#Rev (GearShark #2) (3 page)

“There’s always going to be a Zach for us,” I told him. “More than one. I’m trying to protect him. I’m trying to protect his career.”

“It’s hard to protect someone when you aren’t around.”

There was a final note to his words.

Like someone who just gave the be-all, end-all closing argument and dropped the mic.

“Maybe my absence is all the protection Drew needs,” I whispered.

“I think you know better than that,” Romeo said. “But after a night like tonight, you’re allowed to waver.”

“I’m glad I have your permission,” I said kind of surly.

My body hurt, my head hurt, and my swollen eye felt like the skin around it was stretched so tight it might burst.

“Just remember, all flags tremble in the wind, but they still keep flying.”

I thought about making a crack about how he sounded like Dr. Phil or some shit, but I couldn’t. Because in that moment, he was a voice of reason. He was like my deepest conscience speaking up after I told it to shut up too many times.

“So you really knew about us for months?” I asked, thinking of what he’d said earlier.

He grinned. “Dude, I had you guys pegged almost from day one.”

“How?” I wondered.

“The way you watched each other when you thought no one else was looking. I thought maybe you two were going to finally figure it out at Christmas. Man, the way he watched you that night with Nova sleeping on your chest,” Romeo mused. Then he seemed to snap out of the memory. “When nothing happened, I started to think maybe I was wrong.”

He’d been watching me that night at the cabin? My limbs tingled a little just hearing it. I loved knowing I affected Drew in the ways he affected me.

“Is that why you’ve been riding me so hard about family lately?” I demanded.

He laughed low. “Yeah. I could feel you pulling back. I couldn’t let that happen.”

“Why didn’t you just say something?”

“Because you can’t tell someone they’re in love with someone else. They have to figure it out on their own. Besides, I figured if I came right out and said it, one of you would run scared.”

“Like I am now.” My voice was grim.

“You aren’t running. You’re proceeding with caution.” I opened my mouth to object, but he held up a hand. “Take a couple days. Let some of this sink in. You might feel different when half your face isn’t swollen.”

There was some noise out in the hall, and then Braeden walked in. “Mom’s here.” He stopped in his tracks and looked at us on the bed. “Get your own man, Trent. Rome’s mine.”

Romeo cackled, and I rolled my eyes.

“Don’t be an idiot,” Rimmel announced, appearing from behind B and smacking him in the middle. He rubbed at the area and scowled as she kept moving.

Romeo stood as she climbed onto the bed and wrapped an arm around my neck, gingerly pressing close. Her dark hair was up in some wild bun with strands sticking out and tickling my face. I wrapped one arm around her to return the hug.

“I love you,” she whispered in my ear. “Those guys better pray they never meet me in a dark alley.”

I chuckled as she pulled back so our eyes could meet (well, her eyes met my one good one).

“Seriously.” She nodded sagely. “I’m a real badass.”

I adjusted the black-framed glasses perched on her nose and smiled. “Toughest one in the house.”

Her eyes suddenly filled, and it was like another kick in my gut. I couldn’t take many more kicks tonight. “What’s up?”

“Promise me something.”

I leaned my head back against the headboard. “Okay,”

“Promise you won’t just leave. You’re my family. I don’t like to lose my family.”

Well, damn. The guilt trip was strong with this one. What made it worse was she had truth to back it up. Rimmel had lost a lot in her life already, and I truly believed the tears threatening were because she was worried she might lose more.

It hit me right in the feels.

I honestly didn’t know everyone in this house cared about me as much as I did them.

Too bad it took so much to make me see.

“You and me are always gonna be family.” I held up my pinky.

She laughed.

“C’mon, man!” B exclaimed. “It’s one thing to be gay, but pinky swearing is for chicks!”

“You do it, too,” Ivy said, stepping through the doorway. “So don’t be acting like you don’t.”

“Burned,” Rome sang.

“Aww, baby, why you gotta do me like that?”

I laughed and hooked my pinky around Rimmel’s.

“C’mon, Smalls.” Romeo wrapped one arm around her middle and lifted her off the bed. “Trent needs to get looked at.”

“See you in the morning.” She gave me a little wave.

I frowned. I wasn’t going to be here in the morning.

Romeo seemed to read my thoughts, because he stopped and turned, moving like his wife weighed nothing at all. “Family meeting first thing.”

God. What the hell was it with him and family meetings?

I think we pretty much just said it all.

“Just ‘cause I’m gay doesn’t mean I want to keep talking about my feelings,” I said.

Out in the hall, I heard a very familiar laugh. I closed my eyes because the sound pierced my soul.

He was so close.

Yet so far away.

