#Blur (The GearShark Series Book 4) Read online

  Nothing but a #blur…

  There’s a new kid in town, and he’s hell on wheels.

  From what we’ve heard, it may be because

  he knows exactly what hell’s like.

  Lonely.

  Scorching.

  Unforgiving.

  You may know his brother, the NRR hotshot

  (and former GearShark cover model)

  Lorhaven.

  It’s only natural a driver with his background and family connections

  has sped his racecar into the newest, hottest division.

  But that’s not all.

  Arrow may be following in big bro’s tread marks,

  but he doesn’t plan to stay there.

  He’s swerving onto the road less traveled…

  and a lot more controversial.

  He’s opening up about his private struggles with sexuality

  to tell a story that’s gone unheard until now.

  One thing’s for sure; Arrow may have a painful past,

  but his foot is heavy on the accelerator.

  With speed like this, he’s bound to leave everything behind in

  nothing but a #blur.

  Check out the full feature article inside…

  #BLUR 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

  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

  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: 978-1-938857-96-6

  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

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter-Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  “The most beautiful stories always start with wreckage.”

  —Jack London

  I’m not going to say I always knew I was different.

  We’re all different. And at some point in everyone’s life, I think we all feel like we don’t fit in, like we don’t belong or that no one understands us.

  We’re all human; we’re all flesh and bone. But no one is the same.

  I think it’s just a matter of discovering what it is that makes each of us different. In my case, there was no ah-ha! moment. There was no lightbulb to blink on over my head. It would have been easier that way.

  Instead, it was a slow realization, a series of moments, sometimes far between, that showed me what made me different.

  Sometimes I wish I ignored those signs. Sometimes I wonder where I’d be right now if I had.

  Less me.

  Happier?

  Not here.

  Everything I went through led me here. Isn’t that the way of the universe? I think I wanted to be here right now. I’m standing at the edge of a precipice; I feel it deep.

  I’m not sure if where I go from here is going to be everything I want. Hell, I’m not even sure what that is.

  But I do believe something. I have to, because if I don’t, misery will be my only companion.

  Everything I’ve gone through, all those far-between moments, the lengthy trips through hell… the abuse.

  It was for something.

  Something lost is something gained.

  It has to be.

  Seventeen-year-old Arrow…

  A magazine.

  Everything changed because of a magazine.

  But really, a series of glossy pages filled with half-naked and provocative images stapled together and hidden between my mattress and box spring really shouldn’t have so much power.

  I guess if I were honest, I would say the changes had been long coming. Inevitable. Undeniable. A magazine couldn’t possibly crumble the very foundation on which my life was built. It would take something far more powerful to do that.

  However, to a seventeen-year-old who embodied so much innocence and so much… youth, well, that kid, he blamed it all on the magazine.

  My cherry-red, two-door BMW slid to a stop in the driveway near the double front entry. It wasn’t in its assigned spot; it wasn’t even parked straight. I wasn’t going to be here long. I’d left my gym bag behind this morning and now here I was, rushing home from school so I could grab it, only to head right back.

  Coach was going to make me run drills for this. He’d probably even put me at goalie, a position he knew I hated because, frankly, I sucked at it. After I ran drills, I could be pelted with the ball over and over again as I tried to stop it from sailing past me into the net.

  I was going to be dirty and grimy. More so than usual. I’d probably have to hit the showers so I didn’t get the inside of my Beemer jacked up.

  I didn’t usually shower after soccer practice. I waited until I got home. It wasn’t because I didn’t like to shower in the locker room… It was just the opposite, actually.

  Maybe you left the bag behind on purpose. Wanted to be late, didn’t you? Wanted the punishment… so you could get the reward.

  I pushed away my thoughts, took the stairs two at a time, and bounded to my bedroom, which was to the left of the sweeping staircase and at the very end of the hallway. I had a corner room. The windows looked out over the private backyard and pool.

  The door swung open the second my hand hit the knob, and I was momentarily surprised. I thought I’d latched it this morning on my way out. I always did. I wasn’t the best housekeeper… Okay, fine, I was a slob. Mom told me almost daily I needed to clean up my stuff.

  Why bother? I’d just have to get it back out.

  I solved the problem by learning to close the door. She didn’t have to see the mess, and I didn’t have to clean it. Genius.

  My feet stumbled a little because I was moving with haste but also because they weren’t expecting
the door to give the way it did.

