#Junkie (GearShark #1) Page 2

  He had a long torso, lean and firm. The way the waffle knit tee he wore clung to his frame seemed like the most interesting thing I’d seen in a long time. I watched him straighten and turn, shove his hand into the back pocket of his jeans.

  His long fingers pulled back out, a wallet clutched between them, and he tossed that onto the dresser, too.

  His hips were narrow and his legs were long and lean. He looked good in the jeans. They weren’t too tight, but they weren’t baggy either.

  His feet were bare. I didn’t know where his socks went, but I didn’t care. That patch of bare skin—even on his feet—made my mouth go dry.

  Or maybe I was just dehydrated.

  “I need water,” I said abruptly and pushed up off the mattress. My sudden movement caused a wave of nausea, and I lurched forward.

  Drew was ready, and just as I started barfing, a trashcan appeared under me.

  How the hell was there anything left inside me to puke up? I felt like I’d been puking for hours, and I was so spent I couldn’t even hold the trashcan.

  Drew held it for me.

  He stood there silently, holding the can in front of my hunched-over form while I heaved and made sounds I hoped to never hear again.

  Even after I stopped, he stood there, holding it, making sure I was completely done before he moved back.

  “I’m good,” I said weakly after a few long moments and turned my face away.

  His large palm fell against my back and patted twice before settling against my shirt. That single touch left me feeling a little more grounded, a little less shaky and in danger of literally passing out right there.

  Leaving his palm where it was, he leaned away and set down the can. I dropped my head in my hands and shuddered.

  God, I felt like fucking rotten ass. “I’m sorry.”

  “Why are you so drunk?” Drew demanded.

  “Vodka,” I muttered darkly.

  He made a sound like that wasn’t an answer. “What the hell possessed you to drink so much tonight?”

  “I just wanted a break,” I muttered.

  “A break from what?”

  “Huh?”

  Drew’s hand clenched into a fist against my back. “Trent. What the fuck?”

  “Don’t be mad,” I heard myself say and fell back on the bed.

  “I’m not mad.”

  “You sound mad.”

  “Good fucking thing I showed up tonight.” He half growled and moved away from the bed.

  I heard the rustling of clothes, but I didn’t look. My head hurt. “I don’t like when you drive without me.”

  Drew appeared over me, staring down from the side of the mattress. Something about his presence caused me to open my eyes.

  Our stares locked.

  I felt some things I didn’t know how to back away from. Alcohol made it hard to lie.

  “Is that what this is about? You’re pissed ‘cause I went driving without you?” he asked, low.

  He wasn’t wearing a shirt anymore, and in place of the jeans was a pair of loose basketball shorts. His dark-blond hair was messy, and his mouth was drawn into a grim line.

  The way his eyes looked just then… it was like he could see.

  I rolled onto my side away from him. “Sometimes a guy just wants to get drunk.”

  And sometimes a guy wants to forget.

  My stomach rolled and my back jerked with the force of my heave. Drew muttered a curse and dove across the bed, just barely getting the can in front of me as I starting puking again.

  He was partially lying across me, and even half out of my mind and sick as a dog, I still noticed the way his weight felt on me. The way I was pressed so fully into the mattress by his size. It helped make me feel less shaky in the moment.

  When I finally stopped throwing up long enough to breathe, Drew sank onto the floor near my head.

  “Fuck, man,” I said between more heaving. “I’m sorry. You should have left me at home.”

  “You are home.”

  It was spoken so quietly I thought maybe it had been a thought in my own mind and not a sentence off his lips.

  I glanced up, my bloodshot, watery eyes trying so hard to focus on his.

  He stared back without a word. Just stared.

  Had he spoken, or was it a thought?

  Finally, he cleared his throat. “Think you’re done?”

  “I hope so,” I rasped. My throat was raw and burned. The inside of my mouth tasted like road kill, and my body ached.

  He nodded and quickly tied the bag closed in the can and quickly replaced it with a fresh one.

  “Here,” he said and shoved the can into my arms before disappearing for a few minutes.

  When he reappeared, he had a bottle of water and a bottle of aspirin. I groaned, and he set the stuff aside. “It’s for later.”

  I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to keep anything down again, but I kept that thought to myself.

  “You can’t sleep like that. Roll onto your side.” He motioned with his hand for me to move.

  I started to roll, but he caught the hem of my shirt, stopping me. “Sit up.”

  I started to oblige but then fell back. He made a sound and slid an arm beneath me and lifted. “You’re too heavy for this shit,” he grumped.

  Cool air brushed over my heated skin when he pulled the shirt over my head.

  “You taking advantage of me?” I cracked.

  “You smell like puke,” he rebutted. Then in a more sarcastic tone, he said, “Besides, you couldn’t get it up right now even if you wanted to.”

  “For you I could.”

  Instant sobriety.

  That’s exactly what those four words were. At least for long, still minutes.

  The second I said them, everything in the room stopped. Everything stood still. I’m pretty sure my heart didn’t beat. Drew didn’t breathe… There was nothing.

