“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.
Trent
Fractured.
Cracked.
Not whole.
Will heal, but never as it was before.
That was the prognosis for my ribs.
For my entire life.
Caroline didn’t stay too long. She poked and prodded and asked a bunch of questions. None of them were personal. None of them were curious. It made me wonder how much B told her, if she knew the why I was like this.
When she was done, she listened to my chest one last time, asking me to breathe deeply and exhale. It hurt like fucking hell. ‘Course, that was normal. Having a cracked rib or two was going to make it painful to breathe. Hell, I was lucky the rib didn’t break all the way and puncture an organ—like a lung. If that were the case, I’d be in the hospital right now, not lying in Drew’s bed.
I liked his bed.
I might even argue it was my favorite place.
Maybe being in the hospital would have been easier.
“Remember what I said.” Caroline drew back and placed her stethoscope in her bag. “Anti-inflammatory, limited movement, and come to the hospital if you start to feel worse in any way.”
“Got it.” I agreed, hoping to head off another review of the long list of symptoms I needed to look out for.
“Keep those cuts clean.” She went on and glanced at the butterflied gash at my hairline. “Ice the eye and maybe the lip.”
She seemed to be rambling suddenly, like now that her instruments were put away and her official exam was over, she was becoming less robotic.
“I’m fine, Ms. Walker,” I said gently and placed a hand on her arm. “Thank you for coming over, especially this late.”
She smiled. “I’ll always come,” she said low. She covered my hand with her free one. “I’m so sorry this happened.”
I made a dismissive sound. “I’m a tough guy. I can handle it.”
“You shouldn’t have to.”
“How much did Braeden tell you?” I asked, curious.
“He didn’t have to say anything. The look on Drew’s face when I walked in the house said it all.”
Everyone kept saying that.
Damn. Drew and I would suck ass at poker.
“He’s pretty upset,” I said for lack of knowing what else to say.
“It’s hard to see someone we love in pain.”
“Yeah, well the pain isn’t going anywhere.” I muttered, a thought I accidentally spoke out loud.
“You know what the best medicine for pain is?” she asked, giving my hand a squeeze before releasing me to stand.
“Beer?” I asked, hopeful.
She laughed lightly. “No,” she argued. “The only thing strong enough to chase away pain is love.”
“Love is pain,” I told her.
“Yes. But some of our greatest pain becomes our greatest strength.”
Maybe if anyone else had said that, I would have scoffed. Maybe I would have been able to justify her words so they didn’t seem so profound.
But Caroline Walker knew great pain. Looking at her now, I knew all the strength and acceptance I saw in her eyes was a direct result of her past. Once upon a time, she’d been the victim of someone’s love.
She’d almost died beneath the fists of his version of love.
If anyone in this world deserved to be jaded and against love, it was this woman. A woman who was beaten and abused, who had to rebuild not only her life, but the life of her young son.
Yet she wasn’t.
Caroline stood here whole and strong, telling me, practically urging me, not to give up on Drew. If she could find it in herself to love and be loved after everything she lived through, then I couldn’t possibly argue.
Maybe I should listen.
Humbled, I said nothing as she gathered up her things.
“I’ll stop by in a couple days to check on you, make sure you’re doing what I said.”
“You don’t have to do that. I promise I will.”
“I know. But it will give me another excuse to see my granddaughter.” She winked.
I smiled. “In that case, I might need a few checkups.”
“I always knew I liked you.”
I chuckled and it made me cough, which made me grimace. Damn ribs.
“Is he okay?” Drew’s deep voice carried through the room, but it was his presence that filled it. With my hand still wrapped around my middle, I watched him enter.
He moved with purpose, not quite hurried, but not exactly relaxed. The shirt he was wearing still had smears of my blood on it from when he used it as a rag. It didn’t bother me to see because it wasn’t his blood and also because he didn’t even think about stains or seemed grossed out they were there. He hadn’t rushed from the room to change, to get me off him.
Like every part of me was welcome to him.
Even the bad par
ts.
I was showing a lot of bad parts tonight.
But I was also showing a lot of good. Protecting Drew was the best thing I could do.