Romeo and Rimmel left the room, and B followed. Ivy pointed her finger at me, stern. “No more yelling and no more holes in the wall. I just got Nova back to sleep.”

I swore beneath my breath. “I’m sorry, Ives. I didn’t mean to wake the baby.”

“You can pay me back by letting Braeden’s mom look at you.”

I groaned.

“And hey?” Ivy said from the doorway. “The next time you want to get in a fight, maybe just don’t.”

I smiled. It reminded me of the time last spring break when a bottle cap sliced her foot open and I’d said something similar.

Caroline Walker, B’s mom and a professional nurse, passed Ivy on her way in. The thought of all her poking and prodding was enough to make me shrink against the pillows and pull the blankets up a little higher.

Well, that and the fact I was in my damn boxers.

“I told them not to call you.”

She glanced at me and frowned. “Well, from the looks of you, it’s good they did.”

A small kit in her hand hit the table beside the bed, and she clicked on the overhead light to go with the lamps already on in the room.

“I’m really not—” I started, but the words died on my tongue. All my attention went to the doorway where Drew hovered.

He acted like he wanted to come in, but at the same time, he didn’t. I knew the feeling.

I sat up a little so I could glance around to see his bandaged hand. I was glad it was taken care of. His eyes swept my face like they were hungry for a glimpse of me. A stark note of worry floated in the blue of his gaze.

I leaned back against the headboard and looked back at Caroline. “Thanks for coming.”

I felt rather than saw Drew relax. Just knowing I was going to let her look at my injuries made him feel better.

It was all I needed to submit.

Caroline picked up the no-longer-cold cold-pack and carried it over to where Drew watched. “Would you mind getting him another one?”

“Sure.”

Before he left, I felt his eyes again. I looked up, unable to ignore the silent call.

It was hard to remember all the reasons I broke it off with him when he looked at me like this. It was hard to justify my reasons.

It was definitely hard to love someone.

But with Drew, it was impossible to stop.

Drew

Never in a million years.

That’s how often I thought life would lead me here.

Since the minute I was conceived, my life was planned out for me. Hell, it might as well have been back in the day when parents arranged their children’s lives before they were even grown based on land agreements, family obligations, and money.

Even though I never really fought the ideals my parents upheld, I never really liked them either. Even so, if asked what I actually wanted from my life, my answer wouldn’t have resembled this.

However.

Even admitting life was nothing like I ever planned or thought I wanted…

I learned something tonight.

I learned why I never really fought what my parents always pushed me toward. Up until now, there was never anything I cared enough about to fight for.

Then I met Trent.

I fell in love with my best friend.

It’s a good damn thing I was a fighter.

I’d fight for him.

I’d fight for me.

I’d fight for us.

Downstairs, I tossed the now-warm cold-pack and reached into the freezer for an icepack. It would probably stay cooler longer. I didn’t mind coming down and changing them out as often as needed, but every time I did that, I had to walk out of the room.

As angry with Trent as I was right now for breaking things off between us and with the guys who jumped him, anger wasn’t all I felt. My insides were rattled.

Worried.

Scared.

I could literally feel some of my joints vibrating beneath my skin. It left me slightly unsteady, off balance. It was sort of like chugging a giant Slurpee and chasing it with a king-size candy bar. But instead of a sugar rush, I was having an emotional rush. My body was buzzed, reacting physically to all the angst of tonight.

I wanted to be with Trent, to be able to look at him whenever I needed to reassure myself he was here and okay. I wanted the constant reassurance he wasn’t gone from my life, that we were still tethered together despite what he declared.

A guy knew he loved someone when all he could think about was being in the same room with them, even knowing they didn’t want him there.

He wants you there,
my subconscious whispered. Trent might say he didn’t, but I knew different. I saw it in his eyes when I stood in the doorway of the room. I felt it deep inside.

“How’s the hand?” Ivy asked, stepping into the kitchen.

“It’s fine,” I replied, pulling out a towel to wrap around the icepack. The scrapes and cuts from putting my hand through the wall were the last thing on my mind. “Thanks for bandaging me up.”

“You’re gonna fight for him, right?”

I followed the abrupt change in conversation with ease and abandoned the task in front of me. My gaze swung around to pin my sister with a steady look. “You think I wouldn’t?”

Her elbows were resting on the island and her chin was in her hands. Perched on the top of her head was a high ponytail that was slightly crooked, and rogue strands of blond hair framed her face. “I think I want you to know I want you to.”

I felt my lips curve up into a half smile. “Well, if you want me to.”

My attempt to somehow lighten this entire night, my thoughts, this conversation was not received.

“It’s been really hard for you, huh?” She straightened from the counter and stepped forward, toward me.

