by Tess Oliver
Rebel Love
Tess Oliver
REBEL LOVE
ISBN-13: 978-1974672936
ISBN-10: 197467293X
Copyright © 2017 by Tess Oliver
Cover Image: Lane Dorsey
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Prologue
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
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Also by Tess Oliver
About the Author
Prologue
Joshua
My dad was an armchair philosopher . . . literally. As long as he had a bottle of whiskey to go with his creaky recliner, he could come up with all kinds of insightful nuggets of worthless shit. Every Friday night he'd come home from a long week of work and settle into his easy chair with a bottle of cheap scotch and the television remote. During commercials, he'd come up with useless and brilliant theories about life. It helped him deal with the hurt of losing my mom, the one woman he had ever loved, and it helped him pass the time until the whiskey finally took him to his grave.
On one of those long nights, when I watched him dilute his blood with enough alcohol to kill a man twice his size, he came up with the theory that life was just a long series of split second decisions. Every footstep forward on a sidewalk, he claimed, was a split second decision that passed by so quickly you didn't even realize you'd made it until you were already at the curb. 'Joshua', he would say with the slow stretched speech of a man drunk on heartbreak and liquor, 'there are split second decisions that end happily, some that cause overwhelming regret and even some that have changed the course of history'.
For a drunk, the man was a fucking genius. And an awesome dad.
For a long time, I thought of that kiss, the kiss that unraveled everything, the kiss that changed the course of history, as a split second decision. Somehow categorizing it as rash and impulsive made it seem less important. But something can't be a split second decision if you've been thinking about it forever. The truth was, I'd thought about that damn kiss for so long, if I closed my eyes and let my mind wander back four years to that night, I could still feel Rebecca's lips pressed against mine. There was nothing split second about an obsession. And while she might have been impetuous and wild, there sure as hell wasn't anything split second about Rebecca . . . the girl I called Rebel.
Chapter 1
Joshua
Tory nestled her naked body against my back, waking me from a deep sleep. The gray light of a cloudy morning filtered into the room. The rumpled trail of our clothes led from the hallway to the bed. She kissed the back of my shoulder and swept her hand over my stomach and down to my cock. As her fingers wrapped around my erection, my phone rang, interrupting the early morning quiet.
"Let it ring," Tory sighed as she stroked me and grazed my back with her hardened nipples.
It was my usual Paradise City ringtone but for some reason it sounded more urgent, as if Slash was strumming his Les Paul just a little harder than normal.
I reached for the phone. Tory let me know her displeasure by squeezing my cock just a little too hard. "Ouch, shit, remind me to avoid a blow job when you're in a bad mood."
"Fuck you, Josh." Tory rolled over to her other side.
I sat up. I didn't recognize the number which meant I'd just blown morning sex for someone selling solar panels or a life insurance policy.
I answered. "It's pretty fucking early for a damn sales pitch."
"He's out. Vanderbuilt or Vanderhout or Vanderfuck, whatever the hell his name is, he got out of jail four months ago."
I hadn't realized that my pulse had shot ahead until I heard it echoing back at me through my phone. It had been four years since I'd heard her voice. It still had the same effect on me.
"Rebecca?"
Tory rolled back over to listen as I said the name.
"Where are you?"
"What does that matter, Josh? Did you hear me? He's out. They let that fucking asshole out early."
I didn't know how to respond, so I took the coward's way out with silence.
"You fucking knew? Why the hell didn't you tell me?"
"Because I knew it would just make you mad. Seems that was a good call on my part. Where are you at? No one has heard from you in months."
Behind me, Tory made a point of hoisting herself out of bed and stomping across the floor to the bathroom. The door snapped sharply shut behind her.
"I let the first boogeyman off the hook," Rebecca continued, "but it's not going to happen this time."
"What the hell are you talking about? You're not making any sense. What boogeyman? What are you up to?"
"Doesn't matter. Sorry I woke you."
There was a pause. I quickly searched for something to say to keep her on the phone longer. But she had me so stunned from the call, my head was blank.
"Hey, Josh?"
The anger in her tone had softened. Her voice had always reminded me of a smoky breeze, light and fun but slightly husky. One phone call and every inch of her was coming back to me in full fucking Technicolor.
"Yeah?"
"Call me by my nickname once. It's been a long time."
Her simple request reminded me of everything, the terrible sense of loss, the unbearable heartbreak. All of it settled on my chest like a bag of cement. My throat was tight as I uttered the words. "I miss you, Rebel."
"I miss you too."
Silence.
I pulled the phone from my ear. She'd hung up. I dialed her back, but no answer.
