Something New (24 page)

Thoughts of Abby put Rodrigo back in bed this morning at her side after another one of her nightmares. “Even when Chris doesn’t let you help,” Rodrigo mused, “I’m beginning to understand that drive inside you to take care of him.” Rodrigo could still feel Abby tucked in between him and Braden, and recalled his sense of helplessness while listening to her settle herself and get her breathing back under control. “I didn’t understand that immediate bond you had with Chris when you first came back to Coleman. I mean, I understood it, but I didn’t
understand
it, like, in here.” He put his fist against his gut and pushed against the muscle. “You know?”

“Damn, man.” Jonah whistled, the sound almost under his breath. “Since when did you start admitting you don’t have an answer for everything?”

Rodrigo grimaced, much as Jonah had done a moment ago. “Since Abby started letting me see how scared she is about the nightmares she’s having that are stirring up her past.” Rodrigo’s stomach churned again, something he hadn’t experienced since being a teenager, but that had become commonplace in the last few weeks since he’d started sensing Abby’s distress.

He looked at Jonah, the toughest fucking guy he knew, yet also the gentlest when it came to how he expressed his love for Christian, and Rodrigo found his desire to share overwhelming. “I don’t have a goddamn single skill in place to help Abby, but I feel such a fucking
need
to at least be at her side while she figures out her past that I’m willing to hand over the prep for a new job to someone else. Shit.” Rodrigo’s fingers struck the table with force. “I’ve never even
thought
about trusting my business in someone else’s hands,
ever
, but I didn’t even think twice when I called Chris in the middle of the night and asked him to meet me today.” With his fingers clasped behind his neck, Rodrigo let out a rough chuckle. “I’m fucking letting someone else run the show because I have to be with Abby right now. It’s not even a contest.”

“Don’t even act like Christian can’t take care of this for you,” Jonah said in a hissing low voice. “He’s smart, he’s been with you forever”—the man punctuated his fingers against the table right back—“
and
he has watched you enough to know how to get everything ready. He’s plenty goddamn good enough, and he respects you and your business—”

Rodrigo held up his hands to show he had no weapons. “Put your talons back in, Jonah. It’s the fact that I’m actually willing to let
anyone
run the show indefinitely that is a little bit like stepping over a cliff for me. I’m not worried about Chris. You don’t have to protect him from me.”

“Sorry.” Jonah took another gulp of his ice water. “I can’t help it sometimes.”

“It’s cool. You have to defend what’s yours.” Rodrigo let his gaze hold on Jonah’s. “I get that.”

Understanding filled Jonah’s eyes. “Does Abby think this is one friend helping another—and you’re privately unloading all this extra personal stuff only for me—or does she finally know that every time you antagonize her it’s because you’re covering the fact that you want to fuck her?”

Rodrigo’s flesh burned with heat as he flashed back to the raw display that had gone down in Abby’s kitchen last night. “We both understand there are feelings there and”—he cleared his throat—“we aren’t pretending there aren’t anymore.”

“About fucking time.” Rich laughter boomed out of Jonah. “I don’t notice shit like that, so if I could see it, it was pretty damn obvious.” Jonah reached across the table and thumped Rodrigo’s shoulder. “She’s a beautiful woman. And a good, loyal one too.”

“Yeah,” Rodrigo agreed. “She’s something else. I can’t stop thinking about her.” Rodrigo felt like a fucking fool, but he couldn’t keep the stupid smile off his face. “I don’t want to stop thinking about her.” His eye contact almost faltered as a warm, masculine force he could not deny rose the hairs on his arms. “Or about Braden Crenshaw either.”

Jonah froze with his glass midway to his lips. “Are you shitting me?”

Rodrigo grimaced with a shift of his weight. “I have a sore ass this morning that says I’m not.”

The glass hit the table with a
thud
. “No fucking way.”

“And Abby’s okay with it.” Rodrigo rushed to explain. Shit, he didn’t want Jonah thinking he’d deceived or coerced Abby into anything. “Hell, she even loves it. She likes Braden too, and Braden thinks Abby is as fucking hot and amazing as I do.”

Jonah tilted his head as lines formed between his brows. “I don’t always understand or correctly guess what people are trying to say to me, so I have to ask: are you saying that all three of you are having sex together?”

