Page 59 of Aftermath

"Um." That wasn’t Cam or Austin.

Breaking away, Austin looked over his shoulder and cursed internally at the sight of Riley in the doorway.

She looked like she'd been caught with her hand in the cookie jar, and she was blushing profusely.

"Fuck," Cam whispered, scrubbing his hands over his face. "Talk to her."

Austin cleared his throat, his heart suddenly pounding, and turned to his daughter. "Uh, let's go find a quiet place." Guiding Riley past the living room and down the hall, he opened the door to Cam's second bedroom, which was pretty empty aside from some gym equipment.

Maybe this was why Austin hadn't been nervous about meeting Cam's family. He'd been waiting for this instead—telling his daughter that he was in a relationship so quickly after separating from Riley's mother.

Austin sat down on a chair next to a rack of dumbbells. "I have something to tell you."

Riley nodded, still avoiding his gaze, and let out a breath. "Do I need a stiff drink for this?" Austin was fairly certain he dropped his jaw at that, but Riley just waved him off. "I heard Landon say that to Jules when they talked about saving money for the twins' college. And Pops 'splained it to me."

"I, uh…I see." Austin wasn’t sure he liked how adult she sounded. She was supposed to be his baby girl forever. "Well, what you saw in the kitchen—"

"You were kissing Cam," she stated.

"Right." He nodded and phrased his words carefully. "I care about him very much—"

Riley gave him a funny look and cut him off—again, to Austin's frustration. This was already difficult enough as it was. "I'm ten, Dad. I know that friends don’t kiss like you kissed." She scowled and put her hands on her hips. "Are you peoples like Uncle Derek now?"

"People," he corrected automatically as his mind spun.

The question had thrown him off, and he tried to understand where Riley's thoughts were. Though, at the mention of his cousin who was gay, it didn’t take too long to catch up, and he was suddenly thankful for Derek. Not to mention his parents' strict acceptance of everyone. Since Derek lived on the East Coast, Riley didn’t see him very often, but she had met him. And his partner.

"Peoples makes more sense. It's plural of people," Riley retorted indignantly. "One people, many peoples. One person, many persons." Austin didn’t have the heart to correct her; she was being too cute. "But are you? Are you and Cam peoples like Uncle Derek?"

He took a breath and released it. "I suppose you could say that," he answered slowly and carefully. "We're together, if that’s what you mean."

"That’s what I mean." She chewed on her lip. "Is that why you divorced Mom?"

"No," Austin said quickly. "Remember how Mom and I told you that grown-ups sometimes drift apart?"

"Yeah, I remember," she said, having heard it too many times. "Mom said you started having problems years ago." Well, that was one way of putting it. No need to go into semantics. "But, I mean…did you have problems 'cause you like boys?"

Austin let out a shaky laugh. "No, baby girl. That’s not why we had problems."

He didn’t feel like adding a long rant about the fact that he wasn’t strictly attracted to one gender, but attraction was one thing. Cam was still the first man Austin felt drawn toward to the point of complete surrender. He had admired men in the past and thought nothing of it, but with Cam it was so different.

"So…what do you think about all this?" He tilted his head, trying to read Riley's face. "Cam's nice, isn't he?" Heneededhis daughter to approve of Cam.

"He's cool." She shrugged, then scrunched her nose. "He cusses alot," she giggled, and Austin grinned.

"Yeah, it takes some getting used to, doesn’t it?" he chuckled. "But today he was nervous. He curses more then."

"Why was he nervous?"

"Because he wants you to like him," he replied softly. "He knows how important you are to me—that you're number one—so that means your opinion of him matters." He'd added the number-one part because he wanted Riley to understand that she wasn’t being replaced. He'd read online that many children feared neglect when their divorced parents met new partners.

"Do you love him?" Riley asked. "Is he gonna move in with us? Did he ask you to be his boyfriend? Or did you ask him?" She was on a roll now. "Are you gonna have a baby—" She stopped short at that one. "How would that evenwork?"

Austin opened his mouth then closed it again.Holy hell. The girl was inquisitive. "How about this—" he paused, racking his brain "—we're going to take this slow. Yes, I love him. No, he's not going to move in with us, but…" He hesitated. "One day,"soon, he hoped, "if this works out, we might move in with him. Here. His house is better than our apartment, right?" Riley quickly glanced out the window toward the pool, and Austin had her answer. "You'd get your own room, of course. This one, actually. We'd redecorate it for you. It was Cam's suggestion." One point for Cam. "But, Riley, not yet. Right now, we'll focus on getting to know each other. For instance, I've told Cam that you're awesome at soccer. He'd love to come to your next game."

"He can do that." She grinned, proud of herself.

Austin was beyond relieved. "Do you understand what I'm saying, though? We'll start off slow. Maybe we can have movie nights, go to your games, have dinners together, take Bourbon and Nacho to the park, perhaps sleep over here sometimes…"

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