Page 19 of Aftermath #1

Two years later

S lipping out of the bedroom, Cam buttoned his khaki shorts and rolled up the sleeves of his white button-down. The thin leather cord around his wrist was still damp from his shower, and he grinned a little to himself, thinking back on this morning when Riley had given it to him for his thirty-sixth birthday. The three white beads with black letters that spelled out "car" made it a very special birthday present. Fitting for a mechanic, Riley had said, but then she'd finished with, "You gotta explain to everyone that it stands for Cam, Austin, and Riley, though. Peoples gotta know that."

Cam was gonna make sure that peoples knew.

As he passed the living room, he stopped short when he saw Riley and a friend of hers dancing to some fucking awful pop music. But it wasn’t the music that horrified Cam; it was the fact that these two twelve-year-old girls were shaking parts they didn’t even have yet.

"What the hell are you doing?" he practically shouted.

"We're dancing!" Riley laughed, shaking her butt in some summer dress Lily had bought her. "Duh!"

"That’s not dancing." Cam was irritated. "Unless you're over eighteen and there's a pole," he bitched under his breath. Over my dead body . "Listen to me, sweetheart." He walked over and held out his hand. Riley took it with a curious expression on her face. "First of all, when a motherfu—a boy…asks you to dance, you only say yes if he kisses the top of your hand first." He held both hers and kissed her knuckles. "That means he's a good guy. Got it?" Riley giggled and nodded. Her friend, Mya, was giggling, too. "And when you dance alone, just you or with your girlfriends, you stick to the chicken dance. Are we clear?"

The two girls nearly bowled over in laughter, but Cam didn’t see what was so fucking funny.

"Lame!" Mya exclaimed.

"Yeah—that’s for kids!" Riley agreed.

"Like you'd know what's lame." Cam scoffed and turned toward the kitchen. "You're twelve!" Reaching the kitchen where Austin was busy unpacking the catered side dishes for today's barbecue, Cam sighed and grabbed a beer from the fridge. "Have you seen what's goin' on in there?"

Austin shook his head, though not as if to say no. "I'm thinking about shipping that kid off to a convent." He gave Cam a quick once-over and stepped closer. "You look good." So did Austin, in Cam's opinion, in his cargo shorts and black T-shirt. "Did I tell you that my parents are taking Riley tonight?"

Cam smirked and slipped his fingers into Austin's belt, tugging him close enough for them to touch. "A couple times." He slid his nose along Austin's clean-shaven jaw, a low groan rumbling in his chest. "And you like to remind me." He pressed his pelvis against Austin's, which earned him a quiet moan. "You just wanna stuff my mouth with your dick." With a husky chuckle, he placed Austin's hand on his crotch. "But I think it's my turn tonight, baby." He was dying to get Austin's mouth on him, and then he wanted a raw fucking in return. Cam's ass clenched at the thought of having Austin inside him. It had been days …

"Damn," Austin muttered gruffly. "So not the time." He adjusted himself and backed off. "Go check the grill or something. Our families and friends will be here any minute."

Cam laughed quietly and when he got to the living room again, the two girls were now watching TV, though the music was still on.

"We're visiting my little brother at camp tomorrow," Mya was saying as they watched some skinny models on the flat screen. "You wanna come with?"

"Sounds like fun," Riley said. "Just have to ask my dads first."

Cam's eyes grew large. One word went on repeat in his head, and the loop circled his goddamn heart. Dads, dads, dads, dads . As in two of them. Not only Austin. Cam, too. Abruptly, he spun on his heel and returned to the kitchen. While Riley had always been accepting of him and liked him as her father's partner, it felt fucking glorious to hear that he was so fully included in her family.

"The grill ready?" Austin asked distractedly.

Cam didn’t say a word; he couldn’t. He just walked up to Austin and pulled him in for a bruising kiss.

"Umph." Austin was taken aback by the force.

Making sure the kiss didn’t end, Cam pinned him to the fridge and pushed his tongue into Austin's mouth. Inside of him, he grew impatient by the lack of words. He felt like he needed to say something about what he'd just heard, but it was too soon. In true Cam fashion, he got annoyed, but because words continued to fail him, he kissed Austin some more. On his lips, his jaw, his cheeks, his neck—until they were both out of breath and hard.

"We should g-get married," he blurted out, closing his eyes.

Fuck . That had not been smooth.

"Are you serious right now?" Austin was breathing heavily against Cam's neck. "I can't believe —you just…"

"Yeah," he rasped. His shoulders tensed up, and he was ready to get defensive. It was what he did. He braced himself. "You got a problem with that?"

Austin exhaled a shaky laugh and lifted his head. His eyes shone with…something. Cam was too high-strung and anxious to read into it, but it reminded him of the time last year when he'd added Austin's and Riley's birthdates to his collection of tattoos.

Just the day after, Austin had made an appointment for his very first tattoo, which now sat on his shoulder blade. It was Riley's handprint from when she was little to represent his daughter, and the words, "To hell and back with you," underneath it to represent Cam.

"Check my left pocket, baby," Austin whispered, bringing Cam's hand to the pocket in question.

Still tense, Cam avoided eye contact, fixating on a point behind Austin's shoulder, and acted on autopilot. He dug his hand down into the pocket, only to brush his fingers against two metal objects. Circular ones.

Austin smiled carefully and touched their foreheads together. "I was going to ask you tonight when everyone had left."

"Oh," Cam uttered dumbly. "I came unprepared." He slowly pulled away his hand again. "I can buy the rings when we get hitched, though." He needed to shut the fuck up. Christ .

His dad also wore two rings, and he liked the idea of having one for engagement and one for marriage. So…now he wanted to get that first one on his finger.

"All I want is your yes," Austin murmured. Sticking his hand into his pocket, he retrieved the two gold bands that lay in his open palm.

"You have it. Of course." Cam nodded. "Yeah." His gaze remained on the rings, finding eye contact difficult right now. He watched as Austin slid the ring on his left ring finger, then swallowed hard against the emotions when a matching ring ended up on Austin's. "I love you," he muttered, only lifting his gaze to Austin's mouth.

"I love you, too." Austin tilted his head down a couple inches and pressed his warm lips to Cam's.

Austin's tattoo said it all. They'd been to hell and back together; they'd waded through feelings and obstacles in the aftermath, never leaving the other's side. Maybe things weren’t perfect. Cam still needed to sleep with the bedroom door open, and Austin kept tempering his anger issues by pushing his physical limits on a punching bag, in a pool, or while running. Cam enjoyed having family over these days, as long as he wasn’t too crowded. Riley wasn’t allowed to wake up Cam in the mornings, for fear of startling him. Austin still tended to downplay his own struggles, but he was working on it. Gale would be in their lives for years to come, and some scars would never fade.

But Cam and Austin stuck together, gun or no gun, and created their own little piece of fucking awesome in that house in Bakersfield.

As friends, lovers, partners, brothers-in-arms, and with Riley, as a family.

Austin and Cam return in Outcome, Chase and Remy’s story.