A Different Kind of Perfect (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Read online

  A Different Kind of Perfect

  Colton Evans loves both men and women but never thought his family would approve of his long kept secret. After falling head over heels in love with Bleu Leroux and Alexis Mirskii, he’s finally forced to confront his fear of coming out to his police officer father.

  Alexis Mirskii overcame years of abuse at his father’s hands, eventually becoming a successful chef. It wasn't until meeting Colton and Bleu that he found something was missing. Even if that something meant falling in love with a woman and a man after considering himself straight his entire life.

  Bleu Leroux, a former troubled teen and drug addict, has always struggled with her past and never thought it possible to find someone who could accept her, let alone two someones. A night of tragedy began the trio’s journey toward love ten years before ever meeting. But can they put aside the complications of their pasts to create a future together?

  Genre: Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre

  Length: 88,278 words

  A DIFFERENT KIND OF PERFECT

  Ceri Grenelle

  MENAGE AMOUR

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  ABOUT THE E-BOOK YOU HAVE PURCHASED: Your non-refundable purchase of this e-book allows you to only ONE LEGAL copy for your own personal reading on your own personal computer or device. You do not have resell or distribution rights without the prior written permission of both the publisher and the copyright owner of this book. This book cannot be copied in any format, sold, or otherwise transferred from your computer to another through upload to a file sharing peer to peer program, for free or for a fee, or as a prize in any contest. Such action is illegal and in violation of the U.S. Copyright Law. Distribution of this e-book, in whole or in part, online, offline, in print or in any way or any other method currently known or yet to be invented, is forbidden. If you do not want this book anymore, you must delete it from your computer.

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Ménage Amour

  A DIFFERENT KIND OF PERFECT

  Copyright © 2014 by Ceri Grenelle

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-62741-208-7

  First E-book Publication: February 2014

  Cover design by Harris Channing

  All art and logo copyright © 2014 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  Letter to Readers

  Dear Readers,

  If you have purchased this copy of A Different Kind of Perfect by Ceri Grenelle from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

  Regarding E-book Piracy

  This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book.

  The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying readers high-quality reading entertainment.

  This is Ceri Grenelle’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Ms. Grenelle’s right to earn a living from her work.

  Amanda Hilton, Publisher

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  www.BookStrand.com

  DEDICATION

  To Vicky,

  This book is for you, even though you didn’t believe I was going to dedicate it to you. Without your endless support and friendship I would never have had the courage to put my imagination on these pages. Just remember, no matter how many miles are between us, I will always be there for you. Thank you for being my friend.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  A DIFFERENT KIND OF PERFECT

  CERI GRENELLE

  Copyright © 2014

  Chapter 1

  October 2002

  The music pounded from the sound system, shooting through her veins like the drug she’d chased that morning. She sat on the bar stool with a beer bottle cooling her sweaty hands. Her head was spinning and the bottle gave her a stable force to hold on to, or at least the illusion of one.

  She chanced having her head spin off her neck and vomiting, Exorcist style, to turn her head and glance at the mosh pit raging in front of the stage. The bodies whacked into one another in an almost cartoon-like manner. But she couldn’t throw stones. She knew the rush one felt when you didn’t know where your body would end up or whose hands were pushing you from space to space. It was almost like the warm high of a drug or alcohol before you hit the belligerent stage.

  “Hey, girl!” someone called out to her. Bleu turned her head slowly in the direction of the bar, so as not to jar her prickling nerves more than necessary.

  “Girl, you look like shit. I’m not giving you another one,” the bartender called to her over the riff the guitarist just burst into on stage. The crowd was going wild. Usually she’d thrive off that sound. That rush of adrenaline and pheromones pumping through the air was better than any drug she’d ever taken. It helped her body feel alive, after feeling lifeless for months.

  “I’m fine, Dan,” she mumbled, emphasizing his name as she read it off the neon sign behind the bar, proclaiming the area to be “Dan’s Domain.” Her hand lifted from clutching the bottle to rub her eyes, hoping to rip out some of the inch-long nails driving through into her brain. Why was her head hurting so much? She took a Vicodin before leaving the house…maybe she took two, she couldn’t remember. It was only a five-minute walk from her current prison to the bar and she’d been seated for hours, or what felt like hours. It wasn’t working though. There was no mellow soothing her mind and body. Only pain.

