#FinishLine (GearShark #5) Read online

  Every race has a finish line.

  Where you go after you cross it is what matters most.

  And sometimes, that’s the most intriguing.

  Here at GearShark, we’ve featured lots of drivers.

  All of them are well acquainted with the finish line.

  And as race fans, we’re well acquainted with cheering as they cross it.

  What we aren’t privy to is riding shotgun, seeing where they drive once the race is over.

  Our interviews barely scratch the surface, offering just a glimpse of the men and women behind the wheel.

  The discovery of vanished Motocross sensation Jayson Hamilton, who has been right under our noses for years, proves secrets abound.

  It’s time to dig deep. Look beyond the racetrack at the drivers who continue to pique our interest. In addition to scoring an exclusive, all-access interview with the elusive Jayson Hamilton (his first and only since the death of his fellow racer and partner Matt Lewis), we’ve caught up with some of our most popular featured men and women in the racing world.

  Where are they now?

  Who are they now?

  What do these hot commodities do when they escape the spotlight?

  Rumors of weddings, babies, and new tattoos swirl through the media on a weekly basis.

  And though we’re headlining the hashtag #Finishline, we’re far from finished.

  In fact, we’re just getting started.

  This newest issue of GearShark is jam packed with everything you’ve been dying to know…

  and it just might be our biggest page-turner yet.

  Check out the full feature article inside…

  #FinishLine Copyright © 2017 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

  Photo Image: curaphotography © 123RF.com

  Edited by Cassie McCown

  Copyright 2017 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: 978-1-946836-00-7

  “A man is incomplete until he is married.

  After that he is finished.”

  —Zsa Zsa Gabor

  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

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  I once read somewhere that grief was just love with no place to go.

  True and not true.

  True because it hurts so much to love something and lose it. But not true because even after Matt died, I loved him; my love went wherever he was. To him.

  Love isn’t conditional on death. It supersedes it. Love has no boundaries. Therefore, I still loved Matt, even in grief. True, it was harder because our love became intangible. I couldn’t see it or touch it… but I still felt it.

  That was the grief. Giving love to someone who wasn’t there.

  Part of me still loved Matt, and I always would. He was my first love, my first relationship. He was also a friend, my best friend. Later, in death, he became a teacher. I realized he taught me the most important lesson I would ever learn.

  Love and loss.

  Because of Matt, I knew what it was to love and be loved. I also knew what it was like to lose it. The pain of being left alone.

  I asked myself why for five long years. I punished myself, sank deep into despair and solitude.

  The answer came not in words, but in a man.

  The longer I knew him, the more convinced I became.

  Arrow was the reason. He was my why.

  I needed to learn how to love so I could love him.

  I needed to learn how to break because he was also broken.

  I succumbed to solitude only so I could really appreciate what it was not to be alone.

  These were the hardest lessons I knew I would ever learn. I was remorseful Matt had to die, that something so extreme and permanent was the only thing that would get me to where I was today.

  I couldn’t regret, though.

  To regret would be denouncing the connection I had with Arrow.

  And though I loved Matt, I missed him far longer.

  It hurt to know the person who taught me the most, the man who basically paved the way for the life I had now, was getting the short end of the stick. I wanted better for him, and it made me shamefaced to know I wouldn’t ever be the one to give him that.

  I knew now my infinity wasn’t Matt after all, but Arrow.

  Matt was my first love, but Arrow… he was my deepest. He was my last.

  I just hoped wherever Matt was, he understood, because I couldn’t stop it. And truthfully? I didn’t want to.

  Life is too frail to not make every day count—another lesson Matt taught me well.

  I never thought I was the marrying kind. Getting married was something that kind of flew out the window when I realized I was gay.

  Gay men didn’t get married. Until recently, they weren’t even allowed. Marriage wasn’t that important anyway—at least not before.

  A set of dark-brown eyes changed that. The tattoo just above where his heart beat proved me wrong.

  Marriage was something I thought a lot about these days. It wasn’t a piece of paper or a ring around your finger. It was more. So much more.

  It was tying yourself irrevocably with another person.

  An ultimate promise.

  It was security, binding yourself in every way humanly possible to another person.

  I wanted it. I wanted Arrow in every possible way. I wanted him to know I was always going to be here, and I wanted my name attached to his.

  I had no clue what Arrow thought about marriage. I never asked him, and he never brought it up. Guess I was going to find out.

  A few solid knocks in rapid succession on the apartment door made me belch. I was fucking nervous, which was fucking stupid.

