Finding Gary (The Romanovsky Brothers Book 4) (21 page)

“I love you,” Gary gasped.  The admission was so freeing; he found himself clawing at the back of Reggie’s head, begging for more reciprocity than the slight part of his lips.  “I’ve always loved you.  More than I’ve ever loved anything.”  His gasps ebbed to moans as he reached down and claimed Reggie’s hand, pulling it over the console and placing it squarely on his throbbing erection.  Gary cried out against his lips—against the sensation—holding the back of his neck in a death grip.

Blinded by need, Gary lifted his hips from the seat and guided Reggie’s hand inside the waistband of his sweats, crying out into his warm mouth when his fingers brushed the pounding head of his dick.

They both moaned at once, and the moment the sound filled the car, Reggie suddenly veered back—so violently his head slammed into the roof in his haste.  He kicked his legs, forcing his body back against the door, as far as it would go, nearly climbing right out of the open window as he cast a wide-eyed look at Gary.

Stunned, Gary held his hands up on either side of his head, shooting a horrified look of his own as Reggie continued kicking his legs, almost uncontrollably, as if he wanted to crawl into a hole that didn’t exist.  To escape that entire situation in any way possible.

Gary’s eyes moistened, his trembling lips fell wide open, and he gave a sharp shake of his head.  “I’m sorry.”

Reggie shook his head, too, curling his lip.  He’d finally stopped kicking, but his body still seemed arrow sharp from head to toe, fingers clutching the border of the window, as if he were about two seconds from climbing through it, so desperate to get away that he wouldn’t even bother to open the door.

“I thought… I thought you…  When you said you loved me, I thought… I don’t know why I did that,” Gary gasped hurriedly. 

Reggie’s shocked eyes changed in an instant.  A million thoughts appeared to roar through his head at once before his eyes went rock hard.  His lips tightened, and his forehead creased four times over, giving his eyes a dangerous squint that Gary had never seen there before.

With a scream from deep in his gut, Reggie swung, catching Gary in the mouth.  Blood flew, splattering on the window and, in the next instant Gary was bent over, covering his mouth with both hands.

“I’m not a fucking faggot.”  Spittle flew from Reggie’s downturned lips.  “I’m not worthless.”

Gary gasped in shock, and the first tear fell from his eyes.

He didn’t look up, he couldn’t, but he heard Reggie growl.  “Take me the fuck home…”

17

Jack nodded as Gary recounted the story, standing patiently in the middle of the courtroom with his fingers clasped together.

“Why do you think Reggie King punched you that night, Gary?” Jack turned towards the pews and latched onto the wounded face of Reggie King.

Reggie’s gleaming brown eyes were riveted to Gary, saying so many words he couldn’t at that moment.  Or perhaps words he wished he could’ve said all those years ago.  Words he wished he could take back.

Jack squinted at Reggie and then turned back to the stand.

“I don’t know why.” Gary cringed against the moisture glowing in his eyes.  “I don’t know.”

“And what happened next?  What happened after Reggie assaulted you—” Jack shot Reggie another look before bringing a much kinder gaze back to Gary.  “And asked you to take him home?”

Gary licked his lips, eyes falling.  He opened his mouth to speak, and then slammed it closed. 

“It’s okay,” Jack said, nodding.  “Take your time.”

“I started the car and tore out of the lot.”

“How fast were you driving?”

“I don’t remember.  The pedal was to the floor.  I remember that.”

“If the pedal was to the floor, you must have been moving pretty fast.  Even an old Cadillac will eventually reach a 100 mph under a teenager’s lead foot.”  Jack tilted his head.  “Were you crying?”

Gary raised his eyes to his.  “Yes.”

“Why?”

“I was in love with someone who couldn’t… who wouldn’t love me back.  The real question is… why
wouldn’t
I be crying?”

“Would you say you were crying hard, or soft?”

“I don’t know.”

“Of course you do.” Jack approached the stand slowly.  “Did you blink out a tear or two, and then choke the rest back?  Or did they flow like a waterfall?  Was it controlled, or was it hysterical?”

“Objection, Your Honor, compound questions.”

“Sustained.  Mr. Almeida, reel it in, please.”

Jack nodded.  “Gary, on a scale of one to ten, how hard were you crying?”

Gary’s eyes moved over Jack’s shoulder, and he locked eyes with Reggie.   “I was sobbing,” Gary said, moving his eyes back to Jack.  “Alright?  I’d just taken a fist to the mouth from the first person I ever… I ever
loved
… and I was annihilated, alright?  So, yes, I cried.  Hard.”

“While you were driving?”

“Yes.”

“With the pedal to the floor?”

“Yes.”

