REBEL ROOK
An Everyday Heroes World Novel
Ren Alexander
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
COPYRIGHT PAGE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead are entirely coincidental.
© 2021 KB WORLDS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people.
Published by KB Worlds LLC.
Cover Design by: Ren Alexander
Cover Image by: Deposit Photos
Editing by: Lori Garside
Formatting by: Ren Alexander
Published in the United States of America
Introduction
Dear Reader,
Welcome to the Everyday Heroes World!
I’m so excited you’ve picked up this book! Rebel Rook is a book based on the world I created in my USA Today bestselling Everyday Heroes Series. While I may be finished writing this series (for now), various authors have signed on to keep them going. They will be bringing you all-new stories in the world you know while allowing you to revisit the characters you love.
This book is entirely the work of the author who wrote it. While I allowed them to use the world I created and may have assisted in some of the plotting, I took no part in the writing or editing of the story. All praise can be directed their way.
I truly hope you enjoy Rebel Rook. If you’re interested in finding more authors who have written in the KB Worlds, you can visit www.kbworlds.com.
Thank you for supporting the writers in this project and me.
Happy Reading,
K. Bromberg
For Breonna
Chapter 1
“Goddamn it to hell! What the fuck do I have to do to get a blow job around here?”
“Don’t look at me. I’m not touching your junk.” Jordan—my blurry opponent-in-crime and front-row booing section, who is more of an upstanding citizen than me—swigs from her bottle of water, shaking her head and bouncing her multi-colored braids.
“Pussy is a dime a dozen.” Like I would know.
“Says the guy who just got dumped.”
“No way! You know what? I dumped her! That fucking bitch can fall into the James River, and I wouldn’t save her skank ass!” I slam the empty bottle down onto the sidewalk, and it shatters.
“Oops,” Jordan mutters as I shake my wet hand, surprised I didn’t cut myself. “And then you got fired.”
“Not fired. Resigned.”
“Not lying. In denial.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
Restless, I abandon the bench next to Boat Lake and angrily pace, having nowhere to go. Shoving my hand into my hair, I glare at the water. Another failure. Another disappointment. I can’t get my life together for shit. I’m tired of being a cautionary tale. I’m the poster boy for the National Fucktard Association.
“You haven’t told me why Audrey dumped you.”
Abruptly spinning and marching back to Jordan, I laugh. “Get this shit. She said I have no ambition or future mapped out for myself. Like she has room to brag. She works at a law firm as an overrated minion.”
“She’s studying to be a paralegal, isn’t she?”
“Whatever. Audrey’s not the model of righteousness. We met at seventeen while on probation, doing community service. Remember?” They nailed her for skipping too much school. Probation scared her straight. Me, not so much. They extended mine for underage drinking on public property, three weeks before my eighteenth birthday.
“What was it you did again? Oh yeah, you slashed your teacher’s tire.”
“If I were back in school, I’d do it again. Prick tried to fail me.”
“And she broke up with you, when? Before work?”
“That would’ve been too nice of her! I was returning from a piss break to unload a truck when she walked into the store.”
“Audrey ended it right then and there?”
“No. She asked me to take a break and pulled me outside in front of the store.”
Jordan shakes her head. “At least she didn’t break up with you yesterday, I guess. Did she give you a birthday gift?”
I grimly laugh. “A fuck me and then a fuck off.”
“That’s ice cold.”
“What’s cold is she made me wait almost a damn year to get any.”
“Well, you stayed with her.” I glare at Jordan as I grab another beer but don’t have a worthwhile comment to add. “You were together for more than a minute.”
“She wasted two years and nine fucking months of my damn life!”
Jordan chugs from her water bottle and then scrunches her face. “I can’t believe you dated her for that long. She’s prissy.”
I nod but then argue, “No, she’s not.”
Laughing, she waves her bottle in the air. “Then, I guess if she stole your virginity…”
I flip her off. “Shut up.”
“Sorry.” She bites her lip, holding back more laughter, and I turn away from her.
The more I talk, the more rage stews my blood. I storm around, pant, and grit my teeth until my face hurts. How could Audrey do this to me? Maybe I didn’t already have a future lined up, but I was working on it. Sorta. While she started college, I skipped it, or, as I fed to my parents, “I deferred.” Yeah, I’m smart—pocket-protector-nerd level—but I don’t want people to know that shit. I could have aced all of my classes, even fucking world history. In grade school, kids bullied me. So, in high school, I became a loner to hide who I didn’t want to be anymore. When I was fourteen, my mother took a job and moved us to Richmond, Virginia. Jordan is the first and only friend I’d made when we moved here, but even she doesn’t know what I got on the SAT or that I avoided honors classes like the plague. My parents threatened to hijack my car if I didn’t pick a school and take the damned exam, but I have no interest in college. None. It’s for people like Audrey who want to waste time and money like I did, dating her.
“There are other fish in the—” Jordan gulps water and motions to the water, “lake.”