His dark-blond hair was tasseled and wrecked, his hands filled with first aid supplies, ice, and a bottle of pain reliever.
Earlier, he hesitated on the threshold of the room, peeking in but not staying. Now he barged right in. The sound of my coughing was all it took to make him forget he was pissed with me.
I took a few shuddering breaths, trying to calm my strained chest as my eyes locked on him and refused to let go. He was so incredibly good-looking. A visual representation of everything I could ever dream of, all wrapped up in one blue-eyed, dimpled, scruffy-jawed package.
I already missed rubbing my palm over those jaws. They were shadowed and scratchy looking, like the stress from tonight had made the hairs go awry and stand on end.
“He’s fine.” Caroline assured him. “That’s just a symptom of the rib fracture.”
“So they’re broken,” Drew said, his voice calm and deadly.
Well, that wasn’t a good sound.
“Not completely broken. Just cracked. That’s a good thing. It will make the healing a little faster and will cause less complications.”
“What about his head?” Drew asked, still watching me. His eyes were hungry, but they were also focused. He wasn’t looking at me so much as measuring me, like he was trying to decide if I really was okay.
“No concussion,” Caroline replied.
“Told ya,” I grunted.
The sound of my surly voice snapped his eyes to my face. Everything else fell away when he looked at me like that—with his heart in his eyes.
It hurt, but it was the kind of pain I’d become addicted to.
Never ever had the words I love you so much it hurts been truer.
The push-and-pull effect I always felt with him took center stage and confusion tugged at my heart strings.
Caroline cleared her throat and stepped up toward Drew. “You should probably stay with him tonight. Watch him, you know, in case of complications.”
Right in the center, in the deepest part of the blue, Drew’s eyes flared. The tug-of-war turned in his favor, and I knew I’d lost this round. At least for tonight.
Caroline had just given him an excuse to stay close a little bit longer.
She’d given me one, too.
Hell. Even though I knew I didn’t need a babysitter, tonight I wasn’t going to argue. I was content to lose. It really wasn’t a loss anyway; it was a reprieve.
“I’ll watch him,” Drew vowed, his voice slightly husky. When his eyes left me and went to her, the muscles in the back of my neck relaxed a little. “I’ll call you if anything seems to get worse.”
“Call anytime.” Caroline agreed, giving me a parting glance. I could almost see the smile in her eyes. She thought she’d been clever setting us up for some time alone. She was, because neither Drew nor I would call her out on it. If we did, we wouldn’t be able to pretend.
I was so incredibly tired of pretending.
On her way out, she shut the door behind her. It closed with an audible click.
The two of us stared at each other, neither moving.
Finally, his chest seemed to deflate with pent-up sentiment. “You broke up with me. I don’t break up with you. Everyone in this house knows we’re more than friends. Your beat-up face makes me want to pound a bottle of vodka—”
“Isn’t that a happy little list.” I was sarcastic because showing my true emotions in that moment made me feel far too vulnerable.
Drew shuffled all the stuff he was holding into one hand and held up the other, stopping me. “Can we just forget it all tonight?” His voice was weary. He sounded exactly the way I felt. “Can it just be like it was before, at least until morning?”
“How was it, Forrester?” I whispered.
A glutton for punishment. That was me. I knew exactly what it was like between us. It was being a part of something so much bigger than yourself. It was that feeling of rightness a person got when something settled in their gut. This wasn’t going to make anything any easier.
It would only make it harder.
“It was complete.”
I lifted my eyes back to his.
Those three words almost matched another three he said to me just hours before. I wasn’t sure which were better. I love you or it was complete.
They both knocked me off center. They both grounded me.
His feet were silent on the carpet when he stepped forward. As he spoke, he set down the items in his hands, one by one.
“Just me and you. Just this room. Just the dark and the sound of your breathing. Us. Together.”
I swallowed. My God, I want that.
“It doesn’t change anything.” I warned him.
“You wanna have it out?” Drew challenged without heat. “We will. And I’ll win. Losing you is not an option.”
I tipped my head toward the ceiling and closed my eyes. My face hurt. My chest hurt. My head hurt… Losing you is not an option.