"Shit." I put the phone on the nightstand.
The bathroom door swung open. Tory swept past me to collect her clothes off the floor.
After my highly anticipated future as a rock and roll legend crashed into an epic fail, I'd moved back to my hometown, Camden Beach. My dad had left my older brother and me the house. As ugly and falling apart as it was, it was paid for. And it sure as hell beat living in my car and using a guitar case as a pillow. Dylan Parson, Rebecca's stepbrother, was four years older than me, but we had always gotten along. We pooled the little money we had and opened a sports bar together. Tory worked behind the bar, which meant I'd stupidly broken the golden rule of not dating a workmate. And as things between us soured, I was really starting to understand that rule.
"Who is Rebecca?" Tory asked casually, but her nose was twitching in irritation.
I leaned back on my elbows and watched her get dressed. "She's Dylan's stepsister."
Tory shimmied into her tight jeans. "Oh, her." It sounded like she was biting on a bitter lemon as she said the words.
"You've only been in town a year. You don't know her."
"Nope, I don't. But I know of her. Helena said that when Dylan's stepsister used to walk into a party or a dance, every girl had to grab protective hold of their boyfriends just to keep them safe."
I stood up and snatched my jeans off the floor. "If that's true, then the blame should be on their boyfriends because Rebecca never gave a shit about any of them." I wanted off this topic fast. "I'm going to take a shower. Lock up when you leave."
"Josh?" Tory stopped in the center of the room and waited for me to turn back around. Which I did, reluctantly. The last few seconds of conversation had created just a little more divide between us.
Tory tucked her short black hair behind her ears, and her upper lip straightened out of its usual bow shape. "Nathan, that financial advisor guy in the sharp suit who comes in every Friday night—he asked if I was in a steady relationship. He wants to start dating."
I should have had a reaction to her words, but there was nothing. And she caught my lack of emotion just fine. Her chin twitched back and forth, a mixture of nerves and anger.
"What'd you tell him?"
She blinked her big brown eyes at me for a long moment, apparently hoping I would step in and say the right thing. But I had nothing.
"I told him I didn't fucking know because I was with someone who didn't know his head from his ass when it came to relationships." The first sign of tears glassed her big eyes.
"I think you should date him."
"Is this because of that phone call? So, everything Helena said about Dylan's sister is true. You broke Emily's heart and all because of her stepsister. It seems Helena wasn't exaggerating after all when she said girls in high school had to hang on to their guys when Rebecca came into the room."
I'd hurt her and I deserved the assault, but I wasn't going to discuss the past with her.
"Tory, you knew going into this that I wasn't into commitment. Date the fancy suit. You deserve better than me."
A harsh laugh shot from her mouth as she grabbed her shoes in her hand. "That's just fucking perfect. And you know what? I do deserve better." She swept out of the room. The front door slammed so hard my car keys fell off the nightstand.
I walked over and picked them up. I held them on my palm and stared down at the green and pink lanyard that had been hooked to my keys since the day Rebecca had given it to me. I picked up the phone and dialed Dylan. He answered up after two rings. "What? I'm just getting into the shower."
"Well, you were right. You warned me to keep my dick out of the pretty bartender."
"Shit. So now Tory will probably put an extra shot in everyone's drink and our profits will drop. And all because you couldn't keep your prick to yourself."
"Look who's talking. Anyhow, that's not the real reason I called." I rubbed my finger over the tightly woven plastic of the lanyard. Her long fingers had touched every strand. "Rebecca called."
I hadn't expected the long pause on his end. Rebecca's father had divorced Dylan's mother and he moved to Europe for business. Rebecca had gone with him, but last I'd heard, she moved back to the states. I was sure she'd kept in some contact with Dylan's mother, but I never asked much about her. I never wanted to hear that she had a steady boyfriend or worse—had gotten married. I couldn't fucking bear to hear it.
"Huh, she did? Is she all right?" His tone had dried up almost as if he was just talking indifferently about some acquaintance.
"She heard about Vandermeer getting out of jail. She seemed pretty upset about it."
A dry laugh shot through the phone. "You know Becca. Always dramatic. Some things never change. Hey, start the inventory when you get in. I've got to drive over to Hartford and pick up that new craft beer. See you in a bit." He hung up.
I stared at the phone, confused by his reaction. Or non-reaction.