  Swallowing yet another eruption from my gut, I shoved back the thoughts and yanked open the door. Lorhaven stood there dressed in a leather jacket, despite the warm spring temperatures outside.

  “What’s wrong?” he demanded the second I opened the door.

  “Nothing,” I said and motioned for him to come in.

  He pulled off his Oakleys and slid one earpiece beneath the neck of his dark-blue T-shirt so they were
out of his hands and stepped into the apartment.

  His eyes searched out his brother, wanting to be sure all was well.

  “He isn’t here,” I said and shut the door.

  Lorhaven turned. “Where is he?”

  “Meeting,” I replied.

  “Why aren’t you there?” He scrutinized.

  “Because I didn’t need to be.” I cleared my throat. “And, I, ah, wanted to talk to you. Alone.”

  His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Why?”

  Arrow’s big brother was an asshole. It wasn’t anything new to me, and his constant suspicious demeanor didn’t offend me like it used to. I understood his extreme overprotective nature when it came to Arrow (and Joey). I even respected it.

  There was a time when I doubted we would ever get along. Hell, sometimes I still doubted it. But ever since the day I raced across the track to pull Arrow out of a multicar pile-up, things were different between me and Lorhaven.

  Friendlier.

  He welcomed me to the family that day, and since then, he’d backed up his handshake with actions. Arrow and I hung out with him and Joey regularly, something I knew meant a lot to A.

  To me, too.

  Joey was my first and only real friend since Matt died. The months we’d spent not really speaking had hurt. To have her friendship back along with a new one in Lorhaven gave me the sense of family I’d deprived myself of for so long.

  “There’s something I want to ask you,” I said.

  He made a sound, sort of an agreement, and shrugged out of the jacket to fling it over the back of the couch. “You called me down here because you want to ask me a question?”

  “It’s not something I could do over the phone.”

  He folded his arms over his chest and regarded me in a way that would probably make a lesser man piss his pants. Lorhaven didn’t intimidate me. He never did, and he never would.

  But, uh, yeah… I was anxious right now.

  “I know how close you are to A.” I began. “He told me you’re more like a dad to him than The Fucker ever was.”

  Lorhaven’s arms dropped to his sides. “He told you that?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. And honestly, I’m fucking grateful to you for that.”

  Shock widened his very dark eyes. I committed the look to memory as I smothered a smile. I’d likely not see that look on his face ever again.

  My voice dropped. “I think you were the one thing that stood between Arrow and total shutdown a few years ago.”

  “Until you came along,” he replied, gruff.

  “Thank you for everything you did for him, for everything you do. I know you already know how much he appreciates you, but now you know I do, too.”

  “He’s my family,” he said, like it was all he needed to say.

  I half smiled.

  “As touching as this is…” Lorhaven studied me. “Why do I get the feeling you want something?”

  “Because I do.” I took a deep breath. “I want Arrow.”

  He made a sound. “Pretty sure you already got that.”

  I shook my head once. “I want to marry him.”

  Lorhaven jolted like someone tossed a bucket of ice water over his head. “You wanna what?”

  “I’m gonna ask Arrow to marry me, but before I do, I’d like your permission.”

  He swallowed like he had something lumpy in his throat. Then without a word, he went into the kitchen and pulled a beer out of the fridge. He took a long draw off the longneck and then glanced at me. “If I say no?”

  “I’ll ask him anyway, but we both know how much it would mean to him if you gave us your blessing.”

  “You haven’t been together that long.” He pointed out.

  “So?”

  “So why the rush?”

  “I’m not rushing. I just know what I want.”

  “How well do you know my brother?”

  I tilted my head. “You ask that like you think I don’t know him well enough.”

  “He’s been through a lot. I want to be sure you understand that.”

  I cut through the way we were about to talk around each other. “I know about the rape. And everything your father did to him.”

  He sucked in a breath. “He told you he was raped?”

  I nodded, a little taken aback by the way he asked.

  “In those words?”

  “Yes.”

  “He never actually said it to me,” Lorhaven murmured.

  “I know. It’s hard for him. Especially to say something he feels makes him so weak to someone he thinks is invincible.”

  “I’m not,” he muttered, taking another pull on the beer.

  “To him you are.”

  “He told you, though.”

  “He had to tell me. I wasn’t there. I didn’t see him the way you did. He might have not wanted to say it to you, but he never had to because you already knew.”

