He shrugged his too-skinny shoulders, his tone way less than enthused. “I’m alive.”
I flinched and he dropped his head. “Sorry,” he said toward the ground, dangling his hands between his knees.
“Don’t do that to me, Austin. I can’t lose you. Don’t you get that? After everything? It’d kill me.”
It was a load to put on his shoulders. But I needed him to know his value. That maybe it felt like this entire world was against him, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t the center of mine.
“Why? All I do is ruin shit.”
“You’ve made mistakes. Just like the rest of us. It doesn’t mean we love you any less.”
He scoffed. “Right. Why don’t you ask Dad how much he loves me?”
I shut down the growl that clamored around in my chest. That piece of shit didn’t deserve to call Austin his son. “Wasn’t talking about him. He doesn’t love anyone.” Not even himself. “I’m talking about me. The guys. None of us blames you for any of this.”
He squeezed his hands into fists, puffed a breath out into the humid air. He turned to look at me with tormented grey eyes, dim and drained and full of despair. “I want to live up to that, Baz. I do. But I don’t know if I know how.”
“This isn’t an issue of you living up to it. It’s an issue of you accepting it.”
His throat wobbled when he swallowed like he was trying to swallow down his emotion. “I’m trying.”
“I know, man. I know.” I climbed to my feet and clapped him on the shoulder. I faced the house while he stared out toward the sea. I knew he was lost in the same memories that would haunt both of us for the rest of our lives. “You can’t live in the past anymore,” I murmured quietly, gripping him tightly, like maybe it would help me get through to him.
He watched out over the cresting waves. “No? Then maybe I’ll follow you out of it.”
A shiver rolled down my spine at his insinuation.
Because it was Austin who didn’t deserve to be stuck there.
Not when I was the one who belonged to it.
Ash flicked a bottle cap clear across the kitchen. Dude landed it in the garbage. He proceeded to down half the beer as he turned back to the rest of us who sat around the table, smacking his lips with a big ah when he slammed it down on the table, blue eyes filled with mischief. Just like they always were.
Amused, I shook my head at him and took a sip of my beer. “Anthony’s gonna cut your balls off if you mess up his house. Better watch yourself.”
“Nah…Anthony loves me. Besides, you know me better than to think I’m gonna miss.”
“Oh, the skills you have.”
Ash laughed. “Add it to my resume…awesome bass player, hot with the ladies, not so bad with words, so-so voice—kickass bottle cap flicker.”
“Thinking awful highly of yourself there,” I teased, pushing the sole of my shoe to his shin under the table, nudging him back.
He shrugged like the cocky asshole he was, and was doing his best not to bust up laughing. “What? I’m trying to be modest here.”
I looked at him over my bottle that was poised at my mouth. “Right.”
Lyrik stretched back in his chair, scratching at his bare stomach. “Come on, are we going to play or what? Deal some cards, man,” he said, pointing at Ash, before he turned his finger to poke in Zee’s direction. “I need to win my money back from this asshole.”
“Yeah, man.” Zee’s entire face lifted with the challenge and he whacked both his hands on the tabletop. “Let’s do this.”
The guys were always giving each other shit. Constantly. But the four of us? We were family. Brothers. Didn’t matter that we didn’t have the same blood running through our veins. Loyalty ran thick, and I’d learned a long time ago sometimes that bond mattered more.
The three of them and my baby brother?
They were the only family I needed.
The only family I wanted.
Everyone threw their ante into the center of the table, while Ash shuffled and dealt.