Chapter 2
Joshua
Nine years earlier
I leaned against my car and waited for Emily. I hated hanging with her friends just like she hated hanging with mine, but I'd promised to go with her to her best friend Mindy's party. The new cheer squad had been announced, and Emily made head cheerleader. So I knew there was going to be a lot of screaming and hugging and crying. There would probably be a lot of short sundresses too . . . so . . . there was that. Still, it seemed like a good waste of a perfectly sunny August day. But then Emily had sat through three long hours of band practice in Mike's hot garage the day before. Emily and I had so little in common, sometimes it seemed like we were still together just because everyone expected us to be. We'd been dating since freshman year. It started on our first day of high school. She came back from summer with a tan that made her blue eyes look like gems and a newly developed chest that turned every head in the hallway. Including mine. We ended up eating lunch at the same table, and the rest was, as they say, history. For some reason our classmates had dubbed us the it couple, the couple everyone wanted to be. Emily was popular and top of the class in academics. I was the self-purported bad ass with an attitude, a bass guitar and a band. For a long time, the odd couple thing had worked for us, but lately, it felt as if we were from two different worlds and meeting in the middle was getting harder and harder.
The front door opened and Emily's stepsister, Rebecca, strolled out on her long tanned legs and bare feet. Rebecca's dad had been married to Emily's mom for four years, and it seemed the two families had managed to merge together without a problem. Rebecca had no siblings and Emily's brother, Dylan, who was four years older than us, was in and out of the house depending on whatever job he could find. Rebecca thought the Sun revolved around her stepsister, Emily.
"Hey, Rebel, Rebel, what's up?"
"Emily is still working on her hair." A few long strides took Rebecca across the front lawn to my car, where she quickly planted herself on the hood and crossed her legs. "She's getting all fancied up, so she might not be happy that you're wearing that Iron Maiden t-shirt. Maybe you should just give it to me, and I'll find you one of my dad's shirts to wear."
"Nice try. You've been vying for this t-shirt for a year, so I'm on to your little scam."
"Butthead."
"You love this shirt as much as Emily hates it. Anyhow, aren't you supposed to be listening to those boy bands where they all sing really high and wear puffy hairstyles?"
"Uh, I'm pretty sure there is no written law that says after your fourteenth birthday you are required to go gaga over boy bands. I prefer rock and roll."
"Since when?"
Rebecca lifted her leg and nudged my side with her toe. "Ever since my future brother-in-law decided he was going to be a heavyweight rock star."
"Future brother-in-law, that's a good one. Let me first pass senior year before you start marrying me off."
"So how is it going with the Domino Dogs?" Rebecca was on a short list of one for people who took an interest in my band. "How did you come up with that name, anyhow?"
"Well, it was all really scientific. We had a great deal of debate about name choice. Then one day, during practice, Everett pulled out his phone to show us this viral video of some dude building this long ass, complicated array of dominoes. And before he got to the end, so that he could push that first domino and see them all fall, his dog walked by and knocked the thing down with one tail wag. The name fell right into place."
Rebecca reached down and tugged at the sleeve on my shirt. She had a tendency to touch me a lot while we were talking, but it never annoyed me. "You should have shirts made for the band. There could be a picture of a dog pushing down a domino for a logo. That'd be cool. Not very rock and rollish though, I suppose."
I stared up at her. "Great, now I'm rethinking the whole name thing.”
"No, the name is cool. I like it." Rebecca leaned back and rested on her hands, turning her face up to the sun. She had begged her parents to let her change her hair color to something funky with the promise that she'd go back to her natural candy caramel color by fall. Today she was sporting a lot of lavender stripes. "Do I look like one of those hot models sit
ting on the cool car at the car show?"
I laughed. "Uh, yeah sure. Except for the hot model part." I was always teasing her. For the past few years, I'd taken plenty of time to make fun of her bean pole figure and tangle of legs and arms. But I had to admit, lately she was growing into all her parts. It seemed it wouldn't be long before all the boys in the neighborhood would be riding past on their BMX bikes and skateboards just to get a glimpse of their crush.
Rebecca blew a raspberry from her lips as she lowered her face. The sun had instantly colored her cheeks. "And the cool car. And if we were to get technical, the car show too." She patted the faded green hood of my dented Subaru. "Oh! I almost forgot that I made you something." She reached in to her back pocket and pulled out a green and pink lanyard. "As you can see I was bored out of my mind today. And I knew if I didn't look busy, then my stepmom would make me help her dust the bookshelves or polish the living room chairs or some other horrid, mind-numbing task. So instead, I came up with my own mind-numbing way to spend the morning. And I made it to match your car. Except for the pink. I just thought it looked good with the green. There's a hook so you can put it on your keychain."
Rebecca crossed her arms to let me know she was waiting for me to put the lanyard on my keys.
"Right. I am going to add it right now."
