeping here?”

  “I didn’t want to mess up your room.”

  There wasn’t much light coming through the window, thanks to the heavy curtains, but there was enough that I noticed she was holding her arms around her waist and looking down to the floor.

  “It looked really neat and clean. I haven’t showered in a few days.” She looked embarrassed.

  “There’s a bathroom attached to your room. Have a shower. There are towels in the closet. If you leave your clothes outside the door, I’ll get them in the wash and they’ll be all clean by the morning.”

  “Oh no, that’s okay, I can wash my clothes. You don’t need to do that,” she said.

  “Lucy, I’m awake now and won’t be able to get back to sleep. It’ll give me something to do, okay?”

  She thought about it for a moment before agreeing with me and walking back toward the spare room.

  I made myself a coffee and sat at the breakfast bar. Despite everything that had happened, when I was a teenager, I knew I’d been very lucky. I just had to remember I was an adult now. What they did was in the past and I’d got over it. I had to focus on Lucy and figure out why she’d run away from home.

  “You’re not on your own, you know?”

  I looked up from my coffee to stare at the beautiful, rumpled face that was my safe harbor in this thunderstorm. He smiled and walked to me. I turned so he could sit on my lap. He pulled my head to his chest and ran his fingers through my hair, making me feel better instantly.

  There was silence for a moment until I heard a small cough.

  Lucy was standing a few feet away, her long curly hair down and wet from her shower. She was holding her dirty clothes and wearing the bathrobe I had on the back of the bathroom door for when Joel came over. It made her look so small and vulnerable, and my heart felt like it was being squeezed.

  “I’ll take care of these for you. Go get some sleep, yeah? Don’t worry about messing up the bedsheets.” I held out my hands to take the dirty laundry from her and winked. “Isaac is the best at making beds. If you make him cold chocolate milk in the morning, he’ll make your bed for you.”

  “I heard that,” he said from the stool I’d been sitting on as he took a sip from my coffee.

  She smiled and turned back toward the bedroom. “Thank you, Max. Thank you, Isaac. Goodnight.”

  When we saw she’d closed her bedroom door, I refilled my coffee mug and got one out for Isaac.

  “This is going to be a long day. I should call the hospital and take tomorrow off.”

  “I agree. With calling the hospital, I mean. As for the long day, why don’t you come back to bed? We’ll sort the clothes out in the morning before she’s up.” He put his arms around my waist and reached up for a kiss.

  “Hmm, sounds like a great idea,” I said, melting into his mouth.

  “Nuh huh, none of that. You will get back to your duties as my big spoon, and we’re going to sleep.”

  “If we must.”

  When I woke again, daylight was streaming from a small gap in the curtains, but I didn’t need the light to know I was alone in bed. My phone told me it was nine-thirty. When did I ever sleep until so late?

  I got dressed and left the room to find Isaac. I could smell freshly brewed coffee, so I knew he would be in the kitchen. Lucy came out from her room at the same time as me. She was still wearing the bathrobe.

  “Morning,” I said and was happy to see a small smile.

  We walked to the kitchen together. Isaac must have gone out before we were up because there was a full continental breakfast on the table together with fresh bread.

  He smiled wide when he saw me and Lucy by the archway and then gave me the sexiest wink.

  “Lucy, here are your clothes. They’re all clean. Is this all you have?”

  “No, I have a suitcase in a locker at the train station.”

  “Right, well get dressed then.”

  She took the clothes and disappeared toward the spare room. She was back less than two minutes later. Her rucksack in hand.

  “Do you drink coffee, Lucy?” Isaac asked, not noticing she seemed ready to leave.

  Lucy paused but then nodded and placed the rucksack by the stool she sat on.

  I put a coffee in front of her and she took it, adding sugar and cream.

  “You Americans are weird,” Isaac said, “adding cream to coffee.” He shook his head and shuddered like it was the most horrendous thing ever.

  “Where are you from?” Lucy asked.

  “I’m from Portugal.”

  “My mom’s parents were from Puerto Rico, but she was born here, like me.”

  “Do you have any other family?” I asked.

  “No, I think my grandparents died before I was born. I only have Dad now.” She paused. “Well, I guess you’re my half-brother, so you’re family, right?”

  “Right.” I nearly choked on a piece of bread. “You said you found those documents two weeks ago. Did you run away from home?”

  “Yes. I didn’t run straight away. He’d been worse than before, so I was trying to find money in his office. That’s why I was there.”

  “What do you mean he’d been worse?”

  “Dad used to ignore me, just like his wife, but after I turned sixteen, he started picking on everything I did. The first time it happened, I’d been studying in my bedroom; I forgot about dinner and then had a shower before going straight to bed. I had a test the next day and was nervous ab
out it.”

  “The first time what happened?”

  “The first time he hit me.” She looked down at her half-eaten food, and it was then I realized where her bruises had come from. I dug my nails in my palms to stop myself from smashing something.

  “It had been such a long time since I’d heard him raise his voice.”

  I knew what she meant. It had been a long time since she’d heard him and her mom argue.

  “He told me I had disrespected his wife’s household and didn’t appreciate what they did for me. My room was messy, and I was just like my mom, a waste of space.”

  I reached out to her and held her hand. Despite everything, my heart broke for her. She was the innocent party in all this mess.

  “What happened after that?”

  “He would find any excuse to hit me. He always did it in a way the bruises wouldn‘t show. I saw a change in his wife, too. She still ignored me but seemed happier. They even went on vacations together and weekends away. Those were good. I used to spend the whole time cleaning the house to make it really nice for when they came back. The nicer the house looked, the longer it would take until I did something wrong again. Why weren’t you living with them?” Her change of subject took me by surprise, but I guessed she probably had as many questions about me as I did about her.

  “They kicked me out when I was fourteen after I told them I’m gay.”

  Her eyes widened in shock, but then there was understanding. She knew they weren’t good people. She’d lived through that. In a way, I was lucky to have been kicked out.

  “Do you have a problem with me being gay? With me and Isaac being together?” It didn’t matter what she thought, but morbid curiosity made me ask the question.

  “No.” She smiled and then blushed. “I think you’re really cute together.”

  “Aww, baby, see? We’re cute together,” Isaac said in a cutesy voice, so I threw him a piece of bread.

  Lucy laughed. It was the first time she’d looked her age since I’d met her yesterday.

  “Right, back to serious business. So you found out about me, and then what?”