Finding You: The Complete Box Set (a contemporary MM romance series)

by Ana Ashley

  I got up from the ground, placing the daisy I had in my hand next to the rest of the bouquet.

  "Come on, let's go for a walk," he said.

  I followed Sebastião as he led me out of the cemetery toward the Luís I bridge over the river Douro. I smiled as he stopped in the middle. On one side we had the colorful houses on the Porto riverfront and on the other side scattered across the hill of Gaia we could see the many Port wine caves with their big signs.

  "You're smiling. I see the walk has already done you good."

  "This is where Rodrigo proposed to me. He said that on one side we had the city that was our forever home and on the other, we had the Port caves, meaning our love, like Port wine, would only get better with age. He was right. Every day with him was better than the day before."

  "That's not true, is it?"

  There was no malice in his voice as he questioned my statement.

  "No. Some days he was downright difficult to be around. He thought he was always right and couldn't stand when he was challenged. Not even when that came from me. But damn, I loved how he stuck to his beliefs regardless of what anyone thought. He had such presence, and man did he ever fill out a suit nicely."

  "Margarida was very intelligent, but she was a terrible cook. She wanted to be a teacher, but her parents thought the place of a woman was in the kitchen. When we were married, she went back to school, and whenever our parents came over for dinner, I did all the cooking. Till the day the last one of them died, no one ever found out that it wasn't my Margarida cooking dinner."

  The glittery water of the river framed by the buildings around it was mesmerizing. I'd never get tired of this view.

  "I thought we still had a long time together," I confessed. "He was my first boyfriend, my best friend. How do I carry on without him? I accepted a job in Lisbon, and I'm not sure I can do it now."

  "I can't tell you how to grieve, Vítor. God only knows, some days I think I can hear the sewing machine in the spare room where she used to make the costumes for the student plays. But I can tell you that keeping still is no life for anyone. If you carry on and cross the bridge, you might just find that things from the other side look just as nice. Sometimes there's enough time in our life to live on both sides of the bridge."

  Sebastião patted my back and smiled.

  "I will look after him until you can visit again. And that young man that visits him every day. Leave him to me."

  I was speechless as Sebastião walked away from me in the direction we had come from. Had Mateus visited his dad's grave? Was he doing it on a daily basis? Maybe there was still hope that he'd one day forgive his dad for what he’d done.

  The other side of the bridge was calling for me, so with Sebastião's words in my head, I decided to go for a walk. Maybe things wouldn't be so bad after all.

  6

  Tiago

  I hadn't heard from Fred in a week, two if I was to count the week before when he stood me up at the bar, and I was becoming more and more worried with each day that passed. I didn't want to text him or call if he was in the middle of a case, but the silence was driving me nuts, especially because of his last cryptic text.

  Living in a constant seesaw of hopefulness and hopelessness was exhausting. I had to believe my brother was out there somewhere. He would be twenty-one now, so he was no longer the little boy that ran away all those years ago. I'd kept all my social media channels open in case he ever wanted to reach out. I didn't engage much, but my name and photo were available for anyone to see. Equally, I spent hours each day looking through photographs, profiles, and names, anything that could lead me to him.

  Some days I woke up in fear that I would walk past him in the street and not recognize my brother as the young man he now was. Today was one of those days, and when I felt like this, I couldn't be at the center. It hurt too much to see the young kids who spent time there because I wanted all of them to be my brother, and none were.

  I decided to get in the car and drive south of the Tagus river to Caparica to see David, one of my best friends.

  Until last year, David was out only to a few very close friends; that was until his childhood best friend and love of his life came back to Portugal from America and they fell in love. It was beautiful seeing David and Joel together. Much like Isaac and Max, they had the kind of love that happens once in a lifetime, and when it does, it changes everything forever.

  David was also a top baker and volunteered his time at the center, running baking workshops. The kids loved it so much that some went as far as enrolling in college to become chefs. It made me so proud to see that life could knock these kids down fiercely but they were still strong enough to stand on their own feet and fight back.

