#Swag (GearShark #3)

by Cambria Hebert

  I always heard she was the kind of woman who never put up with my father’s bullshit and would storm right into his office to put him in his place whenever she thought it necessary.

  I had a picture of her in my head I knew was from my own experiences, not just the photograph that still sat framed on Dad’s desk.

  Her hair was long, the color of glittering black diamonds. In my memory, it was so straight it reflected light, and when she smiled down at me, it fell like a curtain around her slim face.

  She’d been a model in Paris before she married my father. She spoke French, and her English had an accent that used to lull me to sleep. She was tall, nearly six feet, very thin, and had brown eyes with a hint of honey inside.

  She loved me, enough that even now I felt it. Sometimes I thought of her at night when I lay in bed, and I wondered what my father would be like if she hadn’t died so suddenly.

  “Funny, most people say I’m like you,” I replied, trying to get a little distance from the memories flooding through my emotions.

  “You are.” He laughed. “But she’s the reason you’ve gone your own way and you have no problem giving me a hard time.”

  I saw the love he had for her in his face just then… It made some of the anger I always felt toward him slip away.

  “You remarried.” It was meant to be a statement but came out like an accusation.

  “I thought you liked Donna. She was good to you. Still is.”

  Donna was my father’s second wife. He married her about two years after my mom died of a freak heart attack at an age no one thought women died of heart attacks.

  Donna was Arrow’s mother and really the woman who raised me. The second she came into my father’s mansion, she looked at me like her own, never once implying I wasn’t. That was one thing about my father… He had good taste in wives.

  But the women he cheated on them with were another story.

  “I do like her. Still see her a lot.”

  He nodded. “I figured.”

  They’d gotten divorced several years ago. Another product of his treatment of Arrow (and probably his affairs). Donna wasn’t about to stand by and accept it. Arrow was her son, and it didn’t matter to her if he was gay or looked like Justin Bieber. She loved him.

  I just wished she’d been a little stronger, a little faster, because maybe if she had, my brother wouldn’t have suffered so much.

  “She’s doing all right, then?”

  “She’s fine,” I said. He knew that. He’s the one who bought her the million-dollar estate she moved to.

  “It’s one of the main reasons I married her, you know. Because I knew she’d be wonderful to you. Since I couldn’t seem to pull myself together, I wanted you to have at least one parent who was present.”

  “Do you want me to be grateful?” I asked. “Thankful you got me a replacement mother and not mad you were never around except to tell us when we weren’t good enough? Your money can’t buy that.”

  “I realize that. I’d like an opportunity to not make up for the past, but perhaps have a better relationship in the future.”

  “Why?” I asked, blunt.

  “Because I don’t want to die with regrets.”

  Clearly, he was better at being blunt than me.

  “What about Arrow?” I challenged.

  His eyes clouded over. “I’d like to try with him as well. I thought maybe you could speak to him.”

  I barked a laugh and stood. “Is that why I’m here? Because you want me to convince my brother to forgive you for all the shit you’ve done? Fuck that and fuck you. My loyalty is to him.”

  “Don’t you take that tone with me.” He also stood. “I’m well aware of how fucked up my relationship with my son is. I don’t need you to tell me, and I sure as hell don’t need you to fix it.”

  I got the asshole side of my personality from him.

  “I thought maybe you could just see if he’d be willing to talk to me.”

  “He isn’t,” I said, stubborn.

  “Ask.”

  “Don’t hold your breath,” I replied and started for the door.

  “Lorhaven.” His commanding voice stopped me. What a stark contrast it was when he talked about my mother.

  He never sounded like that when he talked about Donna.

  Had losing my mom been something that altered him forever? Was she the only one he’d ever really loved?

  “I really did just want to tell you I read the article, I’m proud of you, and I’ve been watching your career. You’ve earned where you are today.”

  I swung back around. “Thank you.”

  I wished I could say his words didn’t mean anything. But they still did.

  “Your mother would be proud, too. She’d be in the stands at every race.”

  Again, my stomach clenched. It felt heavy, like it was going to sink down inside me and, on its way, take out all my other organs in the process.

  “I have to go,” I said.

  “So the girl,” he said, ignoring my words. “The one on the cover with you.”

  “What about her?” I challenged. That sinking feeling I had in my stomach rapidly left, and familiar tension coiled inside me.

  He’d better watch himself bringing up Josie.

  “You don’t think women belong in racing,” he stated.

  “I don’t think you can say shit to me about discrimination.”

  He smiled. “That’s the thing, son. I know all about discrimination, and that look on your face…” He lifted a copy of GearShark off his desk.

  I hadn’t even noticed it lying there. My eyes went right to Josie, to the way she curled into my back.

  It made me hungry.

  So goddamn hungry.

  My father went on. “The look on your face in this photo, that’s not it.”

  “What are you saying?” I crossed my arms over my chest.

  “Don’t be stupid like me, son. Don’t push people away. I had the look you have in your eyes once, a long time ago. I lost it. I spent the rest of my life buried in work and pissing everybody off. Here I am at sixty-seven, with piles of money, but I have to practically threaten my own son to come see me.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I lied.

