#Rev (GearShark #2) (2 page)

Trent

Don’t count on it.

I put my faith in fate. I put all my proverbial eggs in one basket.

What do I get?

Don’t count on it.

Fucking A.

Or maybe that’s what I got for asking a magic eight ball for love advice.

Maybe I should have just smacked myself in the head with it. It would have been less painful.

I learned quite a few things in the moments after I broke up with Drew and he stormed out of the bedroom with a bleeding fist.

1.) Seeing him bleed was not something I liked.

2.) I wanted to call him back the second he walked out.

and

3.) Something else I wasn’t quite ready to do something about.

Hurting him wasn’t something I wanted, but this seemed like the best thing. Maybe doing this now might save more pain later.

What if it hurt forever?

What if the pain I was trying to spare us both was for nothing because it was pain just the same?

Pain was pain.

Pain hurt. It didn’t matter if it were fists and physical blows or a broken heart and busted dreams.

I already knew what life was like trying to deny how I felt about Drew.

Misery.

Was I sentencing us both to misery because I was trying to do what was best for Drew…?

Or because I was scared?

It seemed there was misery in our futures no matter which choice I made.

Everything inside me ached with bleakness. I ached for the life I wanted and for the one I had.

I laid my head back against the headboard and stared at the eight ball still in my clutches. Maybe the melancholy I saw in our futures wouldn’t be quite so grim if it were also woven with bliss.

Stolen moments in the dark, grazing touches as we worked beneath the hood of his car. Laughter, smiles… friendship.

Wasn’t it those things that made life suck less?

Let’s face it. Life is hard.

Anyone who said it’s easy was one of two things:

1.) A liar.

or

2.) On damn good drugs.

I was reeling inside.

I was a knotted mess of confusion and hurt.

A light knock on the doorframe gave me a slight reprieve from my tortured thoughts. Leaning my head against the headboard, I rolled it toward the sound as Romeo stepped into the bedroom.

I stifled a wince when my body tensed. I knew he knew. Braeden probably told him as soon as he walked in the door tonight.

I was nervous about this conversation.

I never really said it, never really let on… but Romeo was important to me. It sounded odd because we were the same age, we were family, and because, well, I was taller than him, but I looked up to Romeo.

He always seemed so together. A rock. A man who always had his life on point.

I tried to be that way. Hell, most people probably thought I was. But inside, I often felt I was grasping a rope as I dangled off the side of a cliff.

“Hey.” He began.

“Hey,” I echoed, pushing myself up a little straighter in the bed.

His footsteps faltered when he turned toward me. “
Fuck
,” he swore low. “They told me you looked like shit.”

I laughed and then grabbed my side. “What a nice thing to say.”

“That was nice. You look worse than shit.” He folded his arms across his chest, the blue of his eyes only visible through narrow slits, but even half closed, he still appraised me entirely.

I wondered if he saw me any differently now that he knew.

Now that he knew beneath the bruises, cuts, and college athlete, my heart beat for another man.

“What happened, Trent?” he asked.

“I’m sure B told you.”

“B wasn’t there. I want to hear it from you.”

I told him everything. About how the trouble I said I took care of at the frat hadn’t really been over. I told him about Con and the shit he’d been saying to me for weeks. Anger bubbled up inside me when I retold how I was jumped, pinned down, and beaten by four guys that were supposed to be my brothers.

Sure, I was upset by all this. I was hurting inside because of Drew.

But I was also pissed.

Con knew he’d never win a fight against me alone or even if it were fair.

So he came with backup.

Motherfucker.

When I was done talking, Romeo rubbed a hand along his jaw and gestured toward the bed. “You mind?”

“I’m in love with Drew,” I said, deliberate.

The side of his lips tilted up. “Yeah, I might have heard.”

“You still wanna sit there?”

The small smirk left his face, and he sighed. Instead of dropping onto the side of the bed, he kicked off his shoes and climbed onto the mattress. The bed bounced a little beneath his weight as he took up Drew’s side and mirrored my sitting position. When his back was leaning up against the headboard, he dropped his hands in his lap and looked in my direction.

“I didn’t know I came off as a judgmental asshole,” he mused.

“You don’t. But you are a total alpha male and you know it.”

“All the men in this house are,” he retorted.

“Maybe, but I think we both know you’re number one.”

“Have you met my wife? She totally runs me.”

I laughed. It was so true. Rimmel was less than half his size, and he was totally wrapped around her little finger. “Don’t make me laugh,” I grabbed my side again, trying to hold it still while I guffawed.

His eyes narrowed with my movement, and it served to help sober me up.

“You really didn’t think I’d accept you?” he asked, bringing the rest of the laughter out of me.

I looked him in the face. “Honestly? I think I always knew you would, but I was scared to tell you. Scared if you didn’t, it would crush me twice as hard because it would mean I was wrong about the one guy I always admired.”

“I’ve always admired you. More so since I stepped in this house tonight.”