  Nothing but the words.

  The meaning.

  The implication.

  The truth behind them.

  Oh fuck.

  I was about to make it worse, use my drunk brain to try and backpedal, try and make up some excuse.

  He saved me.

  Just as abruptly as everything stopped, it started up again. He started up again.

  His fingers felt cool compared to my flushed skin as they wrapped around my chin. My face was tilted up, and I squeezed my eyes shut so I wouldn’t have to see if he saw the truth behind my confession.

  “You have it on your face,” he spoke. I felt the softness of my shirt brush over my chin as he used it to clean off the mess I’d made of myself.

  I intensely regretted getting drunk tonight. For so, so many reasons.

  “You don’t have to do that,” I said, embarrassed.

  “I know.”

  I opened my eyes.

  For just a millisecond, we connected.

  For just a millisecond, I thought I felt something I hadn’t before.

  Then he pulled away.

  My shirt was tossed aside, and my total drunkenness came over me again. I groaned.

  He laughed. “If you feel like shit now, you’re gonna be half dead tomorrow.”

  “If I even make it to morning.” I fell back on the bed.

  “You’ll make it.” He hit me on the leg. “On your side.”

  “Who cares?” I grumbled, but as I did, I rolled from my back onto my side. The movement made me sick.

  Again.

  I retched violently for long moments, in between vowing to never drink again.

  Drew didn’t say anything. He just held the trashcan because I was too fucking spent to do it for myself.

  When I was done, I collapsed onto the mattress, my body shaking erratically.

  He set the can on the table by the bed and disappeared. I felt the mattress dip when he sat on the other side.

  “I can go down to the couch,” I stuttered between the clashing of my teeth.

  “You’re staying, and so am
I. Someone has to watch your drunk ass.”

  I didn’t say anything. I just lay there and shuddered. He flipped the blanket up over me, and I curled in on myself a little farther in an attempt to stop shaking.

  The room was dark and quiet. I don’t know how long I lay there trembling. I was in and out and completely miserable.

  Eventually, I passed out.

  But the temporary bliss of nothing was interrupted when I started puking up my guts again. I lunged for the bucket and winced against the sounds ripping from my throat.

  Drew was there. He slid across the mattress right up against my back and tossed an arm over me to steady the bucket as I attempted to hold it.

  I groaned and collapsed back onto the pillow. “There’s nothing left,” I groaned.

  I’d literally thrown up everything inside me.

  Drew didn’t seem as sure, and he held the bucket a few more minutes. His arm was draped over my middle, and his chest was pressed against my back. I closed my eyes and relaxed against the blankets. The trembling in my limbs subsided, and I let out a sigh of relief.

  His body pressed farther against me when he leaned down to put the can aside. His bare skin brushed against mine, and I shivered.

  He pulled back. “You cold?”

  “No.”

  Drew settled back on his side of the bed.

  The trembling in my limbs started again. I wanted it to stop.

  Without thought, I scooted backward, toward the center. I scooted until my back came up against his.

  I felt him turn and glance back at me, but I didn’t look. I kept my face turned in the opposite direction.

  “I just want to stop shaking,” I murmured and scooted a little closer, close enough I was pressed along him. Our backs were to each other, our shoulder blades touching, and so were our asses.

  Within seconds, my entire body calmed again, the shaking waned, and I grew drowsy. As I was drifting off, I pushed one of my feet between his calves, tangling my leg with his.

  Maybe if I wasn’t drunk out of my mind, I would have noticed him going still. Maybe I would have thought about what I was doing.

  But I was drunk. I didn’t notice. I didn’t think.

  But I did talk.

  My dumb liquored-up tongue wasn’t done saying shit I would later pretend to forget.

  “I won’t tell,” I whispered into the dark.

  He didn’t say anything. He didn’t pull away.

  I fell asleep with the feel of him against me. I fell asleep hard and heavy.

  When I woke up the next morning, he wasn’t there. The room was empty, but the pillow beside me still bore the indent of his head.

  And I remembered.

  Even drunk out of my mind and sick enough to puke up everything inside me, I hadn’t been able to wipe it from my memory.

  Turns out I hadn’t barfed up everything.

  There was still something left inside me.

  Feelings.

  Moments that were still so fresh and new they couldn’t yet be considered memories.

  Instead, they’d become secrets. A night I was “too drunk” to remember.

  We could go back to being super bros.

  Best friends.

  It was better that way.

  Several months later…

  Drew

  Some people say I was born with motor oil in my veins.

  That the call of an open road and a car with a full tank of gas was the reason I lived and breathed.

  I fucking loved cars. I loved the way the engine revved when I first turned the key, the scent of newly polished leather, and the feel of the steering wheel beneath my hands.

  Most of all, I loved speed.

  I loved flying across the asphalt at a pace that could put me in jail… or worse. I loved the thrill of straddling a fine line between life and death—that one slight error could quite literally land me in a coffin.

  Morbid?