Jack turned away from the stand.  He caught sight of Reggie, once more, satisfied to find that he had his head in his hands in the pews, pressing the heels of his palms into his forehead.  Jack’s eyes glided across the room to the pews on the opposite side, where the Romanovsky family were all watching Gary with wide eyes.  Eyes filled with the kind of shock that could only exist when you’ve been blasted by a new revelation.  A new revelation regarding someone you thought you knew everything about.

Jack let the silence linger for nearly a minute, before turning back to Gary with a frown.  “How was your vision?”

Gary faltered.  “What?”

“Your eyesight,” Jack said, making his way slowly back to the bench as he motioned between his eyes with two fingers.  “Crying is painful, isn’t it?  Not just emotionally, but physically.  The tears, they burn your eyes, affect your vision, the world around you is reduce to a mere blur.”

“Objection, your honor.”

Jack ignored that.  “It must have been difficult to see where you were going when you had hysterical tears in your eyes, was it not?”

Gary went to answer, but the defense beat him to the punch.

“Objection, your honor!  Leading.”

“Overruled,” the judge frowned at the defense.  “Mr. Romanovsky, answer the question.”

Gary shrugged. “Yeah, I was crying hard, so I guess I couldn’t really see.”

“If you couldn’t see, why did you slam on the brakes when the Blacks stepped out into the street?”

Gary lifted his eyes and widened them at Jack.  Whose side was he on?

Jack leaned on the stand.  “You did slam down on the brakes, didn’t you?”

Gary sniffled.  “Yeah.”

“How did you know to stop, if your tears were blinding you?”

“Reggie.  He screamed.”

“What did he scream?”

“Stop!” Gary yelled, so loudly that it elicited a surprised gasp from every soul in the courtroom.

Jack nodded.  “When you slammed down, were the brakes responsive?”

Gary’s eyes fell to his lap, and he pushed his eyes closed.

***

10 Years Earlier

Gary’s hands shook with so much fervor he couldn’t get the key into the ignition.  It took three attempts before he was able to jam it in and start the car.  The old clunker had always needed at least ten full minutes to warm up appropriately, but that night, Gary didn’t have the luxury of waiting.

He tore away from the cliff, wheels kicking up dust, moving so fast that he had them back in their neighborhood in less than five minutes.  From the corner of his eye, Gary saw that Reggie was still pressed as far away from him as he could get on the passenger’s side, and he pressed the pedal to the floor even more.  Zooming down the familiar residential streets, he cut a strong right, only distantly aware that the brake was mushier than normal.  Caught in between his trembling body, the tears stinging his eyes, and even more than that, his shattered heart, Gary couldn’t give that fact more than a fleeting second of thought.

Gary thrust on the gas, taking another sharp right in his hurry to get home and away from the awful feeling taking over every bone in his body.  He’d heard about it, read about it, seen it on TV, but it was throwing him for a loop that it didn’t feel at all what he thought it would feel like.  The rejection.  The heartache.

It was so poignant that it was a struggle to recall the simple act of breathing.  Thinking a single sensible thought was a thing of the past, too.  All he could think was how badly he wanted to undo what he’d just done.

He blasted through a red light and made a left, which he knew was a shortcut to Reggie’s house. The tires screeched under the keen weight of the rapid turn.  Another red light blew by, this one blurred from the hot tears tumbling over Gary’s eyes.

He silently begged himself to stop crying.  Surely Reggie would never be able to look at him again without hearing the word ‘faggot’ in his head, and Gary felt he was only solidifying that with each tear that jetted down his cheek.  He just couldn’t stop it.

House by house blazed by in their quiet neighborhood, each more familiar than the last, and when it occurred to Gary that he was approaching his home—and Reggie’s, a sob left his throat, knowing it was the last time he’d ever see or speak to his best friend.  The humiliation and the pain both joined inside of him and took over every part of his body.

When Reggie spoke, some part of Gary hoped he was verbalizing his remorse.  That, even if he didn’t feel the same, punching him had been the wrong call.  That he wanted Gary to stop the car so they could talk about this.  That this wouldn’t be the last time they ever saw each other.

Gary wanted that so badly; he nearly made the words real in his mind.

Then, Reggie’s voice rose, and Gary heard what he was really saying.

“Stop!” Reggie screamed.  “Gary!”

When Gary threw his wide, shining eyes to the passenger’s seat, his tears flew with him. That was the last thing he remembered, the bubbles of moisture leaving his eyes and flying through the air, almost in slow motion, before his eyes shot back to the windshield.

And he saw it.

The couple in the middle of the street seemed just as shocked as Gary, and for a split second, they all met eyes.  Three wide, horrified pairs of eyes locked at the same time, realizing they were all on the precipice of something that would change their lives forever, and none of them with the power to stop it.

