Unbearable (the TORQUED trilogy Book 2)

by Shey Stahl

  Cars are lined up down the street and we’re running our asses off trying to catch up. Being the second week in December, it snowed last night leaving the town in about two inches of fresh white powder, which means everyone wants studded tires and their brakes checked.

  This morning would have gone easier if Rawley was actually here like he’s supposed to be but no, like usual, he shows up at noon. After Red was shot, he improved for a while but something happened lately and he’s fallen off the moral wagon again.

  “So man, think Lyric would be proud of the way you’re acting these days?” I ask after Rawley throws up in a garbage can next to my toolbox. It fucking stinks and I’m pissed he used my garbage can.

  Rawley glares, his eyes on the car in front of us and I step away from my garbage can. “Don’t fucking act like you’re better than me and don’t talk about my dad like you’d know if he was proud or not.”

  We’re about ten feet away from one another, a car separating us when I ask, “Why? Does it bother you to know you’re a fuckin’ disappointment?”

  “You know, I’ve been meaning to ask you, how’s my sister?” He looks up at me, smiling. “Break her heart again yet?” Rawley asks. There’s laughter behind Rawley’s words and it makes me see red. I’m not in the mood for this shit.

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about.” I drop the impact gun in my hand on my tool cart, the thud echoing through the shop causing both Red and Lenny to turn toward us.

  “Yeah, sure.” Rawley laughs; it’s condescending.

  “You sure you want to do this right now, Rawley?” I ask, stepping around the car and toward him. “You sure you want to have this conversation, here, right now in front of your brother?”

  There’s certainly no hesitation in his stare but his words are so far wrong he has no idea anymore. “He doesn’t give a shit about me so what does it matter?”

  Red does care about him and it pisses me off that he can’t see it. I shove him roughly against the wall. “Stop blaming him for your problems.”

  “Why don’t we talk about your problems, Tyler.” His arms catch him against the toolbox, metal rattling as he eyes me carefully. The smile’s finally gone. “You used my sister. Admit it.”

  I admire his bluntness and fight off a smile. There’s nothing funny about it but I smile. Maybe that’s why he smiled. I’m shaking my head as he watches me—testing and provoking—because he knows I’m going to defend myself. It’s only natural. “I love your sister.”

  Forget the fact that I said I love Raven to him, or everyone else standing around, what I’m focused on is his reaction, why he really hates me so much.

  “Sure you do. You love her sucking your dick and spreading her legs for you,” he taunts.

  “That’s enough!” Red shouts, his hands on both of our chests. Sure, Red’s bigger than I am but I don’t even acknowledge him then and lean into his hold, unwilling to let this go.

  Rawley’s eyes scan my face as if he’s studying me. I don’t like where this is going and he doesn’t either. “I see you’ve moved back onto Berkley now too. I can’t say I blame you, she’s a pretty good piece of ass.”

  “Listen to me, you stupid little shit!” I reach around Red and grab him by his shirt, slamming him up against my toolbox, tools and parts rattling with the motion. “You know nothing about what happened between Raven and me. Nothing. Or with Berkley. Just because she’s sucking your dick behind the stage after your concerts in a fuckin’ bar doesn’t meant shit. I guarantee you she doesn’t remember your dick from any other guy and she’ll move on like she did with me, so keep your fucking mouth shut!”

  “Her mouth is all I need. It’s all she’s good for.” And he’s laughing.

  The motherfucker is laughing.

  I shouldn’t care because Berkley doesn’t mean anything to me anymore. It’s done between us but the fact that he’s standing here provoking me, making me think he’s a piece of shit using women, yeah, that bothers me because he seems to have the same mentality as Holden. It’s pussy and nothing else matters. Immediately I think of Raven and the fucking shit she’s around in college and I see nothing but the anger and resentment for my situation.

  Shoving Red aside, I slam my shoulder into Rawley, connecting with his stomach. Our bodies slam against the ground, his head knocking back against the lift when I do so.