  Might be if I had a death wish. I didn’t plan on dying, not anytime soon. But that wouldn’t stop me from living like I might. There was something so incredibly freeing about breaking all the rules when I was out on the road.

  Something about letting loose that held me together.

  Even though the rush of adrenaline was my drug, I was still a man.

  I was still human.

  When cut, it wasn’t thick, black oil that leaked from my veins. It was blood. The same red everyone else had.

  Still, I let everyone think I was a little less human than they were. I fed into the perception that perhaps there was something else inside me that gave me an edge.

  I’d do what I could to get to the finish line.

  It was this attitude precisely that was earning me a name in the car world here in Maryland. It was my no-holds-barred, drive until my tires were bald and I was white knuckled on the steering wheel that got tongues wagging.

  And in cars, talk was half the battle.

  The other half?

  The way a man drove.

  Hell, the kind of driver you were was more important than the actual thing you drove. Because when it came right down to it…

  It wasn’t the size of the engine in the car.

  It was the size of the engine in the man.

  My engine?

  It was so big it was limited edition.

  I kept that quiet, too. If someone wanted to know who I was, they could get in the passenger seat and I’d show them. I didn’t need to talk smack; I just needed to drive.

  The Chesapeake Speedway was the biggest raceway on this side of Maryland. Over on the other side of the state, toward the bigger cities where the Knights (our state football team) was based was a larger racetrack where some big events had gone down over the years. But that track was on a more professional level. At least in terms of competition.

  I couldn’t just drive in there off the street and race. To get there, I would need sponsors. I would need a better car and a bigger name.

  Basically, in the world of racing, money talks and so does who you know.

  Even though I’d been driving since I was five, I was basically starting at the bottom. Growing up in North Carolina, driving was just a hobby. It was just something my parents let me do because if they didn’t, they would find me in the garage, trying to sweeten up the lawn mower to make it faster. Or strapping on a helmet and riding a homemade go-cart down the hill in the backyard.

  Go-cart = an old Big Wheel I took the handles off and glued an old spare steering wheel to the top.

  My mom about had a heart attack that day.

  I still don’t know what all the fuss was about. I’d worn a helmet.

  Anyway, it was indulge in my need for speed in a controlled manner or keep allowing me to make homemade “death machines” (Mom’s words, not mine). Even though everything in my life revolved around the track, it was still always expected I would grow out of it.

  Driving would never be some kind of career choice.

  My career path had been decided long before I even picked up a set of keys. My father wanted a son to follow in his footsteps, a son he could groom into whatever he wanted him to be. When I came out first, my fate was sealed.

  At least until not quite six months ago.

  Up until then, I’d done everything expected of me. I graduated high school, went to a top-notch college, and excelled in IT (information technology) and computer science. Not surprisingly, I also excelled in graphic design, likely because designing stuff was far more entertaining to me than the software science stuff. But still, I excelled at both.

  What can I say? I have a big brain to go with the big engine inside me.

  My father was stuffed like a turkey at Thanksgiving with pride. After college, I got some fancy internship at a software and technology company and made coffee all day, spending as much time as possible in the elevators, trying not to die inside.

  When I called or went home, I acted like it was all great, like life in the computer world was exactly what I wan
ted.

  But it wasn’t.

  In fact, the more time I spent in that office building, the more caged up I felt.

  The only thing that kept me from flying off the handle completely was the long, fast car rides I would go on after work. It was the time I spent at the local track (which was little more than a circular dirt path).

  When the internship ended, I drove home knowing my father was already lining up interviews and job opportunities so I could start my career in earnest.

  I had to get away from it.

  I needed to breathe.

  When I learned my sister Ivy moved in with some guy none of us had met, I took off. It was the perfect excuse to get the hell away. After all, I’d always been Ivy’s biggest protector. Dad couldn’t say shit about me heading her way. He wanted his daughter looked after as well.

  So yeah, maybe I’d used my sister as an excuse for a little vacation.

  But then I pulled in the driveway.

  I knocked on the front door of a house in a swanky-ass neighborhood.

  The sight of my sister made me forget the reason I’d sped up the interstate to get there. Sure, her choice of mate hadn’t been my favorite, but the guy had since grown on me. But not just Braeden… Ivy had a whole family here.

  A family I felt a part of almost immediately.

  In a lot of ways, more so than I ever had with the family I was born into.

  It was almost unsettling. Looking around at people I hadn’t known very long, feeling like the person I was meant to be—the one I’d suppressed most my life to please my father—was known by them and they accepted him.

  Suddenly, it didn’t seem like I was escaping from something, but to something.

  To the life I really wanted. The life I never considered I could have. My hobby, my passion could be more than that.

  It was like I was a car discovering I’d been driving with my emergency brake engaged.

  Maybe that’s why I was such an adrenaline junkie now. I had lost time to make up for.

  Telling Dad I wasn’t coming home, I wasn’t going to be following up on those high-profile jobs with starting salaries of a hundred grand a year, hadn’t been easy. Telling my father, a man I loved, that I was rejecting everything he wanted for me was probably the hardest thing I’d ever done.