I’d been silent a long time. Never spoke about what I was and wasn’t feeling. Never let on that maybe I was struggling with feelings no one else knew about.

Except, according to the fam, everyone knew.

Everyone saw the invisible pull between T and me. They felt the ripples in the air between us.

All this time, I’d felt alone; I had no one to talk to.

I wasn’t alone. Neither was Trent.

I shrugged. “It’s been hard, but it’s also been really easy.”

“Love is easy and hard at the same time,” Ivy mused.

I nodded. Love was a conundrum, a paradox. Loving Trent was incredibly easy. I did it without thought, without effort. But everything that came with those automatic feelings—that’s where the effort came in.

“You’re really okay with this?” I asked. My sister had already given T and me her blessing. But maybe I needed some reassurance.

“With you being in love? I’m more than okay with it.”

I pursed my lips and gave her a look. While I appreciated her pragmatic view, I didn’t want it right then. I wanted a real conversation.

She made a rude sound and hopped up on the island to sit. “I was surprised when I first noticed the way your relationship with him developed. But the more I thought of it, the more I watched you both, it seemed so obvious.”

I started to say something, but she held up her hand and gave me a
be quiet
look. “The right kind of love is supposed to bring out the best in people. It adds to your life, fills in all those gaps you didn’t even realize were there. Trent does that for you, doesn’t he?” She tilted her head to the side and watched me.

I nodded slow, realizing T did exactly that.

“Then it doesn’t matter who you found it with. It doesn’t matter he doesn’t have boobs.”

I laughed out loud.

She giggled, then turned serious again. “You found something some people wait their entire life for. I’d much rather you be happy and so in love with a man than have some mediocre relationship with a woman.”

“Not everyone is going to see it that way.”

“Are you worried about everyone or someone more specific?”

I glanced away, back down to the ice lying in front of me. My sister knew me well. “I don’t want to tell him.”

“We have great parents. They’d do anything for us, but they were always so strict,” Ivy replied. “I think you felt their pressure more than me and Camden. You’ve been living up to Dad’s ideals for a long time, Drew. I don’t think I quite understood what it was like for you until you moved here.”

“It wasn’t terrible,” I told her, but I couldn’t disagree entirely.

“I regret not seeing sooner. I regret not being there for you more.”

“Hey.” I pushed away from the counter and moved to where she was sitting on the island. “Big brothers take care of little sisters, not the other way around.”

She made a face like I knew she would. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, and I’ve heard a lot of dumb crap.”

“Well, you are married to Braeden,” I muttered.

She smacked me in the chest, and I grinned.

“We’re both grown adults. I’m not a little girl, Drew. You’ve always been there for me, and now it’s my turn to be there for you.”

“I love you, Ives.” I wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her to my chest. Both her arms locked around my back and squeezed. “And you are there for me. In all the ways I need you to be,” I whispered in her ear.

She didn’t say anything else for a few long moments, instead just pressing her face against my chest and hugging me.

I never really thought of it until right now, but being in a relationship with Trent didn’t just affect him and me. It affected our entire family.

Suddenly, the family meeting Romeo declared we have in the morning didn’t seem quite so unnecessary.

“I want to be there when you tell him,” Ivy said, pulling out of my embrace.

I shook my head. “I don’t know, Ives.” It was going to be a hard conversation. She didn’t need to deal with that. She didn’t need to see a side of our father that was basically unknown. “I’m not sure I’m ready to tell Dad.”

To tell anyone really. The people in this house were the only people I’d felt comfortable enough sharing with.

But I was beginning to think that choice was being taken out of my hands.

“No one in this house is going to say anything. You and Trent can decide how and when you want to tell people, and we’ll support you. I’ll support you.”

I pulled her close again and pressed a kiss to her hairline. I was still rattled inside. I would be until I was with Trent and I knew he wasn’t going to try and run. But this was good. Having some backup in the form of family went a long way in easing some of the havoc inside me.

As if Ivy understood those very basic feelings I never voiced, she said, “I never doubted you would fight for him. He needs you to.”

I picked up the ice and nodded. “Yeah, I know he does.”

“I’ll see you in the morning,” she said.

On my way out of the kitchen, I snagged the first aid kit and tucked it beneath my arm. Walking up the stairs, I couldn’t help but think about all the times Trent fought for me and I didn’t even know it. All the times he put the way I felt before himself. The weeks of verbal abuse from Conner at the frat he turned a deaf ear to and never said a word. Even the way he was fighting now, pushing me away.

A lot of people might argue right now that T was being weak.

He wasn’t.

He was still the bravest guy I’d ever known.

That’s why it was so important I fight for him now.

Even the bravest of men sometimes needed someone else’s strength.