Releasing a shaky breath, Austin dropped his forehead to Cam's shoulder. Cam felt as Austin ghosted his lips over his skin. A slow but forceful shiver ran down his spine, pressing heat closer to the surface.
"I'll try—" Austin's voice was threadbare and almost inaudible. "If I see a chance, I'll fight with all I have left."
Those words both soothed and terrified Cam. "Gun or no gun?"
"Gun or no gun."
*
Cam squeezed his eyes shut as the "empty" promises echoed through him.
They'd made it out alive, but at that point, they really hadn't believed in an escape.
"Hey." Austin grabbed Cam's hand on the table. "I didn’t mean to push my shit onto you."
"Stop." Cam shook his head and threaded their fingers together. "It's cool. I'm okay. I was just thinking…" That Austin had gotten what he wished for. He was back with his wife and daughter.
It was making Cam antsy as fuck to not know exactly what was going on between them. He trusted Austin with his life, and he knew Austin meant what he'd said—he didn’t take any of this lightly. But that didn’t really offer any answers. Austin was always gonna prioritize Riley, and while Cam could understand that—hell, he wouldn’t have it any other way—it made him question things. For instance, would Austin stay with Jade for Riley's sake?
Even if he didn’t, what was Cam ready for? They'd just returned to freedom; their lives were changed forever. Who knew how long they'd be picking up the pieces to put their lives back together. Cam needed his routines; he needed his stability. Then, on the other hand, he needed Austin, too. He wanted them in the same fucking bed at night.
Just a few hours ago, he'd let Austin fuck him. And it had been…fucking amazing—no other words for it. He rarely bottomed, but that didn’t mean he preferred to top. Well, he did, but bottoming was more intimate, in his opinion. It wasn’t for casual hookups, which meant he hadn't bottomed since college. It was the last time he'd had a steady partner, and it hadn't ended dramatically with broken hearts or anything, but Cam decided casual was better for him. Opening up to another person wasn’t easy, and it took time for Cam to trust. But with Austin?
Cam would do anything for that man.
I'm probably in love with the bastard.
Austin was about to say something when Cam heard a phone ring from inside. It wasn’t his own, so he concluded it was Austin's. "Your phone's ringing," he said, reeling on the inside from his realization about his feelings.
Could that be it? Had he fallen for Austin?
"Oh. It's probably Riley." Austin stood up and went inside.
Cam sighed heavily and lit up a smoke, then started tapping his thumb together with his fingers.
*
When Austin grabbed his phone off the coffee table, he was surprised to see his home number as caller ID.
Jade and Riley weren’t supposed to be back from visiting Jade's parents in Delano until tomorrow.
"Hello?" He answered the phone, then immediately held it away from his ear when all he was met by were Riley's sobs. "Riley, what's wrong?" Austin was already heading down the hall to get his clothes from last night. "Talk to me, baby girl."
"I don’t wan-wanna move, Daddy!"
she wailed.
"What?" He frowned in confusion and pulled on his jeans. "I don’t understand. Can you explain for me?"
Riley kept crying.
"Mom said we're gonna move! I don’t wanna move to Delano! I-I have all my friends here!"
Austin froze. A mere second later, the phone was ripped away from Riley, and Jade's voice rang out.
"It's not what you think, Austin. Riley overheard me and my mother talking, so we left early—Look, can you just come home? Where the hell are you, anyway?"
Now she sounded annoyed.
"I…" Austin didn’t know what to say. He was flabbergasted. "Uh—I'm with Cam." He shook his head as if to clear it. Then his anger was back in full force. "What the
fuck
was Riley talking about?" He pulled on his shirt, awkwardly buttoning it one-handed.
"It's nothing that should be discussed over the phone—Go to your room, Riley!"
she yelled in the background.
"Hurry, Aust—"
"I'll be there in twenty," he snapped and ended the call.
His mind was a jumbled mess, as per usual, but now there was a bunch of new shit. Jesus Christ, when was it all going to end? This day was proving to be both incredibly difficult to struggle through and…well, with Cam's presence it was manageable.