  She opened her eyes to look at Dan who seemed to be saying something to her, but the band was too loud to hear. The crowd was screaming so raucously it sounded like she was in some sort of surround-sound amphitheater with the speakers pointed directly at her face. She could almost feel the sound currents becoming physical waves of heat and drifting through her shoulder-length dyed-blonde hair. It was so loud. So loud it hurt. Her ears were about to explode.

  Bleu’s hands moved to her ears to protect and maintain some semblance of sanity through the cacophonous sound. She wanted to scream back at the crowd and
tell them to shut up and give her some peace, to make them help her end the noise. Another part of her, the wild and rebellious part, wanted to be in the pit, moshing around with other people like her. People who needed extremes just to get through the day to day.

  It was so loud. So loud. They needed to stop screaming, the band needed to stop playing. She needed to make the noise stop. Her head hurt so much and all she wanted was some peace and quiet. Maybe another Vicodin would help.

  Her hand keeping the bottle close squeezed around the neck. She tipped it upside down and let what liquid was left drain onto the bar. She was vaguely aware of some person trying to get her attention but the glinting of neon bar lights onto the glass bottle was far more entertaining. What would the pieces of glass look like spread across the bar top? Would they sparkle as the light of neon signs hit the glass?

  Something sharp cascaded into her hands and a short but intense pain pulsed through the sound and into her awareness. She ignored the pain and forged through it to achieve her goal. She had a goal now. To make it stop. Make the sound stop.

  The world cascaded to reveal this one moment where nothing was clearer than the glass shards in her hands as she raised them to her ears and shoved with all her might.

  * * * *

  “Colt! Get down here or your dinner’s gonna get cold.”

  “Coming, Ma.” Colton scrambled to put the magazine away, stuffing it under the loose floorboard beneath his bed. He couldn’t chance his father seeing it. He was a cop and the prejudice within the system was rampant. It didn’t matter that his father was a good man and worked hard to uphold the law and protect the citizens of their community. In Colton’s experience, there were things that cops just didn’t accept. Things that would make them embarrassed to show their face at the station if others knew. Especially if the embarrassment was their only son.

  “Colt, don’t make your mother say it again.” Colton lifted his head from under the bed to see his father standing in the doorway. Dressed in his sharp blue uniform, his dad was a good-looking guy, and Colton knew it. His mom still flushed whenever she saw his dad in uniform. Every day without fail, the red would spread through her cheeks when he came down to breakfast in the morning, giving her that smarmy grin, as she liked to call it. His mom wasn’t the only one though. He saw other women rush to get him things or blush whenever he smiled. His dad was tall with some good muscles on him, dirty-blond hair and pale green eyes that Colton and his sister had inherited. Once Colton turned eighteen, his mother started telling him to use his eyes on the ladies wisely for they had the power to melt knees. Whatever that meant.

  It felt good to know his folks loved each other so much. He had too many friends dealing with their parents’ custody battles. Colton knew that was something he’d never have to go through.

  “What are you doing under there, kid?” his dad asked, tilting his head in that inquisitive way he had.

  “Sorry, dad. I can’t find my glove.” He made up the excuse quickly. They had a habit of throwing the ball around on weekends and since it was Friday, he knew it was a decent cover.

  “It’s right there, Colt.” His father laughed while pointing to the top of the mahogany dresser he inherited when his grandfather had passed last spring. “Now get your ass downstairs.”

  “Don’t curse, John!” They heard his mother yelling from the kitchen.

  “How does she do that?” they asked each other and burst out laughing, the familiarity of the routine a good reminder for Colton. He needed these precious moments to make keeping the secret of what he was easier. His father protected civilians, and Colt hid himself to protect his family from heartache. He knew he couldn’t change what he was, and personally he was OK with it. There was no shame in the feelings he had for both men and women but his family were Catholic traditionalists, as most of the people on Staten Island were. His dad was a cop with the NYPD. No, it was better to keep quiet about that part of himself.

  As Colton descended the steps to dinner, he heard a buzzing coming from the coffee table in the family room. He scoped out the scene before collapsing into his usual spot at the dining table. His little sister, Margaret, was at a late marching band practice, so it was just him and his parents that night. His mom sat across from him at the table, her close-cropped brown hair beginning to tinge with gray. She was tall, like his dad, with a willowy frame and dainty face.

  “Dad, I think your cell is ringing.”

  “Will you just let it go to voice mail for once? You have an hour off for dinner,” his mother asked as she dished his father some salad. “You promised me an hour.”

