Chapter Five
DREW
Harry laughed from his rocking chair on the porch. The sun highlighted every weather-worn crease on his skin, and his eyes twinkled with mischief as he let his cigarette dangle from his thin lips.
Pete was sitting on the top step, throwing a ball to some kid I could only hear, not see, and Pete’s head came back whenever his laughter shook his entire body.
Deeks, Jedd, Slater, Kenny, and Tate were there, each of them lingering and passing by with mutterings, quips, and sarcastic comments being thrown around in the air like an endless game of word ping pong. The yard smelled of warmth—a ridiculous thing to register, but it did. Whoever had been cooking on the barbeque behind me had created a feast that tinged the oxygen around us, making it feel like we were wrapped in an invisible security blanket.
We were home.
All of us.
“You’ve not said a word,” Harry croaked, coughing lightly on that damn smoke in his mouth. His eyes found mine, and I noticed they were a different color to how I’d remembered them. They were silver now, his skin pinker, too, his smile a lot brighter than ever before.
“Drew doesn’t speak much anymore, Harry, remember? He’sworking on being the brooding silent type,” Pete called out over his shoulder.
I looked at him, too, and huffed out a barely-there laugh. He was throwing this ball back and forth, pointing directions at someone I couldn’t see… they were too far out of my peripheral vision, and I was trapped, focusing on the two main guys in front of me.
“You gotta work on your catch, kiddo!” Pete called. I wanted to turn to see who the kid was, but I couldn’t. I was caught in some kind of tunnel vision that would only let me see so much around me.
Then Ayda stepped out from the front door of The Hut, wearing her tight jeans, a thin white tank, and a sexy little apron around her waist. I looked up to take her in, noticing the way her hair had tinged gray at the roots, and her eyes were cradled by more lines than I remembered her having.
My whole face lit up at the sight of her.
Age had made her even more beautiful.
How was that possible?
“Baby, don’t do that!” she called out to the kid Pete was playing with. “You can’t give your Uncle Pete the middle finger. What’s Mama told you? Have some manners.”
“It is kinda funny, though.” Pete chuckled, and the sight of him laughing made my chest tighten. The smile on my lips was making my cheeks ache, but I was also filled to the brim with emotion that wanted to pour free.
Almost thirty years of emotion.
My face fell at once, the need to cry like a fucking child threatening to ruin it all.
As if they could sense it, Harry, Pete, and Ayda all turned their attention my way. I looked from one to the other in a panic, my heart beating faster and the hairs on the back of my neck standing to attention. I wanted to move, to get out of the chair and fucking do something. Shout, scream, release all of this energy, or maybe throw a punch at a swinging bag, but I was trapped, pinned in place by something I couldn’t fight.
“Here he goes,” Harry muttered under his breath.
“Baby...” Ayda whispered, taking a step closer and bending down to me.
I ran my hands over my thighs to get rid of the sweat collecting there, and I rocked back and forth in my own seat, not knowing where to go or what to do.
Pete rose, the click of his knees making him groan and stumble to the side before he released a laugh and rolled his eyes.
“Don’t say it, Pete,” Harry warned.
“He needs to hear it,” Pete answered, keeping his eyes trained down on me.
I glanced up at him through unshed tears, feeling like a pussy and hating the way it felt impossible to fucking breathe.
I just needed to breathe.
“Oh, boy.” Harry sighed, pushing himself to pick up the momentum in his chair. He drew in a long inhale of his smoke, releasing it out into a cloud around him, but I was focused on Pete. My brother who wasn’t my brother. The only brother I’d ever needed.
His hand landed on my shoulder, and he leaned down closer.