Page 1 of A New Chapter
Chapter One
Late Sunday afternoon, Rom lay sprawled across the couch, where he snuggled tightly against Colton’s body. Married less than twenty-four hours, he was finally starting to process everything and let it sink in that his big snuggle puppy was now officially his husband. They’d started their morning by sleeping in late, having sex, dozing off, taking a shower, having a late brunch, followed by some TV watching cleverly disguised as napping in bed, mutual blowjobs…
And now more TV snuggling on the couch.
“This is heaven,” Rom mumbled.
Colton rubbed his chin in Rom’s hair. “You can say that again, Sir.”
Come-drunk and with a full tummy from their late brunch, Rom was definitely glad they’d both opted to take next week off.
He planned on spending it naked with his boy, probably mostly horizontal, and ignoring the outside world. They weren’t going to take a honeymoon trip right now. They wanted to save up money and vacation time—the time part more for Rom’s sake than Colton’s, because Colton set his own schedule—and go somewhere exotic.
Or, at least somewhere that wasn’t Florida.
On the coffee table in front of them, Colton’s cell phone started vibrating, rumbling against the table’s surface.
“Goddammit,” Rom muttered. Being closer, he reached out and grabbed it, then spotted the shop’s name come up as the contact. “Oh, it’s downstairs.”
He handed it to Colton over his shoulder, a flash of irritation washing through him as he did. Aunt Roberta knew this was supposed to be their honeymoon week and not to interrupt them except for dire emergencies involving flood, fire, or death.
Well, he didn’t smell any smoke, so…
Whatever it was she thought was so important as to interrupt their honeymoon had better be damned urgent, or he was going to get growly with her, no matter how much he loved her.
“Hello? … Yeah, we’re upstairs. Why? … Um, wait—no, I mean—” Colton sighed as he listened for a moment. “Okay. Give us a couple of minutes though. … Because we’re notdressed, Aunt Roberta. It’s ourhoneymoon. We were doinghoneymoonthings, that’s why.” He hung up.
Rom now felt more awake—and more irritated. “What’s going on?” He sat up.
“I don’t know, Sir, but we need to put clothes on. She’s coming upstairs.”
“What?” Rom knew he was practically whining and didn’t care. “Whyyy?”
“I don’tknow, Sir.” He sat up and held out his hands. “Can you take my collar and cuffs off, please?”
Rom fought his growing aggravation as he quickly removed Colton’s collar and wrist cuffs. This was the downside to living over the shop—they didn’t have as much privacy as Rom wished. On the weekends, they couldn’t make as much noise during the day as he’d like, either.
Although it was nice, at night, being able to make as much noise as they wanted, because they didn’t have residential neighbors to hear and complain.
They both had donned shorts and T-shirts by the time they heard the knock on their door a few minutes after the phone call.
Rom stood in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, while Colton walked over to the door to answer it.
There stood Aunt Roberta, but the anguished look on her face immediately wiped away all of Rom’s irritation as he hurried over to join Colton.
“What happened?” Colton asked.
She motioned to someone who apparently stood on the landing behind her, but out of their line of sight. The other person stepped in front of her, into the doorway.
A boy who could be Colton’s younger twin stood there, his eyes red and cheeks streaked with tears.
Aunt Roberta choked up as her hand came to rest on the boy’s shoulder. “Colton, this is your little brother, Clayton.” Her smile looked tight. “Can we please come in to talk?”
Rom was still trying to processthat, and knew Colton had to be even more deeply in shock. Rom gently grabbed Colton’s arm and eased him out of the way. “Yeah, sure,” Rom said. “Come on in.”
* * * *
Colton wasn’t sure he’d heard Aunt Roberta correctly, but he still let Rom move him out of the way so she and the boy could enter. “What?”
