Romeo’s lips curved up into a knowing, almost pleased expression. “He pissed you off so bad you put your hand through a wall and he’s pushing you away, yet here you are, standing guard at the door, protecting him.”
“That wasn’t an answer,” I growled.
Romeo laughed beneath his breath. And then he answered.
Not with words.
In seconds, his arm was out of my grasp and he was hugging me. I hesitated, shocked he would just reach out and embrace me like this.
“Family takes care of family.” His voice was muted. “I’m not sure if there’s anything that could make me turn my back on family, but if there is, it ain’t this.”
When he pulled back, I looked him in the eye.
He meant it.
“Congratulations on finding a love worth fighting for.”
I wasn’t expecting this. It wasn’t that I thought he wouldn’t accept us, that any of this family wouldn’t. It was the way they did it. The way they acted like it wasn’t even anything to bat an eye at, like Trent and I were inevitable and they’d only been waiting for us to figure it out.
I wished it were that easy for me. For Trent.
“I thought the fighting was over,” I said, suddenly incredibly weary. “But it’s only just begun.”
“You aren’t alone.” Romeo slapped me on the shoulder. “I’m going in now.”
I nodded, knowing Trent was going to get the support he needed. I started down the hall. This time it was Romeo who stopped me.
“I know you’re going to go after them,” he said.
When I glanced back, he was right behind me, and his voice was quiet.
“Oh, yes,” I intoned. “There’s no way in hell I’ll let what they did to him go unpunished.”
Those bastards at Omega were going to pay for what they did to Trent and they were going to pay dearly.
“Me and B are with you.”
I nodded. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do yet, but I wasn’t going to turn down help. The more painful the revenge, the better.
And if worse came to worse…
I’d have someone to bail me out of jail.
Trent
Don’t count on it.
I put my faith in fate. I put all my proverbial eggs in one basket.
What do I get?
Don’t count on it.
Fucking A.
Or maybe that’s what I got for asking a magic eight ball for love advice.
Maybe I should have just smacked myself in the head with it. It would have been less painful.
I learned quite a few things in the moments after I broke up with Drew and he stormed out of the bedroom with a bleeding fist.
1.) Seeing him bleed was not something I liked.
2.) I wanted to call him back the second he walked out.
and
3.) Something else I wasn’t quite ready to do something about.
Hurting him wasn’t something I wanted, but this seemed like the best thing. Maybe doing this now might save more pain later.
What if it hurt forever?
What if the pain I was trying to spare us both was for nothing because it was pain just the same?
Pain was pain.
Pain hurt. It didn’t matter if it were fists and physical blows or a broken heart and busted dreams.
I already knew what life was like trying to deny how I felt about Drew.
Misery.
Was I sentencing us both to misery because I was trying to do what was best for Drew…?
Or because I was scared?
It seemed there was misery in our futures no matter which choice I made.
Everything inside me ached with bleakness. I ached for the life I wanted and for the one I had.
I laid my head back against the headboard and stared at the eight ball still in my clutches. Maybe the melancholy I saw in our futures wouldn’t be quite so grim if it were also woven with bliss.
Stolen moments in the dark, grazing touches as we worked beneath the hood of his car. Laughter, smiles… friendship.
Wasn’t it those things that made life suck less?
Let’s face it. Life is hard.
Anyone who said it’s easy was one of two things:
1.) A liar.
or
2.) On damn good drugs.
I was reeling inside.
I was a knotted mess of confusion and hurt.
A light knock on the doorframe gave me a slight reprieve from my tortured thoughts. Leaning my head against the headboard, I rolled it toward the sound as Romeo stepped into the bedroom.
I stifled a wince when my body tensed. I knew he knew. Braeden probably told him as soon as he walked in the door tonight.
I was nervous about this conversation.
I never really said it, never really let on… but Romeo was important to me. It sounded odd because we were the same age, we were family, and because, well, I was taller than him, but I looked up to Romeo.
He always seemed so together. A rock. A man who always had his life on point.
I tried to be that way. Hell, most people probably thought I was. But inside, I often felt I was grasping a rope as I dangled off the side of a cliff.
“Hey.” He began.
“Hey,” I echoed, pushing myself up a little straighter in the bed.
His footsteps faltered when he turned toward me. “Fuck,” he swore low. “They told me you looked like shit.”
I laughed and then grabbed my side. “What a nice thing to say.”