“We are.” Fuck, Rodrigo
never
talked about his sex life—not that he’d had one for a good while—but this three-way attraction and sex had him so twisted up and confused. He needed to unload on someone he could trust to take the conversation to the grave. Or at the very least, take it no further than Christian.

“I don’t goddamn understand why I have this crazy desire for both of them.” Rodrigo kept his voice low even though the restaurant was so loud he didn’t think it would be possible for anyone to hear him above the din. “Why isn’t one enough, right? I don’t know if this is the most incredible find a guy could stumble across and I should thank my lucky stars, or if I’m some pervert freak-show glutton who wants the cake and frosting and the ice cream on the side too.”

Searching for some outside answers, Rodrigo snapped his mouth shut on his confession-fest and studied the guy across from him who didn’t fit into anybody’s mold.

“Were you with women before you found Chris?” Rodrigo asked, his voice still low.

“Yes. Some men too.” Jonah shrugged. “Basic cut-and-dry stuff that filled a brief need, but I never connected to anybody and was pretty damn sure I was a defective who couldn’t bond to anyone or anything.” The throwaway tone of Jonah’s voice didn’t match the new stiffness in his shoulders. “I functioned every day once I got out of JD. I had a life, but it wasn’t anything you could really call living. Then I came back here, and Christian made me
feel
. Period. He loved me, and he was perfect.” Ease slipped back into Jonah’s large frame. “For me that meant somehow I must be okay too, even if he was the only one who could see it and bring it out in me.”

“Yeah.” Christian had a way with Jonah that put Rodrigo in mind of David taming Goliath. “You guys are a good pair.”

“How did you feel when you were with Abby and Braden?” Jonah asked. “Did
you
feel like a pervert? Did
you
think you were doing anything wrong?”

“No.” Not a hint of hesitation rang in Rodrigo’s answer. “Even the wildest porno fantasies I had in college didn’t compare to how great it was with both of them. Even if you put aside what happened last night…”
What
? Rodrigo searched for words he could string together that would make sense. “When I’m with Abby and Braden together, I feel like myself, more than I ever have at any point in my life. I’m nervous and sometimes I’m jealous and sometimes I don’t know what the hell to think, let alone what to say, but none of it ever feels fake. They won’t let it be. And I feel like they’re both the same with me.”

Jonah raised his brows. “Nothing about that sounds freakish or perverse to me.”

Rodrigo felt himself sitting up a straighter and moving back to his normal voice. “I guess not.”

“Then again,” Jonah said, “I almost ran away from Christian when I realized how much I loved him, so what the hell do I know about anything?”

“Gee, thanks.” Rodrigo threw a wadded-up napkin at the man.

“Hey, man, don’t take it out on me.” Jonah snagged the white ball out of midair. “I just came for the paperwork.”

“I’m glad you did.” Strangely enough, while Rodrigo would have thought he’d feel compelled to confide in Christian due to his friend’s great ability to empathize, Jonah’s straightforward, sometimes even awkward and inappropriate personality settled a lot of the panicky confusion inside Rodrigo. “You’re a good friend, Jonah. Don’t think I’m going all pussy on you or anything, but I hope you know you have more people than just Christian in town who love you now too.”

“Yeah, but he’s still the only one I want to take to bed every night.” Jonah picked up the folders and used them as a pointer. “Don’t get any ideas. We don’t share.”

“Asshole.” Rodrigo gave him the finger. “I think I’ll stick with the one man and woman I already have, thanks.”

“Probably a good idea. Hey, I think that guy is looking at you.” Jonah jerked his head toward the front of the eatery.

“What?” Rodrigo turned, following the direction of Jonah’s gaze to an older blond guy in paint-splattered clothes. “Oh.” Rodrigo froze. “That’s…Henry.”

“Oh.” The drop in Jonah’s voice, no question, said the man remembered the short conversation he’d had with his friends six months ago.

He’s my father.

Rodrigo still couldn’t quite wrap his mouth around the foreign nature of that title.

The rough-and-tumble man a dozen feet away nodded at Rodrigo, and Rodrigo smiled stiffly in return.

“I’ll let you eat with him,” Jonah offered. “I already ordered a Cuban sandwich, but he’s welcome to it.” Jonah slipped the work folders under his arm and stood. “I’ll make sure Christian gets these, and I’m sure he’ll call you if he has any questions.”

“You don’t have to go,” Rodrigo said.
I wish you wouldn’t.

