Sweet Hope (Sweet Home #4)(81)

Both of my brothers had their heads down, but when they heard the door open, Austin looked up, a stony expression on his face.

“What’s all this?” I asked, feeling the temperature in the room drop about fifty degrees.

Austin got to his feet and walked over to stand at the bottom of the stairs, arms crossed over his chest.

When his eyes met mine, I could see how much pain he was in. I almost moved forward to wrap my arm around his shoulders to ask him what was wrong, but the shitty way he was looking at me kept me rooted to the floor.

Austin lifted his foot, and rested it on top of my bag. “Went to the fish market this morning, Axe, the one you said you were working at.”

The blood drained from my face.

“Yeah, Axe. The market where the managers had no f*cking idea who I was talking about.”

Austin looked down at Levi. Levi kept his head down, his hands gripping his hair.

I opened my mouth to explain, but—

“I couldn’t believe it, Axe, so I went to every market I could find. None of them knew you. None of them. One of them remembered seeing someone of your description. He said he thought he’d seen you hanging around, but you sure as hell weren’t working.”

Austin clawed at his dark hair, his eyes shining. Meeting my eyes again, he said, “I thought there had to be some mistake. There had to be, because my brother had changed. He’d got out of prison five years early and was doing real good. He was a different guy than the one who used to be Heighter tight.” He pulled in a ragged breath and his face flushed red with his pain.

I stepped forward. “I—”

“Then I get home, f*cking talking myself out of what I prayed wasn’t true, and I go into your room, hoping you’d be there to explain all this shit. You weren’t, as always. So I started going through your stuff, looking for some reason why you’d lied to me. Lied to all of us for f*cking months!”

Austin reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out the second bag of coke I’d bought after his game. I must have left it in my jeans.

My stomach fell, and I instantly knew what they were thinking.

“You’re dealing again, Axe? After everything?” Austin’s face contorted in a mix of both anger and pain. He threw the bag of coke at my feet.

I struggled to breathe as I stared at it. As I looked up, Austin was staring at me, all anger gone, just crushing disappointment on his face. But I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t get my head around how I’d come here today to tell them about my show. Instead my kid brothers were asking me to explain why I wasn’t at the market, why I had this coke, and of course they immediately thought the worst.

Austin suddenly pushed my duffel bag to my feet. “I came to see you today to tell you that you’re gonna be an uncle, a Zio, Axe. Lexi’s pregnant. We’ve been trying for two years but because of the damage to her body through her anorexia, they weren’t sure we’d be able to ever have kids. She woke me up this morning to tell me I was gonna be a papa. A f*cking papa, Axe. Against the odds, we’re having a baby. It’s a f*cking miracle… and the only two people I couldn’t wait to tell were you and Lev.”

My heart beat faster… Austin was gonna be a papa.

A f*cking thrilled smile pulled on my lips, but Austin didn’t see it, he was too busy glaring at the floor.

“I can’t have you here no more, Axe. I got more important things than you to consider now.” His dark eyes met mine. “I need you to leave. I can’t have my baby, my wife, dragged into all the dealing and gang shit… my kid’s gotta have a better life than we did… they’ve gotta be safe. We all need to be safe.”

Levi lifted his head, his eyes bloodshot, his face pale and he rushed up the stairs.

“Lev… I can exp—”

Levi immediately stopped on the stairs, but never looked back. “You swore to me you wouldn’t do anything to take you away from us again. I let you in, I opened my heart to you again, and you have to f*ck it all up! I let you in, Axe… and now I’ve lost you again…” he snapped and disappeared from sight. Austin turned his back on me and walked up after Levi.

Feeling real fear run through my veins, I stepped forward and called, “Aust…” but my foot landed on the bag of coke, busting the f*cking thing open all over the floor.

Austin, hearing the bag split, sighed and, without looking back, said, “Just leave, Axe. Just f*cking leave…”

My entire body filled with ice at how cold those words sounded coming from his mouth. I looked down at the mess of coke at my feet and felt nothing but shame… shame that I’d had a moment of weakness and bought this coke all those weeks ago.

But I was so f*cking angry they hadn’t heard me out.

They didn’t even f*cking let me speak.

Turning on my heel, I left my bag of clothes where it was and f*cking raced outta the house, my head reeling.

What the f*ck was I thinking in coming back here?

I was done. So f*cking done with trying to make shit right.

I drove my Camino fast through the falling rain—a perfect f*cking reflection of my mood—and headed for my studio. In my rush to tell Austin and Levi about my art, I’d brought nothing with me, not even my damn wallet or cell. I was getting them and then getting the f*ck outta Seattle. And I wanted Ally to come with me. Just her, me, and the f*cking road.