#Rev (GearShark #2)

by Cambria Hebert

  Trent Mask puts the REV in revolution.

  A line has been drawn.

  Indie vs Pro

  Here at GearShark, we’re straddling that line to bring you exclusive coverage of what some have dubbed the war of racing.

  Every war starts with a spark and ends in revolution.

  Drew Forrester was the spark,

  but his second-in-command is the REVolution.

  What does it take to stand brave in the face of opposition?

  resolve of steel…

  Stubborn will…

  And a heart that refuses to give up.

  It isn’t just the drivers in this war.

  The revolution is about more than just racing.

  It’s about shattering labels and taking risks.

  So we asked Trent Mask: Truth or Dare?

  His answer?

  Both.

  Check out the full feature article inside…

  #REV Copyright © 2016 CAMBRIA HEBERT

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form without written permission except for the use of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Published by: Cambria Hebert Books, LLC

  http://www.cambriahebert.com

  Interior design and typesetting by Sharon Kay of Amber Leaf Publishing

  Cover design by MAE I DESIGN

  Edited by Cassie McCown of Gathering Leaves Editing

  Copyright 2016 by Cambria Hebert

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,

  business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-93885784-3

  Table of CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Epilogue

  “A revolution is a struggle to the death

  between the future and the past.”

  —Author unknown

  Drew

  I was no quitter.

  I refused to quit Trent.

  So angry. I was so goddamned angry.

  He was pushing me away when all I wanted to do was pull him close. It was almost laughable he tried to break up with me. I felt the laughter bubbling up inside me, ready to explode. It was like I was so incredibly infuriated I couldn’t yell… I couldn’t cry… I couldn’t even speak.

  But I wanted to laugh. The kind of laugh only villains in movies did. The kind that bespoke of internal madness.

  That’s what tonight was. Madness.

  He was jumped. Beaten.

  He told me he loved me.

  Then he laid out intent to withhold that love.

  Trent was trying to protect me. In his mind, he wasn’t keeping the love he felt from me, but rather showing it in the best way he knew how. I respected that. I did.

  But I wouldn’t have it.

  We’d gotten one week together. I wanted more.

  I suppose thinking we could keep our relationship a secret was naive. Merely wishful thinking. When you loved someone the way we loved each other, it was impossible to hide.

  It showed in every way.

  Not just in the way we looked at each other. Or the way we spent every spare moment together. It showed in ways I never wanted to see until now. Ways I thought no one else would notice.

  I’d been fooling myself.

  It was the way he put ketchup on his plate so I could eat his fries. The way I automatically pulled the tomatoes off my burgers and slid them onto his plate. It was the fact that I went to him first whenever something happened I wanted to share. And the way we made each other’s coffee exactly as we drank it.

  Love is in the details. It’s in the everyday. It’s the way you treat someone when they aren’t even looking and the way they fill your head when you’re apart.

  Of course people were going to see it.

  Joey saw it almost from day one. Braeden and Ivy already knew. The reporter from GearShark knew from just one conversation…

  Hiding our relationship was almost not an option.

  Dissolving it wasn’t either.

  My hand throbbed and my knuckles were slick with blood when I slammed out of the room. I was so intensely frustrated I couldn’t look at him another minute.

  We weren’t over. No way in hell.

  But I needed a minute.

  My mind was so clouded with anger I didn’t see him. I didn’t notice him at all until he cleared his throat. My body jerked to a stop and my head whipped around to see Romeo leaning against the wall as if he were resolved to be there a while.

  I was sure he heard everything.

  Trent and I had been yelling. And the sound of my hand going through the wall hadn’t exactly been silent.

  “Guess I don’t need to ask how he is,” Romeo said, straightening off the wall.

  “You agree with him?” I challenged, my hand flexing. It was already fucked up from going through a wall, but I’d use it again if I had to.

  “I understand why he thinks he’s doing what’s right.”

  At first, his words didn’t sink in. They just pissed me off even more. All I heard was Romeo understood Trent. I growled low and stepped forward in an aggressive movement.

  Romeo’s eyes narrowed, watching me close, but other than that, his body language didn’t change.

  That’s when I realized he was no threat. That’s when I realized he was on my side.

  “We’re in a relationship,” I said point blank. I kind of wanted to shock him. I wanted someone other than me to feel the sting of words tonight.

  I also wanted a fight.

  Just not with Trent.

  Never with Trent.

  “I know.” The amusement in his tone took a little heat out of my oven. “You can’t keep secrets like that from family. Family who really loves you.”

  I tilted my head to the side and regarded him. Was he saying he knew before he walked into this house a little bit ago? Was he saying he didn’t care?

  “You should probably get that hand cleaned up. You’re bleeding on the floor.”

  I glanced down at the blood dripping off my knuckles.

  “I’ll talk to Trent.” He went on.

  Romeo stepped off the wall and toward the bedroom door. I moved fast, silently snatching his arm and turning him around. He didn’t pull away or act like my roughness was a threat, but his muscles tensed beneath my arm, and I felt tension coil in his limbs.

  “He cares what you think,” I said quietly. “Your opinion matters. So if you aren’t sure how you feel about our relationship or the fact there are two
gay guys in your family, walk away. Walk away right now.”

  Romeo stared at me level, his blue eyes bouncing between mine.

  “He’s already fucked up enough right now. If you can’t offer him the brother he needs tonight, I won’t let you in that room.”

  Romeo’s lips curved up into a knowing, almost pleased expression. “He pissed you off so bad you put your hand through a wall and he’s pushing you away, yet here you are, standing guard at the door, protecting him.”

  “That wasn’t an answer,” I growled.

  Romeo laughed beneath his breath. And then he answered.

  Not with words.

  In seconds, his arm was out of my grasp and he was hugging me. I hesitated, shocked he would just reach out and embrace me like this.

  “Family takes care of family.” His voice was muted. “I’m not sure if there’s anything that could make me turn my back on family, but if there is, it ain’t this.”

  When he pulled back, I looked him in the eye.

  He meant it.

  “Congratulations on finding a love worth fighting for.”

  I wasn’t expecting this. It wasn’t that I thought he wouldn’t accept us, that any of this family wouldn’t. It was the way they did it. The way they acted like it wasn’t even anything to bat an eye at, like Trent and I were inevitable and they’d only been waiting for us to figure it out.

  I wished it were that easy for me. For Trent.

  “I thought the fighting was over,” I said, suddenly incredibly weary. “But it’s only just begun.”

  “You aren’t alone.” Romeo slapped me on the shoulder. “I’m going in now.”

  I nodded, knowing Trent was going to get the support he needed. I started down the hall. This time it was Romeo who stopped me.

  “I know you’re going to go after them,” he said.

  When I glanced back, he was right behind me, and his voice was quiet.

  “Oh, yes,” I intoned. “There’s no way in hell I’ll let what they did to him go unpunished.”

  Those bastards at Omega were going to pay for what they did to Trent and they were going to pay dearly.

  “Me and B are with you.”

  I nodded. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do yet, but I wasn’t going to turn down help. The more painful the revenge, the better.

  And if worse came to worse…

  I’d have someone to bail me out of jail.

  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.”