  “Yeah, hon. I’m sorry but you know I can’t.” He gave her a quick kiss and dashed into the family room to answer the phone.

  “Ugh.” She huffed. When she spied Colton smirking at her uppity state, she narrowed her eyes at him. “Don’t give me that look, Colt. If you had come down sooner we would have had at least five minutes with him. These night hours are ridiculous.” Despite her annoyance, she ladled Colt a large portion of his favorite homemade mashed potatoes. His mom was a machine, working long hours as a nurse in the local hospital, then coming home and always managing to cook them dinner. He didn’t know how she did it, especially lately. She seemed to be more tired than usual, a pinched look hovering around her eyes, as though she were constantly worrying about something. Colton had asked her if she was feeling all right, but she brushed it aside as usual and told him to focus on his school work.“You know he loves it, Ma.” He grinned at her, the smell of garlic and butter a balm to his soul.

  “Yes and that’s one of the reasons I love him, the pain in my ass.” She smiled back but with a roll of her eyes, not conceding that it was OK to take a call during dinner.

  “Lana.” His dad rushed back in, grabbing his coat. “Hon, I’m sorry but there’s been an incident at McNally’s. They knew I was home and I’m the closest one. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.” His dad pulled his mom up from her chair and gave her a kiss, and not just an “I’ll see you later kiss.” This was the kind of kiss that little kids cried “Eeww” out loud about. “Thank you,” his father whispered with a bit more gravitas than the situation called for. But Colt shrugged it off, thinking it was just one of their mushier moments.

  As they parted his dad reached over and gave Colton a kiss on the head. “See you tomorrow, kid. Try not to lose your glove for real before the weekend, OK?”

  “Ha-ha, Dad.” Colt grinned.

  “Love you, guys,” he called as he opened the door and rushed into the night.

  “Love you, too,” he and his mom called back.

  “I hope everything is all right,” she said, as she usually did when his dad had to rush to a scene. He saw the hint of worry in her tightened lips and shoulders, attempting not to show her son how she feared for his father’s life whenever he went to work. This life was so hard on her, but she never faltered in her support for his dad. Overcome with gratitude for his mother, he stood and walked over to give her a great big bear hug. She clutched him to her, kissing him on his cheek before pushing him away with an embarrassed grin and a tear in her eye. His mother loved Colt and his sister with everything she was, but she was never one to lay her emotions out on the table. Every rare glance he got to see into her heart was a treasured moment.

  “Eat your peas,” she muttered, brushing it away.

  He loved his family.

  * * * *

  The flashing lights of the police car across the street caught Alexis’s attention. He’d been absorbed in his extra-credit book report, but that telltale siren had caused him to tear his headphones off in curiosity. He parted the curtain and looked out at McNally’s. There were always fights going on over there, cops showing up all the time to break up the brawls and throw the offenders into lockup for the night. It was only seven so it was a bit early for a bar fight, but it didn’t really matter since, once Friday hit, McNally’s was a twenty-four-hour bar through Sunday.

  Alexis always got
some sick sort of pleasure seeing the assholes carted off and thrown into the back of the patrol vehicles. He imagined a different face on the drunks’ bodies. Someone much more familiar.

  The tall cop got out of the car and the bouncer, Rob was his name, ushered him inside the building. From the glare of the streetlights Alexis could see there was something dark and wet soaking Rob’s white T-shirt. Ten minutes passed and during that time, it seemed like the entire bar exited the building. Alexis listened for a second to hear if anyone was moving around the house. Once he was sure the house was quiet, if not empty, he opened the window to hear what the crowd of concertgoers was saying.

  “Girl is fuckin’ crazy—”

  “Think I got some blood on my shoes—”

  Alexis wondered if some girl on drugs went postal and hurt some people. A few minutes later an ambulance drove up and two beefy guys dragged some equipment and a gurney into the bar. Rob was holding the door open for them. He looked tenser than when he had greeted the cop. There were handprints of what was most definitely blood on his shirt.

  Concerned for real now, and not just in a voyeuristic way, Alexis climbed from the window and onto the porch overhang that intercepted the wall right beneath his window. It was great for quick escapes out of the house. His shithead father always warned he’d put bars on the window to keep him from jumping out there. Alexis knew it was an empty threat. The man was too drunk all the time to do any sort of physical labor beyond beating the shit out of his own son every once in a while.