"Cam, I have to—" He broke off when he saw Cam standing in the hallway with his wallet and car keys. Austin sighed and walked closer. "Thank you," he said quietly, accepting his personal belongings. "Jade and Riley came home early. I have to go."
"I gathered that." Cam offered a forced smile. "Trouble in paradise?"
Austin snorted and put on his shoes. "More like the final nail in the coffin."
He scrubbed a hand over his face, bone-weary and angry. This was one of those times he didn’t want to be an adult. Closing the distance between them, Austin dropped his forehead to Cam's shoulder.
"Tell me to come back." He needed to hear it—to hear that
something
was real.
Tension he hadn't even noticed before disappeared from Cam's shoulders. "Come back whenever you can," he murmured. "And, um, it's been a taxing day for you. You should probably take your meds."
Austin grinned tiredly and lifted his head. "We'll see." Leaning in, he kissed Cam but ended it too soon. "I'll call you."
The minute Austin stepped foot inside his house, there was shouting from Jade and sobbing from Riley.
Austin had prepared himself on the ride over, though. He knew what was about to happen, so he took control. Walking in to the kitchen, he was spotted by Riley first, who threw herself at him.
"Are we really gonna move to Delano, Dad?" she cried.
"No. I promise." He hugged her tight and kissed the top of her head. "Now, go to your room while I talk to Mom."
"But—"
"Go," he commanded softly, and Riley slumped her shoulders and went upstairs to her room. Austin faced Jade next, wondering why they hadn't separated yet. It was clearly long overdue. "How long have you been thinking about divorce?" he asked bluntly. Because he couldn’t believe this was new. He'd only been home for less than a month. A marriage didn’t fall apart that quickly—not after fifteen years.
Jade swallowed, a flicker of regret flashing across her features. "The past year… I'm really sorry, Austin—"
"Don’t apologize." Austin didn’t want to hear it. "I should've seen it coming. God knows I see it now." He sat down at the table; Jade cautiously joined him. "But what's this crap about Delano?"
"I've been offered a job there," she admitted. "I want to take it."
Austin nodded, just wanting to get this over with. It was becoming abundantly clear to him that in order to heal, he needed to be by himself. Not counting his daughter.
"Riley stays with me."
Jade's eyes widened. "What? No!" she cried out. "I'm her mother; she should be with me."
A small and sinister smile made its way to Austin's face. "Wrong way to phrase it, Jade. She should be with you if you
want
her to. Not just because you're her mother." Anger burned in his eyes. "How will you even deal with all this? You're just going to pack up the house, move to Delano, get settled in a new place, adjust to your new job, enroll Riley at a new school,
and
deal with the fact that she doesn’t want to be there?"
Jade glared at him. "Don’t drag this out. I want an easy divorce, and you being bitter won't help."
Austin couldn’t help but laugh. "
Bitter
? Oh, Jade." He chuckled and shook his head. "You have it all wrong. You're under the impression that I want us to stay together." Jade suddenly looked shocked. "Truth be told, I honestly don’t give a
fuck
about you anymore." That was aimed to hurt, and it looked like it did. But his ex-wife-to-be fucking deserved it. The way she'd treated him since he came back home… "You manipulative little…" He trailed off, angrier than ever before.
"Austin," Jade choked out. "What are you doing? How can you say that to me—"
"Asks the woman who told me to get over a five-month long kidnapping without so much as a pat on the back." Austin raised a brow. "You've used that as an excuse to get out, haven't you?" Jade didn’t respond. But Austin didn’t need her to. She'd never been a good liar; he could see the truth written on her face. "God, you're fucking selfish." He didn’t want to think that about the woman he'd spent fifteen years being married to, but there it was. A few years of taking each other for granted and just going through the motions… Jade was right.
He was bitter. So was she.
"And my mom wonders why I resent you," Jade chuckled humorlessly through tears.
Austin stared at her long and hard, finding it difficult to stick with one emotion. Anger was the only one that persisted. Then there were fleeting moments of pity, sorrow, compassion, understanding, regret, and disappointment.
