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.
Lyrik groaned when he picked up his cards.
“Looks like you’ve perfected that poker face.” I lifted a brow, taunted him a little, because the guy couldn’t win if he cheated.
He tossed his cards facedown on the table. “Damn it. I fold.”
Zee cracked up. “God, dude, I’m going to own you in about ten minutes if you keep that up. You might as well pass over the pin to your bank account.”
Lyrik leaned over the table and swatted Zee’s cards out of his hand. “There…you lose this round, too.”
“You’re just pissed someone half your age is kicking your ass.”
“Half my age?” Lyrik flew out of his chair, knocking it back, and lunged for Zee. “It’s your ass that’s getting kicked. You’re going down, buddy.”
Zee howled with laughter as he jumped from his chair and sprang back into the open area of the kitchen, bouncing around on his toes as he gestured with his hands for Lyrik to come and get him. The two of them boxed at each other, not really throwing blows, just messing around the way they always did.
“Come on, old man. You can do better than that,” Zee taunted when he ducked and Lyrik’s lazy punch landed nothing but air, and Ash and I were stifling our laughter at Zee’s over-confidence, because there was no doubt Lyrik could take him down in a second flat. Dude was not one to be fucked with.
But Lyrik would let Zee get away with murder. Hell, he’d probably help him.
Of course Zee was only five years younger than the rest of us. Twenty-one. Sometimes it felt like he was ages younger, still filled with all kinds of wide-eyed innocence, like he hadn’t yet come to accept the cold, hard truth of this world. You’d think after Mark, it would have hit him. But no. Here he was, living life to its fullest even when it threatened to suck the life out of the rest of us.