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)
What I didn’t anticipate was that the better he got at his sport, the more dangerous it became. You had to keep taking bigger chances, the bikes got more powerful, and the competition grew so much more fierce.
TWO
The Isle of Man TT was a race I never saw coming. It was not part of the races Varro normally rode in, not part of the MotoGP, the motorcycle racing world championship circuit he competed in. Normally there were barricades and fencing between him and the bystanders, and he was used to a track. Everything about the Grand Prix events he normally rode in was similar. But there, on the small island, the race was run on almost forty miles of public roads, roads used by regular people on a day-to-day basis. You could study the route but nothing else. Everything was so tight; you could scrape a house, a tree, take a wrong turn and be in the middle of a pub or in someone’s front yard. At any time, a rider could hit an uneven patch of road, and another rider was right there, closer than normal, and the result was a collision with walls, hedges, or gardens. For Varro it had been a simple matter of taking a turn just a little too tight.
The bike couldn’t hold the angle, and down he went.
The call for me to get there came from Nico. Varro was unresponsive; the doctors weren’t sure when he would wake up. I arrived a day later.
Varro’s staff was there. I met them all: his assistant, Georgia Penny; his chief mechanic, Aidric Barnes; his publicist; some of his friends; the current socialite he was dating; and his manager, Kyle Tokunaga. Mr. and Mrs. Dacien were there as well, and Nico and his wife, Fiona.
Everyone looked scared. I wasn’t. I was pissed.
They were quiet. I yelled.
“What the hell?” I barked at Varro.
Nico was shocked. “Brian, what are you—”
“Oh!” The doctor on the other side of Varro’s bed, beside the monitor, was startled not by my outburst but something else.
“What?” Nico asked worriedly.
Apparently the monitor had made a very promising sound.
“That was… unprecedented,” he answered Nico before he glanced at me.
I squinted.
The doctor’s eyes got big, and Nico, being an attending physician at his own hospital where he worked, looked at the same monitor and knew what it meant too. He turned and kissed me on the cheek.
“Yell at him some more, Bri. All of us talking to him didn’t do a damn thing, but apparently your anger just woke the asshole up.”
“Nico!” Mrs. Dacien scolded.
But he hushed her as I leaned down next to Varro’s ear and whispered something I thought would get his attention:
“If you don’t open your eyes right now, I’m telling your folks that you screwed a crapload of girls on their bed.”
The monitor whistled and whined.
“And,” I husked, “I’ll tell your mom that her mother’s quilt, dear Grandma Esther’s quilt, was on the bed under you when you deflowered all the cheerleaders in the eleventh grade.”
The growl surprised everyone.
“Open your eyes, dickhead.”
A collective hush followed everyone’s gasps when Varro’s gorgeous brown eyes, fringed in long, thick, feathery black lashes, fluttered open.
Mrs. Dacien broke down. “Varro,” she said on a sob.
“You wouldn’t dare,” he whispered.
I arched an eyebrow for him, which I hoped conveyed the assurance of yes, of course I would.
“Fucker,” he muttered.
A whole second round-robin of startled chirping filled the room.
“Don’t do this again,” I said, turning to go, just needing to be out of the room for a little bit, shocked that my brave face had stayed on, overwhelmed that he was both awake and lucid.
“Wait,” he rasped, and I heard all the effort that took.
“I’ll be back when it’s quiet,” I promised over my shoulder. I walked out as I glanced back and saw everyone surging around him, and waited down the hall for Mr. and Mrs. Dacien to come out of the room and greet me.
I felt like crap because they were both so thankful. If they knew what I really wanted, needed, was dying to claim and could barely breathe around… they would be sick. I was a fake, a phony, masquerading as their son when I yearned to be a son-in-law instead. Only Nico’s vigilance kept me from bolting. He sat with me in the hall.
“There’s a race through the Atlas Mountains in Morocco,” he said absently.
I had no idea why he was telling me that.
“That’s where he’s going next.”
“He’s brilliant.”
“That’s what I said,” he scoffed, sipping the coffee he’d gotten out of an ancient machine.
We were quiet for a bit.
“They want you to call them Mom and Dad, but you never do.”
I turned from staring at the wall to meet his gaze.
“You’re not blind. You know why I can’t.”
“Because if you do, if they really are your parents….” He sighed. “Then you’ll really be his brother.”