#Rev (GearShark #2)(10)

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.

Though he’d never admit it, the fact he gave in and agreed to being here like this was proof he wanted me.

We just sat for a while, my knees pressed against his side as I held the ice to his face with one hand and wrapped the other around his. The sight of his injuries was physically painful for me. The bruises and the dried smears of blood were reminders of the way he’d looked when my headlights first illuminated his body in that parking lot.

I don’t think a person can ever be prepared for that. For seeing someone they love—someone who had never been anything but strong and capable—look so broken.

Broken, but not beaten.

I think that hurt worse. Because even in the battered, unstable state he was in, I still saw him fight. He fought for balance; he struggled to stand. Even as he bled and hurt, he refused to lie down and give in.

Fuck Con.

Fuck the guys at Omega.

I might be a grown-ass man. I might not even go to that college. But I would never be too grown to protect my person. I would never be too mature to extract revenge. There were some things a man just couldn’t lie down and take.

This was one of those things.

I was so angry I couldn’t really think. I was too consumed with the man beside me to really formulate a plan.

But I would. And just like on the track, I wouldn’t back down.

I wasn’t sure how long we’d been sitting here, but it was long enough that the fingers on my hand holding the ice had gone numb from the cold. Slowly, I lifted the towel and lowered it off his skin.

“How’s it feeling?” I asked soft, studying the still swollen and angry-looking black-and-blue eye.

“Better,” he replied, glancing over.

His hair dropped over his forehead like it too was exhausted. Some of the strands fell across the bandaged gash. I reached out and pushed them back.

Trent’s eyes closed with the touch, and my stomach dipped a little.

Even though I didn’t need to, I repeated the action, pushing back his hair a little farther.

He sighed.

Reluctantly, I pulled my hand from his and snagged a bottle of water off the nightstand, uncapped it, and held it to his lips. He reached for the bottle, but I pushed his hand back and titled the plastic until cool water touched his lip.

Trent’s hazel eyes fixed on mine as he drank, slow, cautious sips. When a drop of water escaped and trailed over the rounded softness of his lower lip and down across his chin, I used it as an invitation to lean over and swipe it away.