  As entrepreneurial as he was charitable, David had taken Bruno, one of the kids we helped at the center, under his wing and given him a job at Café Lima, the business he owned with his aunt and uncle, Teresa and Mário.

  They'd worked hard over the years to build up the business David's mom, Paula, had started up, and now that David's talent as a baker was becoming more widely known, they were always featured in some kind of best-kept-secret list.

  Every time he added a new video to his blog, it went viral because David was not only very talented and came across as passionate about his craft, he was also very kind and extremely easy on the eye.

  The scene I walked into in the café made me want to get my phone out and take a photo. Teresa and Mário were huddled behind the counter working on some kind of paperwork, and Joel was sitting at one of the tables with Filipe, Bruno's five-year-old little brother.

  While Teresa and Mário looked up and smiled when I came in, neither Joel nor Filipe saw me, such was their focus on the picture they were coloring in. My guess was that both Bruno and David were in the kitchen working.

  "No, you're doing it wrong, Uncle Joel." Filipe huffed. "Let me show you." His tiny hands took hold of Joel's big hand and pen as he helped Joel color in properly.

  "Tiago, how are you doing, dear?"

  Teresa's greeting turned Filipe's attention toward me, and in no time at all, both Joel and the coloring pens were discarded as he ran toward me.

  "Uncle Tiago"

  "Hey, Pip, shouldn't you be at school?" I asked as I picked him up.

  He rolled his eyes, which made me smile. "No, silly. It's Easter break. Do you want to color with us?"

  "I'm not sure I'm very good at coloring."

  "I'll teach you. I'm teaching Uncle Joel, too." He leaned closer and put his little hands around my ear. "He's not very good at coloring."

  I wanted to laugh at his not-very-whispery whisper but managed to keep a straight face.

  "I need to speak to Uncle David, but I'll come back after, okay?"

  "Okay," he said as he wormed his way down to the floor and back to Joel.

  I put my hand out over the counter to shake Mário's hand, but Teresa came around to give me a hug. Considering Teresa didn't have any children of her own, she was the most motherly person I knew.

  "Is he in the kitchen?"

  "Yes, they're working on an order. Go right in. Do you want a coffee and a custard tart?"

  "Is the Pope Catholic?" I replied as I kissed her on the cheek.

  David and Bruno were mumbling the words of the song that was playing on the radio as they worked around each other. Bruno was covering the smaller of two cakes with white fondant while David applied small decorations to the larger cake.

  "Hey, guys."

  I got a collective "Hey" but only David looked my way since Bruno was focusing on rolling the fondant on the cake. The guy really had a lot of talent. Although, to be fair, since I was barely able to put a basic meal together, anyone that could put eggs, flour, and butter together and produce a cake was a genius to my eyes.

  "What brings you south of the river? Did you want to go through the workshop schedule for the next couple of months?" David asked.

  "Yes, that would be good, but that's not why I came. I wa
s wondering if we could talk more about Mário's brother."

  Before Christmas, David had asked Isaac for help finding Vítor, Mário's younger brother who'd run away when he was only twenty-one. The event had been a family secret until Mário had confessed to David that the reason he'd reacted so badly to the idea of David being gay was because he was afraid of losing him like he'd lost his brother.

  The relationship between uncle and nephew had been very rocky for a long time, but fortunately they'd been working on it since the summer and seemed to be in a good place.

  Since then, Café Lima had gone from being the place where David worked to the place we all hung out and felt welcomed by both Teresa and Mário.

  With Isaac in Manhattan, there was a lot of work I'd needed to pick up, so while searching for Vítor was on my radar, it hadn't been a priority. Now, with Fred going silent and the workload stabilizing, I needed something new to focus on. Especially since my head was flickering between thinking about my brother and the hot older man I'd kissed in the bar a week ago.