“Are you seriously flinging that bullshit at me? I don’t give a flying fuck about finding another girlfriend! I’m finally free!” I clap and hoot but feel no joy.
Jordan rolls her eyes and giggles. “Bet you’
ll be at her front door tomorrow.”
“Fuck you!” My eyes sting, so I rub the heels of my hands over them. She’s probably right. I miss Audrey already, and I’m halfway to smashed. I’m supposed to be numb, but I can’t get drunk right, either. Damn it, I’m the loser Audrey says I am. No wonder she doesn’t want me.
Thinking about a lonely tomorrow, the fury ebbs and despair floods me like a tsunami. Suddenly, I gasp for sudden air, and my throat constricts. “I’m alone,” I whine. “She’s my ex-girlfriend.” Again, I wheeze for air as I stumble backward. Memories slam me. I remember when Nico, my probation officer, introduced me to the prettiest girl I’d ever seen. She’d had me tongue-tied and feeling shit I never thought possible. I was a mess for months. I had almost asked her out after we’d both attended Richmond sports anchor and fellow church volunteer Finn Wilder’s wedding, but I chickened out. I didn’t grow a pair until four months later, on the last day of her probation community service. I knew that was my last chance. So, I asked her out in the church parking lot before we left. We double-dated with Jordan and her girlfriend on our first two dates, and since I was a pussy, Audrey kissed me first on our third date.
“Dylan, I really want to kiss you.”
“Uh, then kiss me.”
Gripping the beer bottle, I full-blown sob. “Audrey told me she loved me when we fucked yesterday! How could she lie to me, lying beneath me?”
“Dylan. Oh, God. You’re so good. I love you. Don’t you love me?”
“You know I do.”
Jordan cringes. “You’ll make me cry. Calm down.”
“And then we came at the same damn time! That’s like Lifetime Movie Channel-worthy shit!”
The more I drink, the more painful my memories—like how we were both virgins at nineteen. Maybe I’d been too picky, but I hadn’t liked anyone enough yet to roll around naked with them. The first time I saw Audrey I immediately wanted her on my dick.
But hell, I thought she’d never be ready. One year, four months, and twelve days of endless blue-balls, icy showers, and jerking off. I refused to cheat. I wanted to be with her, but I almost enrolled in a monastery to curb my urges. Audrey had blown me, but they were few and far between, uninspired, and nearly anti-climactic. And then, on a hot July day, while helping her mother move, we stayed behind at the house to finish taping up the last boxes. I made a joke, and Audrey pushed me onto the bed. When she climbed on top of me and went for my lips, I held on to her hips, desperately trying to restrain myself like I usually did. My eyes popped open when Audrey pulled down the front of my shorts, humping me through hers until we were both panting. I was traversing a fiery high wire without a safety net in every literal way imaginable.
“Fuck, you need to stop doing that,” I panted and then groaned, “I mean, don’t fucking stop.”
“Come inside me, Dylan. I’m ready. Let’s lose our virginities to each other.”
“Yes,” I hissed.
Taking off her pants, Audrey had straddled me. Before she changed her mind, I grabbed her hips and drove into her. I never thought about her having to be wet, but that hadn’t been a problem.
“Dylan!”
“Son of a bitch. God, you feel…I want to explode in your pussy.”
We didn’t know how to do it, and we didn’t have a condom, but we didn’t care. Nothing about it was slow or romantic. I didn’t ask if she was okay, and I sure as shit never wanted to stop—but Audrey hadn’t stopped, either. We had frantically fucked on her mother’s queen-sized bed. In those ten minutes, the bed squeaked, we screeched, and we bruised each other’s arms and hips. She came that first time, surprisingly before I did. It had been such a soul-rocking experience that the neighbors congratulated us afterward.
“Dylan, why’d I wait so long? I want more.”
“Me too. We’re done moving boxes.”
I shook my head, dispelling the memory. “What the hell do I do now, Jordan?”
Jordan’s brown eyes grow with panic, like she doesn’t know what to do or say. “Dylan, you’re better off—”
“I’m not! You want to know why I waited for her?” Jordan swiftly shakes her head, but before she speaks, I lose it. “Because from the first second we met, I fucking loved her! I would do anything for Audrey Culpepper! I would’ve waited for two years! I’ll even go to damn college!” For what, I have no fucking idea.
Jumping from her perch on the top of a metal bench, she again swings her waist-length braids. “Hell, no, Dylan! Do you even hear yourself? If you were sober, you’d kick your own ass for saying that shit.”
Losing my breath and my mind, I grip the bottleneck and hurl it into the brick concession stand, splashing beer everywhere with the crisp shattering of glass. Closing my eyes, I clasp the back of my neck and yell due to the radiating physical pain. What in the fuck did I expect Audrey to do? Wait an eternity for me to buy a clue?
Jordan throws her hands on top of her head. “Shit! Dylan!”