  “You’re on the cusp right now. A career, a woman, a life you want. Don’t fuck it up.”

  His words made me uncomfortable. He was an asshole, but he wasn’t dumb.

  Once again, I started to leave.

  Stopped.

  I didn’t look at him. Instead, I kept my back turned. It was easier to ask what I wanted without looking him in the eye.

  “When the pros shot me down a couple years ago, why’d you drop me? Why’d you forget I existed again?”

  “You’ve always existed to me, Jace,” he said, and I stiffened. “But you had to do the work to get to where you are right now. I couldn’t do it for you, because you’re the type of man who has to make it on his own for it to count. I backed off. I see now I backed off too far, but it was only because I knew you would make your way. I’ve always been here, watching, silently cheering you on.”

  I cleared my throat and pulled the door open. Out in the hallway, his voice followed.

  “Don’t forget about the plane. It’s waiting.”

  I pulled the wood shut and went to the elevator. If Bethany said anything to me, I didn’t hear. This conversation was the last thing I expected. I was used to heated exchanges and criticism. I was angry with my father for so many things.

  Right now, it was hard to be one hundred percent angry.

  Some of me was too tired for that. I felt in a lot of ways shell-shocked.

  Was my father not exactly who I thought all these years? Was there a little more buried beneath his cold, distant, and judgmental persona?

  Did it really even matter? A lot of damage had been done in the past several years, some of it irreversible. One conversation wouldn’t make it better.

  Sure made me feel like I�
��d been kicked in a kidney, though.

  If I’d been missing Josie before, I did even more now.

  I wasn’t sure when I’d see her again, but suddenly, whenever that was just wasn’t soon enough.

  I pulled out my phone and shot off a text.

  It was only one word, but to me, it was more. Maybe in some ways, it was a test. A way for me to see if the look my father said was in my eyes was reciprocated.

  Would she understand what I didn’t say?

  Or maybe…

  Maybe that text was just my way of reaching out to someone who didn’t want anything from me. Someone who made me feel a little like the man I was (though flawed and fucked up) was all I needed to be.

  Joey

  Trying not to think about him was hard enough, but now I knew he was thinking of me, too.

  I reread that text more than once. I never knew a simple exchange of two names could ever say so much.

  Lorhaven

  She understood.

  I didn’t know because she called me back or even in the response she texted (though that was pretty telling).

  How did I know?

  I saw it in her eyes.

  She was here. In Colorado. I looked up from the pit as people scattered all around, and there she was.

  I didn’t know she was going to be here, but she was impossible to miss even from a distance while she, too, stood in the center of chaos in Forrester’s pit.

  Our eyes locked, like they’d known exactly where to look. I saw the understanding in the green depths. She knew.

  Just as I knew.

  I didn’t know a look, such a simple thing, could alter my mood so unequivocally. A mood that had been precarious, quiet, and more brooding than usual.

  I felt energized suddenly, more in control. It was easier to shut out the shit storm in my head my father had churned up and just be in the moment.

  It was like a heavy curtain lifted and everything around me came back into focus.

  I needed that, more than I think I ever had before.

  Her hair was down, not in the wild mass of curls from the last time I’d seen her. Instead, it was sleek and smooth, just like on the cover of GearShark. It fell over her shoulders, down over her chest, and framed her face. She was fucking beautiful, the most beautiful sight I’d ever laid my scrutinizing eyes on.

  She wore a white tank-top and a pair of jeans that weren’t painted on. They were worn, slightly loose, and had a couple rips in the knees and what looked like oil stains in various places. All her curves were on display, but it didn’t make me jealous; it made me proud. It made me horny.

  It made me want her.

  I liked her strength, the unapologetic way she was who she was. No fucks. That was her vibe. Like she didn’t care at all.

  This one didn’t need saving. She didn’t even need protecting.

  She could stand at a man’s side. She could go toe to toe with him.

  Maybe it was the span of a few seconds, or maybe it was a few minutes. I’m not sure how long we stared, but eventually, the chaos around us reached out and enveloped us back into its many folds.

  A camera crew led by a man with a mic approached and called out to her.

  Arrow appeared at my side and called out to me.

  The moment was broken, but it had been enough.

  I kicked up the side of my mouth, feeling more like myself than the past twenty-four hours. She also smiled something similar, then turned to the people vying for her attention.

  “Car’s ready,” Arrow said.

  I slapped him on the back. “Good man.”

  “You okay, Lor?” he asked, giving me a suspicious look.

  “Do I look okay?” I held out my arms.

  “Actually, yeah, you seem great all of a sudden, which is a total one-eighty from how you’ve been since we stepped on the plane.”

  Our father’s plane.

  Something Arrow hadn’t been too thrilled about. But like me, he saw the benefit. Flying private was definitely the way to go.

  Maybe I should have been a no-show for Dad’s plane, but it seemed like a seamless, quiet flight would be a lot better than a commercial one. Especially since my head was already on overload.