“I need to get to the shop anyway.” In this, Jonah clearly didn’t understand Rodrigo was asking him to stay and act as a buffer. “Make sure Abby knows Christian and I are here to help with what’s going on with her. She just has to ask.”

“Yeah.” Rodrigo lifted the dead weight of his hand. “Bye.”

Jonah nodded and walked away, pausing to shake Henry’s hand as he passed the man.

It wasn’t that Rodrigo didn’t want to spend time with Henry, but he was thirty-four fucking years old and he didn’t know what the hell to do with a father. Henry’s attempts to converse were just as stilted as Rodrigo’s, so he had to figure the older man didn’t know what to do either.

Maybe I can tell him I’m running late for a meeting
. One look at the guy waiting expectantly and Rodrigo hated himself for even having that thought.
Fucking A. I never asked for a father, not even once during all those years in foster homes.

Rodrigo beckoned Henry to him and stood as Henry approached. “Take a seat. You can hold the table for us.” Pushing back his shoulders, Rodrigo slid his hands into his pockets, aware of a rigidity he couldn’t dissipate. “I’m going to go place an order at the counter. Jonah said you could have his lunch, but do you want me to get you a soda or coffee or something to drink?”

“A Pepsi or Coke would be fine.” The man’s deep green gaze held Rodrigo’s for a moment, but his jaw appeared as though it could break granite too. “Thank you.”

Rodrigo pushed another tense smile to his face. “I’ll be right back.”

As Rodrigo stepped to the end of the short line at the counter, he couldn’t help darting looks over his shoulder toward his booth and Henry’s profile. Henry had not asked Rodrigo for anything, and he didn’t seem to push for contact or behave as though they had some kind of ingrained biological bond, but Rodrigo still felt trapped and pushed toward togetherness whenever he thought about Henry. It was as if Rodrigo was supposed to embrace the luck in discovering he had a long-lost father when he had barely even known his mother, and she’d never said one word about Henry in the time they’d spent together before she died.

Rodrigo had grown accustomed to not having a family, many of whom, as far as Rodrigo could tell, tended to mooch off the most successful person in the group and were resentful if he or she wasn’t happy to hand over his or her hard-earned money. Rodrigo was by no means rich, but his business did well. He had no debt other than his mortgage, and he made sure to steadily contribute to his retirement. Henry and his wife made ends meet but were struggling to maintain a middle-class status. The kid in Rodrigo who’d had his work money stolen by foster siblings more than once had an intense desire to downplay every cent he had with Henry, this virtual stranger who’d shown up out of the blue.

Blood might be thicker than water, but money trumps them both.

After placing his order, paying, and grabbing his and Henry’s drinks, Rodrigo chuckled to himself, producing a real smile as he heard Abby chiding him in his head for being a pompous jackass who worried more about his money than anyone else around him possibly could.

And she’d be right.

Rodrigo laughed again, shaking his head as he slid into his seat and pushed a soda to Henry’s side of the table.

Henry thanked Rodrigo for the drink, took a sip, and said, “You seem happier than you were a few minutes ago.”

“Just thinking about someone,” Rodrigo shared. The fiery woman filled every corner of Rodrigo’s thoughts, and more words than he’d intended to spill came out of his mouth. “She told me off in my head for something I was thinking.” He remembered the first time Abby had shoved against him, chest to breasts, in order to make her point, and it pumped fresh adrenaline through his veins. “I could see and hear her clear as day, and it made me smile.”

“
She
made you smile, you mean.” Henry had his hands clasped tightly together on the table. Rodrigo could hear the man’s heavy work boot thumping against the tile floor under their table, but he kept his full attention straight on Rodrigo. “Right?”

“Yeah, she did.” Rodrigo found himself nodding and adding more to the conversation again. “She’s special to me.”

“She’s a good woman, I take it.”

Rodrigo narrowed his gaze. “That’s interesting. Most guys would usually start out asking if she’s pretty.”

Henry shrugged. “If you like her, you automatically think she’s pretty. It’s not like you’re gonna tell me no.”

“If I like her, I probably automatically think she’s a good woman too.” Rodrigo traded back quickly. “I doubt I’d think she’s a liar or a cheat, even if she was. Which she isn’t.”

“Good point.” Henry’s weathered face lit up just as much as his eyes, and Rodrigo breathed easier. “How did you meet her?”