  My eyes flew up as I faltered over the threshold. I met another pair of surprised eyes.

  “Mom?” I straightened away from the door.

  “Arrow,” she half gasped. “I thought you had soccer practice?”

  “I left my gym bag. Can’t play without my shoes.”

  Her gaze strayed across the room to the standard red gym bag with white handles lying haphazardly near my dresser. One of the cleats was poking out of the top, along with a dirty sock. “I hadn’t realized,” she said, mostly to herself.

  ‘Cause clearly she didn’t think I’d be home.

  She was perched on the corner of my unmade bed. Neat and put together as always, she was a stark contrast to the twisted navy-blue comforter and white sheets basically piled in the center of the mattress. A few pillows still bore the indent from my head up near the wooden headboard, and my earbuds lay tangled off to the side.

  The wooden blinds were open now, letting in sunlight… something this room didn’t often see. Again, why open the blinds when I would just close them a few hours later?

  I could see small particles of dust floating around lazily in the brightest beam streaking across the room.

  Yeah, maybe I should clean up a little in here.

  Oddly enough, it wasn’t the mess that bothered me. Neither was finding her in here snooping.

  She was totally snooping.

  It was just easier to focus on the mess in here instead of everything else that was going on.

  Like what she’d found.

  What she currently gripped in her hands.

  My stomach felt as if it had been stabbed with an ice pick. Except the wound was old and aching, not new and fresh. It wasn’t a stabbing panic kind of pain. Instead, it was worse. There was a hollow hole carved out inside me, and it never healed. It was doomed to ache and burn, to churn with emptiness and be crowded with scar tissue. Those were the worst kind of wounds, weren’t they? They ones that never healed. The ones you knew were chronic and would ache forever.

  Along with the overwhelming feeling of sickness came one of urgent flight. As if all the oxygen in this room had been sucked out and panic for air clawed the inside of my windpipe.

  Get out!

  Run!

  Escape!

  Trying my best not to stare or even glance at the offending item in her hands, I jolted into motion, swiping the bag off the floor. The sock and cleat went flying, and I scrambled after the shoe. The second my hand closed around it, I vaulted up and lunged at the door.

  I was just going to leave. Pretend this didn’t happen.

  Maybe, hopefully, she would, too.

  I’d seen the questions in her eyes in the past. The way she sometimes looked at me like she knew. Mom never said a word. Her questions and suspicions went unvoiced.

  Today could be the same.

  I made it partway out the bedroom door, not bothering to pull it around behind me as I rushed. Maybe I should have. Perhaps putting the wood between us would have served as an excuse to “not hear” what she spoke after me.

  “You’re still my arrow. That will never change.”

  Her words hurt—the stabbing, immediate pain.

  I knew why now. I understood the difference between the old hollow ache and this new, more piercing kind.

  The hollow ache felt old because it was. A feeling that was always there but mostly went ignored. You’d be amazed what you got used to living with when it became your norm.

  I’d been expecting this moment. Dreading it.

  I hadn’t been expecting her words. The soft way she said them. The acceptance in her voice; I’d never known that, not even within myself. It hurt. God, it cut deep. Piercing, quick, and almost numbing.

  When someone gives you something you truly didn’t think you’d ever get, it stings. You go through a whole host of fleeting but totally felt emotions in rapid fire.

  Shock. She didn’t say that.

  Disbelief. Is my mind playing tricks on me?

  Desperate want. Does she know what she’s saying? Does she mean it?

  Relief. Would someone understand?

  After I let the strongest of emotions pummel me, I pivoted and the gym bag fell from my grip to land abandoned in the hall.

  I looked up at her from beneath the light-brown wave of hair falling over my forehead, timid, afraid to acknowledge her words.

  “From the moment the doctor handed you over to me in the delivery room…” She began. I knew this story. She told it to me all the time. Hell, it was how I got my name. Usually, I rolled my eyes and interrupted her.

  I didn’t this time.

  This time I listened.

  This time it was important.

  “My love for you was like the strongest, purest arrow shot directly into my heart. I can’t explain it to you because you aren’t a parent yourself. But something happened the moment I formally met you. The second I wrapped my arms around you, the second I looked into your wide eyes, my world tilted. Not so it was crooked, but so it was straight. I will never love anyone like I do you, son. Never. This changes nothing.”