Gasping from the deepest pits of his stomach, Gary rammed the brake.  The scream that left his mouth was piercing enough to split the windshield glass. 

When the brakes didn’t respond, his ass left the driver’s seat in shock, and he stacked one foot on top of the other, pressing the brake to the floor.

But it was no use.

It happened in a split second, and as the car suddenly slowed, he knew it wasn’t the breaks that had slowed it down, but the bodies he’d just hit.

Only when the car moved to a slow crawl did Gary realize the screams splitting his ears weren’t Reggie’s, but his own.  They cried out together, backs pressed against their seats as if they wanted to climb under the fabric and vanish.

Chests heaving, their wide eyes were fixed to the red moisture splattered all over the windshield, along with the scattered, sticky remains of the people they’d just stuck, turning both their stomachs.

Still in a partial stupor, Reggie slammed a hand onto the center console and yanked up the parking break, bringing the car to a jolting halt.

Their bodies jerked forward at the sudden stop, necks bending forward to the point of breaking, unable to give even a second of their subconscious attention to the act of holding their heads up.  A stunned silence dominated the car, filled only by their vigorous gasps.

Shock dried the tears from Gary’s eyes, and he reached stoically for the car door.

Reggie clapped a hand around his arm.

Gary shot his wide gaze to him.  This time, there were tears in Reggie’s eyes too.  He shook his head no.

“Drive away,” Reggie whispered, his eyes going bigger.  “My father will kill me, Gar.  Drive away!”

Gary snatched his arm back.  He didn’t respond, throwing open the drivers door.  He stepped onto the street on wobbling legs, hesitating when he was halfway out.  Perhaps Reggie was right.  The street was empty.  It was the dead of night.  They still had time to leave the scene before it was too late.

Gary’s eyes flew to the rear of the car.  If he’d thought it was a lot of blood splattered on the windshield, it was only because he’d yet to lay eyes on the pool of blood collecting in the street.  A pool that left a trail straight to Marcus Blacks’ body, lying a few feet away.  A body that now housed a pair of wide-open brown eyes.  Those lifeless eyes were still, somehow, filled with horror, as if Marcus had known his fate before breathing his last breath.

Gary’s stomach fell to his feet, and his legs nearly gave out from under him, weakening him and causing him to fall back against the open door of the car.  The door hinges strained against his weight, and his hands went to the top of his head, curling his fingers into the soft cotton of his beanie.

“Fuck,” he wheezed, nearly ripping the beanie off.  His arms felt like they’d become disconnected from his body, and he was unable to stop himself from yanking at his t-shirt, clawing his nails into his arms, and shuffling his feet back and forth.

From inside the car, Reggie yanked at his t-shirt.  When he yanked with enough force to pull him back into the car, Gary leaned down and slammed his hands on the roof of the car, meeting Reggie’s eyes in the passenger’s seat.

“Get back in the fucking car!” Reggie screamed with the kind of hoarse desperation that showed he’d been screaming at Gary for quite a while.  “Please, Gary!  We will go to jail if you don’t get in this car right now.”

“I’m not driving away from these people,” Gary said, banging his hands on the roof again.  “Have you lost your mind?  We can’t drive away.”

Reggie leaned over the console, eyes anguished.  “If this gets out, my father will lose the election.  He’ll lose, and he’ll kill me, Gary….” Reggie brought his palms into the air and fisted them.  “Please.  We’ve got to get the fuck out of here, right now!”

Gary went to shake his head, but couldn’t finish the action.  He tried to speak, but only got halfway to that, too. 

He looked to the front of the car, and when he saw the woman he’d met earlier that night, the beautiful, elegant woman who’d been so kind to him in his foyer, lying several feet away from the bumper, her maroon lips illuminated by the headlights, he bent over on his knees and nearly vomited.

“Gary!” Reggie begged.

Somehow, in the madness of a sick stomach and his wild mind, Gary lifted one leg and set it back inside the car.

Reggie took a fierce hold of Gary’s jeans, egged on by his movement, and attempted to pull the rest of his body inside.

“Please, Gary.”

“This isn’t right,” Gary said, just quietly enough for himself to hear before he allowed Reggie to pull the rest of his body into the car.  The moments that followed made Gary feel like he’d gone blind.  He didn’t remember slamming the door closed or disengaging the parking break.  He didn’t remember pressing his foot back down on the pedal and accelerating.  He didn’t remember yanking the wheel to the left to avoid the body still lying on the road, and he didn’t remember speeding out of sight.

But he did remember what he said next.  What he said once he’d turned the corner, and those bodies were no longer in the rear view, blurred by his tears, taunting him, silently warning him.