  Both Lenny and Red are yelling at us to stop but I’m so pissed I can’t even think straight. I want to kill him for the things he’s saying. He’s been like my little brother for years but I want to teach him a goddamn lesson.

  Rawley throws his body weight into his punches, a few landing on my jaw, a couple on my cheek with such force blood pools in my mouth. Pain erupts on impact, my own hits landing when I get him off me. There’s a blunt crack when I break his nose, crimson leaking from both his nostrils and his nose twisted to the right. He draws his fist back again and nails me in the stomach. It takes my breath for a moment only to have Red yanking at my shoulders.

  Neither one of us stop until I can barely put any weight into my punches and everyone is screaming at us.

  Red ends up tackling me when blood is pouring from the side of Rawley’s head.

  “Colt! Help me!” he screams when he’s struggling to hold me down.

  Colt rolls his eyes, tossing a twenty on the floor where he’s standing with Daniel, both smiling. “Nah, twenty says Tyler pulls this one off.”

  “You useless piece of shit,” Red grumbles and then turns his attention to me. “Knock it off!”

  I push him back, the adrenaline feeding my strength and I easily knock him aside. I want back at Rawley. He spits blood on the concrete floor. “That’s all you got?” he taunts, standing now.

  I do the same only to have Red pin me to the wall, his forearm pressing into my throat. “Get the fuck off me!” I shove him back.

  He stumbles and comes back at me just as strong. “No. What’s going on?”

  My wild eyes dart around the shop, never landing on anyone. My heart pumps so loud I can hear it in my ears. My body shakes as I say, “Why don’t you ask your fucking brother and his big fucking mouth what’s wrong.”

  I can hear Rawley popping off with shit, kicking tools and yelling at me.

  “I’m not asking him. I’m asking you what’s going on.”

  There’s a crash behind me. Rawley’s kicked over my tool cart. Red twists, his attention on the noise when Rawley takes the tool cart, picks it up over his head and throws it. It lands on the windshield of a customer’s car.

  Dead silence follows and we all look to Red.

  “What the fuck?” Red screams, his blistering voice echoing throughout the shop. You could have heard that across the street. I’ve never seen Red so pissed in my life as he steps toward Rawley. “You stupid son of a bitch! Why would you do that?”

  Rawley spits blood at him throwing his hands up in the air to flip his brother, or me, off. “Fuck you! I quit.”

  “HOLY HELL WHAT was that?” Lenny asks, stepping inside my apartment, her eyes wide and voice a tad frantic.

  “Get out, Lenny, just fucking go,” I grumble, opening the freezer to look for an ice pack. My left eye is already swelling shut. I’ll hand it to Rawley, he can most certainly throw a punch. Or twelve. “I don’t want to be around anybody right now.

  She crosses her arms over her chest. I glance at her standing in my kitchen. She’s trying to be nice and give me someone to vent to. “I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s going on.”

  “I’m not asking, I’m telling you.” I slam the freezer. “Get the fuck out.”

  My harsh words do nothing. She plops herself on the couch in the living room. “Nope. Not happening. Talk to me.”

  “I’m not talking to you.”

  “I got all night,” she warns, putting her feet up on the coffee table.

  Grabbing the new bottle of whiskey I bought last night, I sit down at the table with a wet towel.

  Lenny stands
, walks into my kitchen and opens the freezer and takes out the ice pack I never got out. Sitting down next to me, she pushes it toward me. “Put that on your face. You look horrible.”

  For ten minutes, I drink about six shots and clean my bloody face off. All the while, Lenny doesn’t leave. Instead, I assume she sends a text to Red because I see his picture pop up on her screen several times.

  “Did you know you’re like the brother I never had?” she asks on minute eleven.

  I don’t say anything at all. I don’t even look at her and do another shot.

  “When I called you, crying, on my own, you didn’t hesitate to help me.”

  Another shot.

