Blindsided - A Stepbrother Romance Novel by Kylie Walker Read Free Book Online

you told me she was the one. I thought maybe you were going to propose to her last night…shit…” The look on Shawn’s face told Conrad that was exactly what he’d done. “She said no?”
    Shawn nodded. “She said no,” but not just “no for now and not “no thank you.” She said absolutely positively not…ever.”
    “Damn man, I’m sorry.”
    Shawn shrugged. “It’s cool. I’ll live.”
    Conrad didn’t want to push it. He could tell Shawn didn’t really want to talk about it. He could tell his friend was torn up. He wasn’t one to show his emotions. He was raised by a single mother with a piece of shit absent father and he stepped up at a young age to become the man of the house. He saw emotions as weakness and if there was one thing Shawn never wanted to be seen as was weak. It had taken him almost a year to work up his nerve to ask Lyndsey out. She was the bartender at the bar where the crew sometimes hung out after a race and one of their good friends, Casey worked as a server. Although Shawn wasn’t much of a drinker, he became a regular for a while. He dated her on and off for almost a year and although Conrad liked Lyndsey well enough, he never really thought they clicked. He didn’t tell his best friend that though, Shawn was head over heels in love with her. Conrad only hoped that he would be finished with her now before she hurt him even worse.
    Conrad looked at the engine Shawn was working on and said, “So what are we doing here?”
    Shawn seemed grateful for the change of subject and told Conrad, “Beau says we need to increase the torque.”
    Conrad nodded. Beau is a genius. He uses a computer and math to figure out what needs to be done to each one of their individual cars to increase their speed without burning up engine after engine. One of Beau’s favorite sayings is: No matter how you look at it, both horsepower and torque will always cross paths at exactly 5,252 rpm. Conrad understood the semantics of it without the math, but Beau liked to talk in numbers. He grabbed a wrench off the bench and the conversation turned light and jovial as they talked about the coming races and the antics of the rest of their crew.
    “Where is Beau?”
    Shawn shrugged. “Home, I guess. He text me last night and gave me the specifications to set the torque. I assume he’ll be by sooner or later.”
    Conrad pulled his eyebrows together and said, “Did he sound okay?”
    Shawn pulled his head up and looked at his friend. “I don’t know, it was a text.”
    “He didn’t come by last night?” Beau spent more time on Conrad and Shawn’s couch than he did at home. He had a raging drunk for a father who liked to beat on his son when life didn’t go his way. Beau never fought back and his mother never tried to stop his father from beating him. When he was seventeen one of his father’s beatings put him in ICU for two weeks. Although he was still a genius with numbers he hadn’t really been completely right otherwise since.
    “Shit,” Shawn said. “You don’t think…?”
    “I don’t know,” Conrad said. He took out his phone and called Beau. It went straight to voice mail. “Come on.” Shawn didn’t ask any questions, he just followed Conrad to the Charger and held on as Conrad floored it out of the lot. They made the twenty minute drive to Beau’s house in ten and before Conrad came to a complete stop Shawn had his door open and was stepping out. He jogged up to the door and by the time Conrad turned off the car and met him on the porch Beau’s mother was pulling open the door. She kept the security screen door closed between them.
    “Beau’s not here,” she said.
    “Where is he?” Conrad asked.
    “I don’t know…”
    “Miss Drinkwater if he’s hurt and needs help you need to tell us where he’s at.”
    She glanced over her shoulder nervously and in a whisper she said, “I think he went over to the clinic at St. George’s.”
    Shawn was looking at her like he wanted to