Suddenly, he was beside me, filling up his side of the bed. The heat he radiated and the familiar scent of leather and the Fastback was like the first taste of home a person got after too long spent away. My chin angled down when I looked at him, my eyes thirstily gulping up every feature.
“Here,” he said quietly and lifted a wrapped ice pack between us. Gently, he pressed it against my swollen eye, and I expelled a sigh of relief.
“That feels good,” I murmured, allowing the cold pressure to combat some of the burning tightness.
“I need this tonight.” The naked candor in his voice had every cell in my body enraptured. “I need you.”
He used the only thing in this entire universe that could sway me.
Him.
“Just tonight.” I agreed, turning slightly so I could look at him with my good eye.
The second I moved, he adjusted, folding his legs in front of him between us, his knees brushing against my side. The ice pack against my face stayed firmly in place with the perfect amount of pressure. Not so much it hurt, but enough to do the job.
Honestly, I wasn’t doing this just for him. I wanted it, too. Just having him beside me felt like bliss.
Ignorance is bliss.
Pretending is denial.
I hated both.
But in this moment, I hated reality more.
Drew’s long-fingered hand slid across my abs. The muscles quivered beneath his touch. My eye slid closed as I reveled in the feel of him against me.
Funny how I’d only lived with his touch for a week, such a short amount of time in the span of my entire life. But it eclipsed all others. How quickly it became the most singular desired sensation I’d ever known.
No one would ever touch me the way he did. No one would ever electrify and soothe me at the very same time the way Drew did.
Carefully, he tugged at my arm still folded over my side. I fought the request a single second, in a slight moment of panic.
It almost seemed like my arm was holding my entire self together, like it was somehow a guard to the deepest part of myself.
It was too late to try and guard myself. Drew had already slipped past all my defenses.
My arm slid down and my palm fell open. He tangled our fingers together, wrapped his around mine, and rested them over my abdomen.
Beneath my fractured ribs, my heart ached. It ached with love and loss.
“Don’t think about it,” Drew whispered as if he could read my mind.
It was unsettling, and I glanced at him. My thoughts had always been my own. No one had ever been able to read them before.
He nodded. He could.
“Tonight is ours,” he reminded me, the pad of his thumb stroking over the back of my hand.
I gave in completely. I surrendered it all.
Maybe I shouldn’t have, but like I said… As much as I hated pretending, sometimes pretending was a
beautiful lie.
Drew
Trent was not easy.
In fact, Trent was about as easy as asking a hive of bees for their honey.
I wasn’t talking about on the surface, because in that sense, T was easy. He got along with everyone (except Lorhaven) and he made everyone feel at ease in his presence. I used to think it was because that’s just the way he was; he had that kind of personality everyone meshed with.
Maybe some of it was that. But it was more.
He was more. Trent had a quiet understanding about him. A quiet way of making everyone feel accepted. He left people better than when he found them. Whether it were as simple as a kind word, a smile, or a listening ear. His quiet demeanor wasn’t a flaw; it worked to his advantage. Those who listened were far wiser than those who only spoke.
I’d been learning about him since the day we met. I hadn’t always realized it or even known it was happening, but now I did. It was like being taught how to tie a shoe, not being able to get the hang of it until one day I created a bow.
Today was my bow.
It might be a little crooked, it might be a little loose, but it was a bow all the same.
Trent was so understanding because he himself wasn't understood. He had the ability to make people feel at ease with themselves because he knew what it was like to be conflicted. He listened because his mind was the loudest, and he accepted others because he himself felt unaccepted.
How much of himself had he sacrificed over the years? How selfless could one man be before it became detrimental to his own well-being?
The surprise in his hazel eyes when he realized I understood how he was feeling was genuine. So was the fear. It made me equal parts determined and sad. Sad because he was so used to protecting himself, silently observing, that he didn’t know how to react when he realized all this time, I’d been silently observing him. It was glaringly obvious no one had ever taken the time to learn how the true Trent ticked.
Or maybe others had tried.
Others had failed.
I was determined. Determined to show him I wasn’t like everyone else. I wasn’t going to let him push me away. I was going to give him all the consideration he gave me.
Starting with tonight.
#Rev (GearShark #2) Page 3
