Chapter 5
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’s working 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.
“Drew…” he said quietly.
“Yeah,” I croaked, relieved that I could say anything at all.
A slow smile crept onto his face, his eyes shining with a knowledge I’d never imagine possessing in my lifetime. His fingers squeezed my shoulder tightly, and I only wished he would wrap his fucking arms around me and give me one of those hugs I’d missed for so many damn years.
“Don’t worry, kid. It isn’t time yet.”
“It isn’t?” I asked breathlessly.
Pete shook his head. “You’re too soon. Get out of here. We’ll see you when you’re ready.”
“When will that be?”
Pete smirked, his mouth parted as his answer began to fall free...
And just like that, my eyes flew open, and I gasped for air.
I was sprawled close to the edge of the bed, my face squished on one side, and one eye closed while the other looked up to see a fucking angel standing above me.
Ayda.
She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth as she watched me. Both hands were behind her back, and her cheeks were flushed under the swelling and darkening bruises. She seemed frozen for a moment before her bright blue eyes sparkled and she sank to her knees beside the bed so our faces were level.
“Did I wake you?”
“Erm…” My voice wasn’t working—my mind yet to wake up. “I don’t know,” I answered honestly, blinking and squinting the one eye that was open as I looked at her. “What time is it?”
Ayda glanced at the clock at the side of the bed and grinned. “Almost one in the afternoon. You looked peaceful when I got up, so I left you where you were and ran some errands with Kenny.”
“Fuck, what? Fuck, fuck. I need to… Jedd… I need to find…”
“Nothing’s changed. Still slow moving. Howard sent Sloane over to let us know Jedd is fine.
Spent the night in a cell, and he’s been fed, but that’s all he knows.
” Ayda shuffled on her knees. “Before we take care of that business, I thought we may want some answers, so I had Kenny tail me to town, and I got…” She placed a box between us on the mattress and tapped the top nervously before removing her trembling hand.
I pushed myself up, leaning on one arm as I spun the box around with my other hand.
A pregnancy test.
I looked up at her quickly, my eyes holding hers, seeing the hope shining back at me.
She wanted this.
Ayda had already decided it was real in her mind—now she needed confirmation from her body.
I wasn’t sure I could console her if it had all been nothing more than a wild thought, a dream she’d wished to be true. That was a different kind of grief.
“Now?” I asked her quietly.
She looked down at her hands before fidgeting again “It doesn’t have to be. I just thought—”
“Do you want it to be now?”
Ayda shuffled closer and folded her arms on the edge of the mattress, resting her chin on the back of her hands as she met my eyes.
“I need to know for sure.”
I glanced down at the test sitting between us. It held all the answers we needed to carry on as we were or build new foundations around us to prepare for a life I could never have imagined.
The nerves fluttering away in my stomach were a feeling I’d never experienced before. This was real fear. I’d faced death, murder, prison, grief… everything the world could ever throw at me, and I’d never felt the weight of it like this before.
Pushing the test closer to her, I caught her eye. “What do you need me to do? Where do you need me to be?”
“I have to pee on the stick. But you can do the waiting patiently thing with me. I’m nervous.”
I swung my legs from the bed, and shuffled to the edge of the mattress, pulling her to me carefully. I held her face in between my hands and dropped my forehead against hers.
“I’ve never been so scared in all my fucking life.”
“Did you mean what you said last night? Old and gray?”
“You’ve got me until I’m a wrinkled silver fox, darlin’.”
“Then I’ll be right back.” Tipping her head, she pressed her lips against mine and reached for the box, pulling it against her chest as she slipped from my grip and rose to her feet. She took a moment to run her hands through my hair before padding to the bathroom, doing her best not to rush.
I didn’t release a breath until I watched her disappear inside the bathroom, but once she was out of sight, I planted my elbows on my knees and dropped my face into the palms of my hand.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Was I about to be a father?
Was this it?
Could I be what any child of Ayda’s would deserve?
Goosebumps trailed up my body from my toes to the back of my neck until they invaded my head and made me feel cold.
Yet my heart beat harder and harder, a flood of warmth preparing to flow out to contradict it.
There were so many emotions floating around, and I was worried about Ayda feeling disappointed if it turned out to be negative after all.
But among the chaos of my thoughts and the mixed reactions of my body, one thing above all else stood out.
And I dragged my hands down my face, resting my fingertips on the edge of my open mouth as I realized what that one thing was.
I wanted this, too.
I wanted this to be real.
I wanted a son or daughter. I wanted a chance to prove I could do it. I wanted something to love from the very beginning, something that was mine, something that was both of us.
I wanted this so badly that I was scared I was about to be crushed with a negative.
I wanted a forever.
For her…
And for me.