Page 26 of Resisting You

Luckily, whatever health issues Frey’s son had suffered as an infant, he took the surgery well. He was up and signing a mile a minute the next morning, even with his arm in a sling, and Renato had even managed to make him laugh, which wasn’t something he was particularly good at.

He was one of those men Frey had talked about—the sort of person who would have run in the other direction if someone he was interested in mentioned he had children. It was one of the reasons he hadn’t specialized in pediatrics and only took emergent cases—and only when there wasn’t someone else on call.

But the way Rex’s face lit up at the sight of him and the way Frey seemed at ease with his son in ways he’d never seen the man before, something shifted. The feeling burrowed behind his ribs and stayed there like a second beating heart, and he both wanted to protect it and also tear it out with his bare hands.

“Seriously,” Auden said when Renato continued to meet him with silence.

He cleared his throat. “There was an incident at work. I was almost arrested.”

Auden choked on his swallow of coffee and pressed his napkin to his lips for a long moment. His eyes—the eyes that looked just like Grady’s—were wide and staring. “I’m sorry. What?”

Renato’s lips twitched, and after a beat, he chuckled.

“You’re such a liar,” Auden accused.

Renato held up his hands. “No, no, I’m telling the truth. A couple of nurses made a bad call and reported a child abuse incident when there wasn’t one. The boy’s caregiver was Deaf, and the police started to question him without an interpreter. When he couldn’t understand them, they got…aggressive.”

Auden sobered. “Seriously?”

Renato’s stomach twisted again. He hadn’t heard from Oz or Frey about it, and he was hoping he would only so he could ensure something would be done to prevent that from ever happening again. He quickly explained everything to Auden, leaving out the details about Frey because he didn’t need to go into that. Not now.

“You know I’m a lawyer, right?” Auden pointed out.

Renato rolled his eyes. “You’re in property law.”

“Yes, but I have friends. I’ll find someone to take this case pro bono, and?—”

“I don’t think it’s a sueable offense. Is that a word? Sueable?”

“I’ll take it,” Auden said with a small smile. God, sometimes he was the spitting image of Grady. But he had a sudden, startling moment when he realized that didn’t hurt anymore. Instead, it sort of comforted him.

“The nurses did their jobs, but they didn’t do their jobs well,” Renato said. “The police, on the other hand, didn’t do theirs. The poor man was scared to death.”

“I bet you would have gone to jail for him too,” Auden pointed out like that was a bad thing.

Renato shrugged. “It would have been worth it.”

Auden cocked his head to the side. “Did you like him?”

Taking a sip, he hummed. “I didn’t get to speak to him very long, but he seemed perfectly nice. Mortified that the child had been hurt under his care, but?—”

“No,” Auden interrupted. “Did you like him.”

Renato stared at him blankly.

“I swear to God,” Auden muttered under his breath, then grinned a little. “Fancy. Keen on. I don’t know how to say ‘wanted to fuck him’ in Italian.”

Renato blinked in surprise, then burst into laughter. “No! I only set eyes on him for a moment. This wasn’t some white-knight hero situation.”

Auden pursed his lips and looked like he wanted to disagree. Setting his cup down, he folded his hands, then met Renato’s gaze. “Fair enough. But consider, and feel free to tell me to go fuck myself—maybe you could start looking for someone you do want to have sex with.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Renato said primly. He knew what was coming. Auden had been hedging around the idea of him dating again for the last year or so, but he hadn’t been so bold yet.

Auden snorted and held up his hands. “Fine, but I know you know Grady would have wanted you to move on by now.”

He didn’t know that. He couldn’t know what Grady would have wanted because he was dead, and they hadn’t gotten around to talking about what the fuck to do if one of them died young. Renato knew it was unlikely they’d go at the same time. He just expected to have a few more decades before they had to have those discussions.

“You’d want him to be happy, right?”

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