  “I’m not walking away from you because something huge is happening with you and you need someone who’s not going to judge you.”

  Two more shots. Swallowing over the burn, I slouch in the chair, my body and face so sore every expression hurts.

  “I can sit here all night,” she repeats.

  Around the time I can’t feel my face any longer, I begin talking, my voice so low I know she has to struggle to hear me. With my stare on my blood-soaked knuckles, I twist the cap to the whiskey in my hand. “I’m gonna tell you a story.” She nods so I continue, “There was this guy once… he was out partying with his friends when he meets this girl. Fucking beautiful girl with long legs, flawless tan skin and jet-black hair. She was the bartender and you know women bartenders, they flirt their way to tips. He didn’t think much of it, or her flirting until he met her again six months later when she brought her car by to get fixed. Being a bartender in a small town, she couldn’t afford a new engine in the car so the guy, the one from the bar, offered to fix it for free if she let him take her out. She agreed and five years later, they moved in together. He thought what they had was real.

  “One day, she gets pregnant, and they’re happy, or so he thought.” I sit forward again, taking one more shot, flinching at the burn it leaves on my open lip. “I mean”—I wipe my mouth once more with the towel when I taste blood, ignoring my ringing phone in my pocket—“he was in love with her, of course he wanted to start a family with her. And then she lost the baby, miscarried. To make her feel better, and knowing he wants to spend the rest of his life with her, he buys a ring. He goes over what he wants to say for days and when he’s ready to do it, he comes home from work to find that she’s moved out. No reasoning. Just that she wants to find herself. He thinks about it, maybe she’s right. Maybe she just needs some time. So he holds onto the ring thinking maybe she might come around after a few days.

  “Months go by and nothing, so he puts the ring away. He’s at his parents’ house one night, his mom trying to talk him into moving on when he tells her that the girl was pregnant, so yeah, it’s a little hard for him to move on because he wanted to start a family. He bought a fucking ring. Well, said parent tells him she doesn’t know how he got his girlfriend pregnant because she was told when he was younger he couldn’t have children. Doesn’t add up, right?” I raise my eyebrows at Lenny and I think she knows where this is going, but she never once interrupts me. She just waits for me to finish. “Given, he’s mad at his parents because they kept it from him for what, sixteen years. So he goes to the doctor. Wants to know for sure, right?” My gaze moves from the bottle in my hand to Lenny, my expression emotionless. “He’s sterile. Can’t ever have kids. They say he’s probably been that way since he was a teenager. So… that longtime girlfriend, the one he bought a ring for, cheated on him. And that’s the worst for a guy like him too, because fuck if he doesn’t value honesty and commitment. That wasn’t even his baby she was pregnant with. Pissed doesn’t even do his mood justice and he finds himself at the bar, again.

  “This time it’s different. There’s a friend there. One he’s known for years, kind of like a sister to him but she’s never been one. She’s been more of a tease, something he can never have. Despite their age difference, she’s the perfect fucking girl too. Pops off with the funniest shit and always knows how to turn his day around. And she does just that, on a night when all he needed was a friend. Problem is, they get shitfaced and end up back at his place. Though he knows it’s wrong, he thinks what the hell? Can’t blame a guy for wanting to forget his problems for a little while, right? It starts off simple for them and they find themselves sneaking around because she’s his best friend’s little sister. The last thing he wants to do is hurt his friend or lie to him because deception is something he knows very well but the truth is, he doesn’t want anything interfering with what he and this girl have so they continue to keep things between just the two of them. After six months, she wants more. She wants what every girl wants. A relationship. Commitment. Things this guy can’t give her. So tell me, what’s this guy supposed to do when he’s fallen for the girl, but he can’t give her forever like she wants when he’s not enough of a man to give her everything she deserves?”

  Lenny says nothing. For like five minutes. I probably shocked the shit out of her with that story. I think I shocked myself a little because no one besides Red knows I bought a ring for Berkley. That’s probably not even the surprising part to her.

