Total pages in book: 24
Estimated words: 23821 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 119(@200wpm)___ 95(@250wpm)___ 79(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 23821 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 119(@200wpm)___ 95(@250wpm)___ 79(@300wpm)
Without Varro, Brian builds himself a life that’s all about just getting by, doing his best to ignore the hole in his heart and his life. Without Brian to balance him, Varro pushes harder and takes more risks to reach that ultimate high. His job racing high-octane bikes on suicide-level courses makes it easy to get that rush… until it’s no longer enough and Varro realizes it’s not the race, but who’s waiting at the finish line that truly matters. Now he just has to convince Brian to be there
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
ONE
Itold Aidric Barnes the same thing in person as I had on the phone. “No.”
“Come on, mate,” he muttered, trying to push my front door open from his side while I held it closed from mine.
“I’m not your mate, and I’m not going.”
“But he’s runnin’ it with or without you.”
“It’s not a problem, then. Everything’s fine.”
“’Tis not fine, Brian.”
“Go. Away.”
He groaned loudly. “Brian.”
“No,” I said firmly. “Get off my porch, Aid.”
“You’d have him race without you, then?”
“I don’t want him to race at all, but it’s hardly my concern anymore.”
“Brian—”
“No.”
“He almost died the last time.”
“Yes, I know. I was there, if you recall.”
“Not then! Since you’ve been gone!”
But the time I’d seen it had been enough to haunt my dreams. I didn’t need to hear about his most recent brush with death. I used to see him fall over and over every time I closed my eyes. Now that I finally didn’t, I wasn’t about to start again.
We had all been there when the rear wheel of his bike suddenly slid out from under him. Because he was moving so fast, easily two hundred miles an hour, the motorcycle had simply flipped over with him still on it. It was called a high side—but I just called it a horror, because that’s what it looked like.
He’d broken four ribs, punctured his left lung, and fractured his collarbone, as well as his left arm. Pins had been needed to hold bones in place, and the worst part was he had just gotten through physical therapy as a result of a previous crash, and now he was going to have to do it all over again.
It made sense; it did. Racing was the love of his life, and he wasn’t going to stop for anyone or anything. The rush of adrenaline, the howl of the bike engine on the road, the way the world whooshed by him—it was all he needed. The rest of us were just window dressing in his hunt for the next fuel-injected thrill ride. I wouldn’t be that anymore. I couldn’t.
“He canna win if you’re not there,” Aidric informed me as he kept trying to push his way in. The more upset he got, the thicker his brogue became.
“Winning should not be your goal.” I grunted as I continued to hold the door mostly closed. “Aim lower. Keep him breathing.”
“Open the door!”
“Okay! Let go and I will.”
He stopped pushing—and the minute he did, I slammed it shut, locked it, and clicked the deadbolt into place.
“Brian!” He sounded both hurt and offended.
“Go away, Aid,” I ordered. “I’m not coming, and you don’t need me, anyway. Really, truly, only you and the guys are required. Think about how long I’ve been gone.”
“You’re wrong, mate. You’re the only one who really matters. It doesn’t mean anythin’ if you don’t see it.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and I really was. I so wished it were different. I wished he were different.
“Open the door!”
“Oh for fuck’s sake, Aid,” I replied belligerently, annoyed now that he was persisting. He knew it wasn’t good for me, going back, but he was still pushing. That was really crappy of him. “Get off my porch!”
He banged the door hard with his fist, but I heard him retreat, and then the car started out on the street.
He was wrong. I knew Varro better than that. The only thing Varro Dacien needed was the rush of being on his bike and the blurring speed.
We’d been friends since the fourth grade. I was on the sixth of what I didn’t know at the time would be the last of my foster homes. The Rossers lived next door to Varro and his family, and I looked over one day—a week after moving in—and from my second-floor bedroom window, I saw him on the roof of his house. I would come to find out that the other boy with him was his brother, Nico. But really, neither of them was the real attraction at first glance. It was the go-cart he was sitting in, and the ramp it was pointed at.
When you’re nine, the thing you say when you open the window is not the same thing you’d say when you’re thirty-two. Now I would have yelled at him to get the hell down before he killed himself. Then, as I watched him put on a bike helmet and fasten the chin strap, I leaned out onto the sill and asked if I could have a turn.
His gaze took me in.
I waved.
“Yeah, come on!” he called back. “You can go next!”
Since I was alone in the house, there was no one to check with. I was downstairs, out the back, and knocking on the door of the three-story Georgian Colonial next door moments later. The woman who answered was, to me, stunning. Her long black hair, big and warm dark-brown eyes, her smile, and the smells emanating from the kitchen—I was in love at first sight.