  Cautiously, I moved back into the room, crossing the threshold as if she’d cast a line with her words and the hook on the end sank deep. I was reeled in by her. Not just by her words, but by the look on her face.

  She was upset, concerned, and even hurt.

  I was glad. It made it more real. More honest and somehow a little easier to comprehend.

  Total acceptance without any kind of doubt would have been a boldfaced lie, and it would have spoken louder than any words she might have spewed.

  I dropped beside her on the bed, my stance mirroring hers as we both perched on the mattress precariously, as if the bed were unstable and we both might fall.

  My knees were shaking; my ankles felt weak. I wasn’t ready for this. At least I told myself I wasn’t.

  But here I was. The first chance I was given to perhaps say it, I didn’t run. I wanted to, but she made it kind of okay. She made it a little less terrifying, and it made me a little braver.

  I avoided her gaze; that much I wasn’t ready for. I felt hers on me. It bore into me like the sun on the hottest day of summer. Instead, I glanced down at the magazine in her hand.

  It was basically porn.

  On the cover was a man with a completely bare chest. His body was defined, but not in a bodybuilder type of way. His shoulders were broad, his chest free of any hair. Water droplets clung to his torso and biceps. His nipples were erect, and in the background was a glass-walled shower.

  The only thing that covered his body was a towel. If it dropped just one inch, it would reveal all of his one thousand parts.

  He didn’t smile at the camera. Instead, he pouted. His full lips pulled into a taunting semi-smile.

  The interior of the magazine was pretty much the same, with the exception of the towel. They were naked. Fully erect. Some of them were having sex, and some were getting blowjobs.

  It really wasn’t all that startling to find porn in your teenage son’s room.

  The startling part was it featured only men. Guy-on-guy action.

  Gay porn.

  Usually, I didn’t keep it here in this room. For obvious reasons. But not this time. This time I did, and I thought it had been hidden well enough. I knew she suspected, but I didn’t think she was ready for the truth. I didn’t think she’d go creeping around my room like the fucking FBI.

  I wasn’t going to call her out on it, though. Secretly, maybe I wanted this to happen. Maybe that’s why I kept the magazine instead of getting rid of it like all the others.

  Well, that and it was a hot magazine. I liked the pictures. I liked thinking about what it would be like to be on the receiving end of one of the blowjobs.

  At first, I started looking at gay porn out of curiosity. Then it became more of a test.

  Male-female action didn’t do anything for me. The female body just didn’t hold my attention like it did f
or everyone else. Sure, I joined in on titty rating, ass conversation, and I even watched my fair share of M/F porn.

  It made me uncomfortable.

  Not the sex either. Not the bad porn music or the way some women didn’t shave their bush.

  Okay, the bush and music were pretty raunchy.

  What made me uncomfortable was I was so unaffected by it. Beneath my boxers, my cock stayed limp. Watching some dude get off on a woman was almost boring.

  Then I started watching just the guy. The way he’d stroke himself, the way his cock would pulse when he came.

  That stirred my desire.

  It scared the shit out of me. I tried. I really did.

  I got really drunk one night and lost my virginity to a cheerleader. It sucked, and the only way I kept it up was because there was a couple going at it in the room beside us, and the guy was moaning so loud it filtered through the walls.

  That was the night I had to stop kind of pretending. I couldn’t really ignore all the feelings inside me, but I could hide them until I figured out what to do.

  Mom just waited for me to speak. She didn’t rush me or even try to pry anything out with a barrage of questions.

  I had no idea what to say.

  No idea what to feel.

  Except suddenly, I wanted to challenge her, what she said. The same way I challenged myself for years.

  “It’s not a phase,” I said, looking again at the magazine.

  “I know that.”

  I lifted my eyes to meet hers. She nodded.

  Why wasn’t she yelling? Why wasn’t she grossed out?

  “I’m gay,” I said and then pressed my lips together. It was the first time I ever said it out loud. The first time I’d ever admitted it to anyone but myself.

  “I wish you weren’t,” Mom said honestly. “A mother wants the best life possible for her child. Life is hard enough as it is. This is only going to make it harder on you.”

  I nodded. She was right.

  She reached out, laid her hand over mine.

  “Why aren’t you more surprised? Why aren’t you mad?” I asked.

  “You never date. You barely even look at girls. I’ve seen them look at you during your games, when I used to drop you off with friends. There was never any interest on your part. I just… I guess I just slowly realized, probably like you.”