  "I'm sorry it's taken so long," I said, taking a seat at a small table on the other side of the kitchen so I wasn't in their way.

  "Don't worry, I'm in the center all the time, remember? I know how busy you are, especially now without Isaac there. So, what do you need to know about Vítor?"

  "Start at the beginning. What happened before he disappeared?"

  "On his twenty-first birthday, he went to a gay bar in Lisbon. I don't know which one. He was seen kissing a guy by someone who knew his dad." David looked at me then, his expression one of anger.

  "Never mind that in order to see Vítor there, this person had to be in a gay bar, too. I don't know if they lied about where they saw the kiss happen or what. I just know that this person told Vítor's father who then beat him up so badly he ended up in the hospital."

  "Jesus." I'd heard this story so many times before, and each time it made me want to be sick. For all the stuff my stepfather had done to me, he'd never hit me. Although now I wondered if he had whether I'd have tried to protect my brother from a violent man rather than assuming his abuse was solely directed at me.

  "What happened in the hospital?" I asked.

  "I don't know. Uncle Mário wanted to visit Vítor, but their father was against it. At the time they were quite interdependent and Aunt Teresa was pregnant."

  That stopped me in my tracks. "Teresa had a baby?"

  "It was a high-risk pregnancy. Sadly, she lost the baby shortly after." There was a little sadness in David's voice as he shared his aunt and uncle's story.

  "They didn't try for babies again?"

  "They did, but it never happened."

  "Okay, so Vítor was in hospital and Mário couldn't visit. When did he run?"

  "I think Vítor had quite severe injuries but nothing life threatening. He was in hospital a few days and then one day, he was gone. Uncle Mário was devastated. He started looking for his brother, severed ties with his dad, and rented a little property just for the three of them, but then Aunt Teresa lost the baby."

  In a short time, the young couple had cut ties with their family and lost their brother and their child. The story hit me harder than I had expected. I'd already been feeling on edge when I'd decided to come to the café.

  "Excuse me for a moment." I looked for the door I knew led out the back of the building. My hands shook as I struggled to open the door. The sunlight outside was too bright, but it didn't matter because my eyes were closed and all I could see was the image inside my head that was causing my panic. The image of the last time I'd seen my brother, not knowing it would be the last.

  "Tiago! Are you okay?"

  A pair of small arms came around me and a calm voice told me to take in a breath and hold it, then let it out. I kept doing it until the buzzing went and I could breathe better. That's when I realized Teresa was standing in front of me. Her hands went from rubbing circles on my back to wiping my tear-covered face.

  "I'm so sorry," was all I could say. "I'm so sorry."

  "What are you sorry for, my dear?" Her voice was calm and soothing, much like my mother's had once been. I shook my head to stop myself from talking because if I let out all the pain in my heart, I was absolutely certain I would crumble into a million pieces.

  "Come on, dear. Let's go inside."

  I got up and followed Teresa to the table where she'd placed the coffee and custard tart I'd asked for earlier.

  "I'm sorry about that. I guess I wasn't expecting Vítor's story to hit me so hard," I confessed.

  "You will find your brother, my dear," Teresa said, squeezing my hands reassuringly. There was a part of me that doubted it. Sadly, that part was getting louder with each month that passed and I didn't find Afonso.

  "Tell me about Vítor. What was he like?"

  Teresa smiled. "He was a gentle person, so kind and honest. You could read him like a book. He would try so hard to show a brave face when he was upset, but we could see through it." Her eyes saddened. "I think that's why he became such an easy target for his father. When Mário wanted to be friendly with me at school, Vítor got close to Paula to help his big brother. They became best friends. I always wondered if they'd eventually get married because they were inseparable, especially after Joel's mom left to live in America."

  "What kind of things did he like?"

  "He always carried a drawing pad with him. He liked to draw things that caught his eye, people, buildings, the world around him. He was so excited to become an uncle."