"If it's any consolation, I know I haven't been the best husband." He wanted to add that he'd at least stood by her side all these years, and up until he felt more drawn to Cam than Jade, it would've been true. But he didn’t want to lie to Jade, though the reason was Cam. If Austin claimed he'd been nothing but faithful, it would be like denying what he'd started with Cam. He couldn’t do that. He
wouldn’t
do that.
"I'm sorry I pushed you to leave the past in the past," she muttered, not sounding particularly sincere. "I did use it against you—thought you'd leave before I could."
Manipulative was right.
That was where the majority of Austin's bitterness stemmed from. He felt betrayed. He'd gone through hell, and Jade had used it as an excuse to get the fucking ball rolling.
"Riley stays with me," he repeated. Now he was eager to get this over with. Even if a divorce took at least six months to be finalized in the state of California, they could separate immediately. "We'll divide all the assets, and I won't demand child support." He made more money than Jade, so the idea was ridiculous. "She can stay with you every other weekend, and whenever she wants to see you, I'll make it happen."
"It's not right," Jade gritted out. "If anything, we should ask her." She almost looked smug.
It proved that Jade didn’t know her own daughter as well as she liked to think.
Riley was Daddy's girl. Through and through.
*
That night, Austin sat in the chair by the window in Riley's room after she'd cried herself to sleep. Despite the obvious resentment and hostility between Austin and Jade, they'd managed to cool off—Austin had taken another shower and Jade had called her mother—before they sat down like responsible adults and told Riley that Mom and Dad were getting divorced.
Riley had reacted like any other ten-year-old girl would; she'd been inconsolable. Mom and Dad were supposed to stay together—end of story. But, thankfully—depending on how you looked at it—she was old enough to know that some marriages didn’t work out. It was a harsh reality, but she wouldn’t be the first in her class to have divorced parents.
Spending time with her classmates had shown her both sides of the coin. There were parents who didn’t get along after a split; their homes weren’t as nice to be in—more fighting going on. There were parents who got along great; their kids grinned and said what it was like to have two birthdays, two rooms, and two Christmases. Then there were those friends of Riley's who had to deal with their parents remarrying…
Riley hadn't liked the idea of her parents finding new spouses.
Austin had been quick to divert, and he and Jade had then spent a long time explaining things as well as they could to a ten-year-old. It wasn’t her fault. Sometimes adults drifted apart. No, Mom and Dad didn’t hate each other. She could choose where she wanted to live. Mom and Dad would never hold any decision against her.
To Jade's credit, she'd hidden her disappointment very well when Riley said she didn’t want to leave Bakersfield. While Austin had given them some privacy and went to call his parents, Jade and Riley had made loose plans about fun stuff they could do whenever Riley came to Delano.
Now Riley was asleep, and Austin could see the blotchiness around her eyes and the tears that had soaked her pillow.
This was only the beginning of a new era, and Austin didn’t really know what to feel. For once, there was no anger, though. He was numb, but little sparks of relief flared up inside him every now and then. He was breaking free, something he'd done before. But in a very different setting.
*
"Gun" had become plural when the madman returned to get Austin and Tim, but just because he held two guns didn’t have to mean more of an upper hand. Because his focus was divided, and Austin prayed there would be at least one window of opportunity.
Austin and Tim didn’t need to speak; a single look was enough for both to understand that this was more than likely their last chance. If they didn’t put up a fight now, they might as well drop dead right here, right now. In fact, they were so consumed by this thought that they barely acknowledged that this was the first time they had seen each other. Austin just registered tall and wiry and dark, and Tim noticed tall, solid, and strong. Whereas Austin would probably gain leverage in body impact, Tim had speed on his side.
"Let's go." The torturer walked backward up the narrow steps, aiming both guns at Austin and Tim, both of whom were cuffed behind their backs. "I hope you said goodbye to your buddies, because you won't see them again."
Austin didn’t allow the panic to pull him under. He gritted his teeth and climbed the stairs at the same slow pace their kidnapper moved. Austin knew he wouldn’t be able to fight worth a damn if he first had to suffer through another round of torture.
That left a couple opportunities: one when the password had to be punched in to open the door to the torture room, and one if the crazy man had plans to restrain them in said room. He wouldn’t be able to do that while keeping an eye on both Austin and Tim.