  Arrow asked me about three hundred times what was wrong. I didn’t tell him. I wasn’t ready to get into it. Obviously, he knew it was something to do with daddy dearest, because our asses were sitting in his plane.

  He didn’t push, though, out of respect for me but also because he probably was afraid to ask.

  “Just getting in the zone to race,” I drawled, looking over at my modified car. It was red, with the Brickstone logo prominently displayed on the hood. Several other logos covered the car as well.

  I was dressed in a red jumpsuit. I made it look good. On my feet were black boots, and there was a pair of Oakleys on my head.

  About four members of my pit crew swarmed around the car, making sure it was one hundred percent ready to race.

  “Joey’s here,” he said, giving me a look.

  “Is she?”

  “Like you weren’t just making eyes at her.” Arrow scoffed.

  I slung my arm around his neck and pulled him into my body. “I don’t make eyes at people,” I declared, messing up his too-blond hair.

  He shoved me back with a fierce look in his eye and smoothed out his wild mane. “I’d deck you if you weren’t due in the damn car.”

  I flashed my teeth. “Ahh, little bro, don’t hate.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “That’s some mouth you got,” I remarked, dry.

  “I’m sick of everyone treating me like a kid,” he announced with a stubborn glint to his jaw. “I’m not. People need to start treating me like it.”

  “Whoa.” My eyes narrowed. All my attention swung to him. Clearly, I’d hit a nerve, and clearly, I wasn’t the only one stewing. “What’s going on, A?”

  “I know you saw him.” His voice was low and tight.

  Well, shit. My refusal to talk about what went down with Dad and me was only intended to give me some time to think, but I was still as convoluted as ever. My silence only served to make Arrow feel the same way I was, only he didn’t understand why.

  “Yeah, I did,” I replied. “And it mind fucked me, okay? I’m not keeping it from you on purpose. I was just trying to protect you and keep my head on the race.”

  He nodded once. “I get keeping your head in the race. But you can’t protect me from this. It’s not your job.”

  My stare fired directly into his. “Yes. It is.”

  He drew himself up. He wasn’t quite as tall or wide as me, but he wasn’t completely lacking in size. “I know you think that. Hell, I even understand it. I used to be pretty messed up. But I’m stronger now… better. I can handle this. I have to. It’s my life. I won’t hide in your shadow, Lor. I respect you, I’m loyal to you first, always… but I gotta be my own man.”

  I don’t know when it happened… but somewhere along the way, he became more than my little brother. He became my best friend. But beyond that… it was almost like he became mine.

  Weird. I know.

  And I didn’t mean it in some romantic sense.

  God, all that shit where guys are like, She’s mine. Fuck that.

  I didn’t want to own a woman. Owning something was just that, claiming it. Like going to an auto parts store and paying a set price for an item.

  A woman wasn’t for sale.

  People in general weren’t for sale.

  To me, owning a woman was a fancy way of retaining her. I didn’t want to retain anyone. I wanted to be chosen. Day after day. Night after night. That was real love, freedom to choose and for her to make the choice for me every single day.

  Shit. Maybe my brain was still more convoluted than I thought.

  Get it together, Lor. This is about Arrow right now.

  I guess what I meant was in a sense, I became his protector, pulled him under my wing, almost like a father to a son.

>   It was almost impossible to stop feeling like that, to hear he wanted to be his own man. I didn’t mean to hold him back or suffocate him with my protection.

  It’s just the image of him a couple years ago in the back of the hangar… I would never forget it.

  But I couldn’t allow him to suffer from it either. It was something he was pushing back at me. Something he wanted to be on more equal footing. I had to let it happen, even if it felt impossible.

  I could still protect him. Hell, I always would. I’d just have to find a quieter way of going about it.

  Or maybe less quiet.

  Since, you know, my silence about what went down with Dad was what got me here in the first place.

  Shit. I needed a beer. Or four.

  After you win this race.

  “I get that,” I told him. “You got a right to know. I wasn’t keeping secrets, just wasn’t ready to talk about it.”

  “Yeah.” He pushed back the blond hair falling over the side of his head. “I know. Sorry.”

  I grinned. “Don’t be. We’ll talk after the race.”

  “I didn’t fuck with your headspace, did I?” He worried.

  “Nah.” I glanced over my shoulder to where Josie was still standing, talking to the reporter. She looked confident and cool. “I’m tight.”

  “Give ‘em hell out there, bro.” Arrow grinned and steered me toward my waiting wheels.

  Oh, I planned on it.

  Joey

  I felt like a real girl.

  I mean, I am a girl, but I’ve never been one to get that fluttery, anticipatory feeling when a guy was around and I was just waiting to catch sight of him.

  Then I did.

  My blood pressure spiked. I actually felt it rise like it shot out of a cannon. My pulse began to hammer, and an almost giddy feeling erupted deep in my stomach.

  I was totally embarrassed.

  I’d never ever felt like this before. Not even in high school with my first crush, my first boyfriend, or even the first time I had sex.

  I was usually more cool, more even tempered. Sure, I would get excited to see a guy in the past or someone I really liked. We laughed and had fun together. Sex was always good.