  “That was the worst night of my life,” Lorhaven echoed, his voice haunted. He stared across the room as if he were reliving that night.

  I shuddered because even though I hadn’t been there, I was haunted by it, too. I couldn’t imagine what it was like to have seen it.

  “If it makes it any easier…” I said, trying to soften the blow that Arrow actually said the words to me and not to him. “It’s easier to tell someone how broken you are if the person you’re telling is equally as broken.”

  It was pretty fucking amazing actually. Here I was trying to soften a perceived blow to someone who once hated me, someone I wasn’t that fond of at one point. Not only that, but I was requesting his blessing.

  Lorhaven turned, leaning back against the counter, holding the beer by the neck but down at his side. All of his attention zeroed in on me. “What happens when your past comes back to bite you?”

  “My past can’t bite me.” It already did.

  “You sure about that, Jayson?”

  My stomach lurched and my heart beat faster. It wasn’t that I minded he knew about Matt and who I used to be; I just wasn’t used to talking about it with people. People who weren’t Arrow.

  “Did Joey tell you about me?” I asked, low.

  He made a rude noise. “No. I never asked her to. I’d never put her in that position. I assume what she knows was told to her in confidence.”

  It was more out of necessity. Both she and Gamble knew about Matt and my old career. But it was still in confidence. I respected him for that, for not expecting the woman he loved to fess up everything just because he wanted her to.

  I began to smile, and he made a slashing motion in the air. “Don’t get too pretty a picture in your head.” He bitched. “If I had thought for one second you were up to shady shit with my brother or were bad news, I’d have made her tell me. I figured she said nothing because it wouldn’t hurt Arrow.”

  “So how do you know?” I asked, because Lorhaven knew everything. I could tell just by the way he said my name.

  “I hired a PI.”

  I made a sound. “I thought you didn’t think I was up to shady shit.”

  He smiled, showing all his teeth. “I still would never let my brother live with someone I knew nothing about.”

  “How long have you known?”

  He grinned again. “Almost from the beginning.”

  I felt my eyes pop wide.

  Lorhaven laughed. “The second I saw my brother return one of those googly, longing stares with you on the track months and months ago, I made a call.”

  “So you know about Matt.”

  He nodded. “And that you were hell on two wheels.”

  My lip curled upward. “Something like that.”

  “I’m thinking Matt’s death wasn’t an accident,” he deadpanned.

  “You’d be right.”

  He digested that. “What happens when the press finds out who you are?”

  “They haven’t so far.”

  He tipped the bottle back again, drained the rest, then stared at me. “You and I both know they
got a whole lot more curious when my brother was featured in GearShark and said he was in a relationship with you.”

  “I’ll deal with it,” I said, tight.

  “Disappearing might have worked the last time, but this time you can’t do that.”

  “I know,” I said, harsh. “I would never do that to your brother.”

  “I hope the hell not, because it would kill him.” His tongue ran over his front teeth. “And then I would kill you.”

  He didn’t even say it as a threat; it was just the way it was. Lorhaven would kill me. There wasn’t any doubt in my mind.

  “I know my identity is going to come out, and when it does, it’s going to be a media shit storm. Arrow knows it, too. I’ve told him everything.”

  He studied me a long moment. It sort of made me uncomfortable because Lorhaven was really hard to read. You just never knew what the guy was thinking.

  “Have you had sex with my brother?”

  See what I mean?

  “What the fuck kind of question is that?” I growled.

  “An honest one,” Lorhaven rebutted.

  I shoved off the island where I stood and paced away. “I’m not talking about my sex life with you.”

  “I don’t want to have this conversation either. I don’t want to think about it.” He sounded horrified, yet he forged on. “But you called. You want my blessing? Answer the goddamn question.”

  I went to the fridge to get a beer of my own. I stared out the window over the kitchen sink as I downed some of it. I needed something stronger for this.

  “Yes,” I said, firm.

  I didn’t turn to look at his face when I answered. I didn’t want to see his reaction.

  “And he’s… okay?”

  A little of the awkward vibe left the air. I let out the breath I’d been holding. I understood why he was asking. When someone had been abused the way Arrow had, it wasn’t a far reach to think they might have certain, ah, issues in the bedroom.

  I turned around. “He’s fine. I swear. I’d never do anything that would hurt him.”

  “You both have heavy pasts, haven’t been together that long… Why do you want to marry him?”

  Damn. This guy was like a fucking Vice detective. I thought I’d ask, he’d make some threats, and then shake my hand. I didn’t expect all this.