  Teresa's voice left her and tears ran down her face. It was my turn to put my arms around her.

  "Aren't we a pair?" I said, trying to inject some humor. "Let me have this coffee before it gets cold, and there's no amount of tears that will stop me eating that custard tart."

  She wiped her tears and smiled.

  I didn't know what I'd expected when I came to the café to talk to David about Vítor, but I definitely hadn't expected to have my core shaken to the ground.

  After twenty-eight years, it would be very difficult to find Vítor, but I'd be damned if I wasn't going to give it my best try.

  Coloring with Filipe was the therapy I'd needed after the day I'd had, and I promised I'd take him to the zoo in the next week or so before he went back to school. His excitement was one of the highlights of my week, the other being the man that had starred in all my dreams in the last week, even though he ran away after giving me the best kiss of my life.

  7

  Vítor

  The hot water was hitting all the right spots on my sore back, helping me to finally relax.

  I hadn't been able to sleep last night and had ended up giving the house a last-minute clean at three in the morning, even though it wasn't necessary because my cleaner had kindly agreed to come in every few weeks to air the house and keep the dust out.

  I knew my lack of sleep and restlessness had been caused by the mixed feelings today's move brought. My head had refused to settle and let me have the rest I'd needed to drive down to Lisbon and unpack before my first day.

  As it was, I'd managed to do it all, and even with the heavy traffic on the approach to my new city, I'd managed to arrive at the apartment at a decent time. I was grateful the agency had thought to courier the keys with the lease paperwork. I suspected Bernardo's faithful secretary had had much to do with it. The petite white-haired lady had been nothing short of superhuman each time we'd discussed the arrangements for both my move and the transfer to the new partnership.

  Interestingly enough, I'd thought it would have been harder to terminate my connection to my old partnership. As I'd suspected for a while, the partners had been hoping I'd move on after Dri died and had been grooming one of the senior architects to take over. It wasn't so much a surprise for the partners when I announced I was moving on, but a surprise for me when on the same day they announced my replacement.

  I couldn't deny my disappointment. Both Dri and I had given most of our careers to that partnership, we'd
delivered plenty of successful projects, and Dri in particular had given them the media exposure they'd needed to be one of the most sought-after architect partnerships in Porto.

  A little self-doubt had crept up. Maybe Dri had been the talented one, the one who could charm the right people to bring in the projects we'd needed. What if I couldn't do it without him? I couldn't deny that in the last three years I'd basically completed only our outstanding projects and had taken very little new on.

  I'd convinced myself that, despite Dri not being around, I could give our clients what they needed to complete their projects. What if I couldn't do it on my own?

  Dri's voice in my head was telling me to stop those insecure thoughts and trust myself.

  "You are a talented architect, baby. I can go out there and be a showman because I have you beside me, not behind me." He'd told me those words so many times they'd stuck, but without him to repeat them, in my head I was letting an older, darker voice come through. The voice that told me I wasn't man enough, smart enough, or strong enough to amount to anything in life. My father's voice.

  I turned the water off and grabbed my towel before I stood in front of the mirror to stare at my reflection.

  "Get a grip, Vítor. You are forty-nine years old for goodness sake."

  What I needed was some food and a coffee to line my stomach before I read through some information Bernardo had sent me ahead of my first day.

  I would have to buy Bernardo's assistant some flowers to thank her for making sure I was comfortable in the apartment because somehow, the agency had even stocked the fridge with some basic foods and there was fresh bread, too.

  Wrapping the towel around my hips, I walked out of the bedroom and down the corridor leading to the living room and kitchen.

  My intention was to get the coffee going while I got dressed. The apartment had a stunning view of the river, and I hoped it wasn't too chilly outside for me to enjoy my snack on the balcony. I hadn't explored the two-bedroom apartment properly in my haste to unpack and shower after my trip, but one thing was unmissable, the stunning view. I could already see myself enjoying many evenings out there on the balcony with a beer in my hand.