Blinking away tears, I notice red and blue lights bouncing off the windows and reflecting off the lake. Rubbing my wet face, I grab Jordan’s wrist and yank her with me as I head for the other side of the lake.
“McGrath?” I stop, recognizing the voice. Shit.
Jordan hisses, “Why’re we stopping?”
Letting go of her arm and keeping my hands out to my sides, I slowly turn—I’ve been through this song and dance too many times.
From the cruiser, I hear, “Damn. Not again.”
I mutter, “Fuck. Not again.”
Shaking his head and leaving the driver’s door open, Officer Ricky Tesco approaches me. The tall Hispanic man with unwieldy dark hair was Finn Wilder’s best man, which is how we met, and he’s plagued my life ever since. Without his usual grin, he frowns while chomping on gum. Ricky glares as he walks but rolls his eyes when he reaches us. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Nothing. Just hanging out.”
“Jesus. I’m no idiot. I can smell the alcohol on your breath, and you’re slurring.” He looks at my reluctant accomplice. “Hey, Jordan. You want to tell me what’s going on? You know you don’t drink in the park.”
“I’m not drunk. Just had a couple.” I’ve lost count. I stand straight, but the ground tilts, and I lose my balance. Jordan grabs my arm and grumbles something about me being a limp dick.
Ricky shakes his head. “Well, that just proved my point.” He turns to Jordan. “Have you been drinking, too?”
She holds up her bottled water. “Nope. Stone sober.”
Ricky turns back to me as I lean against Jordan and push against her until she loses her balance. She recovers faster than I do, and Ricky reaches out to catch me before I fall. “Jesus, McGrath. I’ll lose my fucking job if I keep bailing out your ass. I should arrest you, and I don’t give a damn who your mother is. Maybe then it’ll stick.”
Jordan pushes my arm when I fall against her again, saying, “He got fired.”
With his hands on his hips, Ricky nods to the ground with a sigh. “Again? Fuck. Sorry. That sucks, but—”
“Audrey broke up with me.”
He looks surprised, maybe. “Shit. Really? When?”
I hang my head. “This morning.”
“The day after your birthday?”
Jordan blabs, “Yeah, and she even rode his pony into the sunset.”
“What the fuck, Jordan?” I push against her, but she shoves back, and I stumble.
She snickers, “Just saying.”
“Okay. It’s late.” Ricky nods again at Jordan. “Did you bring him here?”
“He called me, so I picked him up from his apartment because he wanted to come here. I didn’t know he had alcohol in his backpack.”
“Backpack? You’re not in school.”
“No, shit. Can’t I carry one for spare clothes and my lunch?”
Ricky shrugs, “Makes sense.” He turns to Jordan. “You should head home. I’ll take it from here.”
I throw up my hands, “Come on, T
esco! You’re not taking me to jail!”
Ricky says something to Jordan I can’t hear, and she smiles. To me, she says, “Your backpack’s in my car. I’ll get it to you. Night, Dylan. I’ll call you. And I’m sorry about…”
“Don’t.” I sniff and watch her walk to her white SUV.
Ricky reaches for his handcuffs, dangling them from his black, fingerless-gloved hand. “You think I won’t take you to jail? That’s so funny.”
“I know you would.” My damn eyes water, and he grabs my arm and leads me to his lit-up car.
Opening the passenger door on the driver’s side, he slings his arm over the edge of the door. “Get in.”
“Are you fucking serious? Come on! Not today of all days! I’m sorry, Ricky! I don’t know what to fucking do!” I slur as I blubber.
“Get in the damn car, Dylan.”
Ricky lightly shoves me, and I trip into the back seat before he closes the door. He then goes to the bench for my remaining beer. Looking around, the cage between the front and back seats is jarring, as are the computer and equipment with the radio voice coming from somewhere. As much shit as I’ve done, I never thought I’d end up in the back of one of these fuckers.
When Ricky returns, the cruiser jumps as he slams the trunk. Sliding into the driver’s seat, he talks into his radio as he drives out of the park. He tells it he’s taking me home. Not to jail.
After talking to dispatch, Ricky’s quiet until he says, “Dylan, something has to change, man. Since I met you, you’ve been heading down a path I don’t like.”
“You’re not the first to tell me that, so save it.”
His voice hardens. “Well, I’ll be the last to tell you. That’s for damn sure.” He frowns at me in the rearview. “Every time you get into trouble, I’m there to the rescue. And I’ve been way too easy on you over the years. You should’ve been to jail at least twice by now.”
I stare out the window. “What the fuck do you want me to say about it?”
“I want you to take fucking responsibility for your life.”
“You sound like my ex-girlfriend.” Tears stream down my face, but I’m too buzzed to care.
“I know it’s hard, but now is the time to get your ass in gear and do something. Prove to yourself and maybe Audrey that you can.”
Rebel Rook: An Everyday Heroes World Novel (The Everyday Heroes World) Page 1