  Her voice is soft when she asks, “Don’t you think what this girl deserves is the chance to decide this for herself? Maybe this guy might be surprised that she still wants him regardless of what he can offer her.”

  “I can’t give her a family, Lenny. She deserves a family.”

  She stares at me like I’ve lost my mind. And I probably have at this point. The bottle is halfway gone. “What do you mean?”

  “I can’t… she’ll never be pregnant with my child.” It hurts to think that let alone say it.

  “That’s not the only way to make a family,” she points out, taking the bottle from me when I reach for it. “You’ve had enough and you of all people should understand that. I’m living proof and it was your aunt who showed me that.”

  I do consider what she’s saying, I’ve considered it myself. “She’s twenty years old. I don’t think I can ever ask her to sacrifice that. What if she changes her mind later?” It all comes back to that guy and the ring and being left with no girl to give it to, sadly. I don’t want to ever have that feeling of insecurity again.

  “So you’re scared she’ll be Berkley?”

  I stare at her. She saw right through me.

  “She’s not Berkley, Tyler. You can’t make assumptions on her part. You need to give her the benefit of the doubt and let her make up her own mind. She might surprise you.”

  I’m still twisting the bottle cap in my hand because I want my attention on something else, not Lenny and her seeing the emotion I’m trying like hell to avoid. “So what happens ten years from now when she wants her own baby and wants to feel it kicking inside of her? Then what?”

  “I can’t tell you what she’d say but you’re not even giving her that option. No one can tell you what will happen in ten years, but what I can tell you is that Walkers, Red, Raven… Rawley… all of them… they love and they love hard. You’d be stupid to pass up a chance with her. Absolutely fucking stupid. She’s an amazing woman and the best friend I’ve ever had. Don’t let your pride stand in the way just because you feel like less of a man because you can’t give her a baby.”

  Blowing out a breath, I drop the cap on the table and raise my hands to my face, running them over my tender skin.

  “How did it happen?”

  I peek an eye at her and then drop my hands to my lap. “What?”

  “You being sterile.”

  “It’s from my medication.”

  “And you just found out after Berkley?”

  “Yeah.” I snort. “My mom didn’t think it was important to tell me.”

  Her eyes soften. “How are you dealing with it?”

  Ripping the bottle back out of her hand, I take a shot right from the bottle.

  She laughs. “Okay…. So you and Rawley?”

  I groan at his name, a reminder of how I got here drinking whiskey i
n my kitchen in the middle of the day and resembling someone who lost a round in an MMA cage. “He just doesn’t know how to keep his fucking mouth shut. He’s constantly instigating shit.”

  I think Lenny knows what Rawley’s doing just like I do. He pushes people, makes them see their faults so he doesn’t have to look at his own. In many ways, we’re a lot alike lately, which is why I usually let his shit slide, but today it didn’t.

  “Just talk to her. I think you need to give her a chance,” Lenny urges me. “There’s only one way to find out and that’s by telling her how you feel. And tell her you love her.”

  I raise an eyebrow, my gaze back on the bottle cap as I flip it around in my right hand. “Who says I love her?”

  “You did. In the shop like an hour ago. Everyone heard you. And… if you didn’t love her, you wouldn’t care what she thought about any of this.”

  I said that? Well shit.

  Lenny laughs, standing up and handing me the ice pack again, urging me to put it on my face. “Put this on your face. It’s swelling.”

  When Lenny leaves, I know I have some explaining to do, and I hate having to do that. It’s probably why I try not to on all accounts because really, what am I going to say to Raven?

  “I’m an asshole with extreme commitment issues, oh, and by the way, I love you so much but please don’t want a baby or leave me. ‘Cause I can’t handle that.”

  Hell, I didn’t really want to tell anyone that.

  Letting Raven into my life meant I was taking her choice to have a baby away from her. Would she be okay with that? Could I let her be okay with such a big decision at such a young age?