Of all the things he could have said, that was probably the least likely I would have ever guessed.

My voice was rueful. “I just got my ass beat.”

He waved that off like he wasn’t quite ready to deal with that, like it paled in comparison to everything else we had to talk about. “You’ve always been a quiet guy. You’re the observer. The friend, the guy who’s always there but stays in the background. You’re kind of like the funny sidekick in a TV show. People might not have come to watch you, but you’re the reason they stay. That inner strength you all say I have? You got it, too.”

I swallowed past the rocks in my throat. Not lumps of emotion. Rocks. “I’m not so strong, Rome.”

“You’re dying inside right now, aren’t you?” he said, frank. The nakedness of his words made me feel uncomfortable. It was hard to show him just how much I loved Drew when I still wasn’t used to admitting it to myself.

I glanced down at my lap and didn’t reply.

“I watched you and Drew dance around each other for months and months. I was starting to think you two would deny each other forever. You made the first move, didn’t you?” he asked.

I thought back to the night of our first kiss. The night I grabbed Drew’s arm and felt him shake. I nodded once.

“Starting something with him took strength. Breaking it off with him tonight took even more.”

“You heard?”

“I think the entire house heard.” He joked. “And I saw him in the hall.”

“How did he look?” I asked, forgetting about the throbbing behind my eyes and the sharp pain in my side.

“Just like you.” He was silent a heartbeat, then said, “I imagine I looked the exact same way the night Rimmel found out about initiation and the dare to sleep with her. The night she got out of my car and walked away. I didn’t think I’d ever see her again.”

Oh, I’d see Drew again. And it would feel like salt being poured into a gaping, raw wound.

“I think my situation is a little different.” I pointed out.

In his lap, Romeo began twisting the wedding ring adorning his finger. “Why’s that? ‘Cause you love a dude and not a woman? Man, have you met women? They’re borderline impossible to deal with half the time.”

I snorted. I learned it from his wife.

The humor left his voice when he spoke again. “I know something about loving someone you aren’t supposed to. Someone no one thinks you should.”

I looked up.

“I also know something about the person you love becoming a target for hate because you love them.”

I was already reeling, but Romeo pushed me off kilter. Never had I thought about his love story with Rimmel like that before. I guess I never really saw it from his point of view. All I ever really saw was the way they were together, how obvious it was they belonged together.

Made me feel kind of dumb for not seeing it sooner. After all, I had a front row seat to everything they’d been through.

“That was different, though.” I disagreed, even though I saw his point. What was between him and Rim was nothing like what was between me and Drew.

“Why?”

I faltered a little. “Because Zach was crazy. Like seriously mental.”

He nodded. “Yeah, he was. But hate doesn’t care. Hate can turn anyone a little mental.”

“Like Con.” I surmised.

Romeo shook his head. “I’m not talking about that pecker head.”

I grinned because that’s exactly what Con was. A little pecker head.

“I’m talking about anyone who hates on people who are gay. Who loves someone of the same sex. Those people might not be quite as unstable as Zach, but they’re just as dangerous. Anyone who uses the fact that a person loves another person as some kind of weapon or reason to be a douche bag isn’t right in the head.”

“So you get why I broke it off,” I said, thinking about what he just said. Feeling his words down to my core.

All this time I’d been so focused on telling myself it was wrong to love Drew because he was a man. It wasn’t wrong to love Drew.

What was wrong was the way some people saw that love.

As a perversion. As a twist of the devil.

“Yeah, I get it.” Romeo replied. “But you’re wrong.”

My body jerked. “What?”

Romeo sat forward, his back no longer against the headboard. His waist twisted around and one hand landed on my bare shoulder. “I’ll never turn my back on you. You’re my family. No matter what.”

That meant so much to me. More than I could probably ever put into words.

It made this even harder.

Because not only was I breaking up with Drew, but in a way, the rest of my family.

It was my worst fear.

It was the reason I hadn’t wanted to tell Drew how I felt in the first place. I had been scared I would not only lose my best friend, but my family.

When Drew validated everything I felt for him, when he basically returned my feelings, I’d been so goddamned relieved because if he had rejected me, I would have had to walk away.

Away from him.

Away from Romeo, Braeden, Rimmel and Ivy.

That’s what I had to do now.

I was the one choosing this. I was the one who didn’t live here.

I couldn’t be here, not right now anyway. I couldn’t see Drew day in and day out and not be with him the way I wanted.

I couldn’t watch him date again…

Searing pain cut through my chest. I wrapped my arms over my middle, trying to hold myself together.

There would come a time when Drew would date. A woman? Another man?

It didn’t matter.

It wouldn’t be me.

“You break anything besides the ribs?” Romeo asked, his voice concerned.

My heart
. I shook my head.

“You don’t turn your back on love.” He went on without missing a beat. “Love isn’t easy, not for anyone, but you don’t push it away. You hold even tighter.”