Chapter 5
FIVE
Bryson
“Are you sure you’ll be alright? You can come home with me if you want.”
She shakes her head. “I’m fine, seriously, you need to chill, Bry, it’s just a cold. It’s barely even a cold, it’s a coh .”
“Are you sure you don’t want to come stay a couple of days at my place until you’re better?”
She rolls her eyes, in true Carley fashion. “Oh, yeah, I’d love to give up my cushy super king bed so I can come sleep on your couch.”
“You’d take my bed. Obviously.”
She grimaces. “Ew. I hate to think what’s gone on in there.”
“You really would dread knowing, peanut,” I tease.
“Gross. No thank you. I can’t leave Mum here all alone anyway, she just wanders around like a lost puppy when Dad’s away for work.”
I didn’t know he was away for work. Truthfully, I know very little when it comes to my father. We haven’t seen eye to eye for years, and it shows. We barely speak anymore.
“Oh yeah, where’s he gone again? I forgot,” I lie.
For someone so observant, Carley doesn’t seem to be aware of the virtually non-existent relationship between me and our dad. She’ll talk and chat about him, with what seems to be no grasp of the fact that I couldn’t care less.
As long as he’s not wherever I am, then that suits me just fine.
“He had to go to Perth, remember? He’s gone for a month. Only been gone a day.”
“Right, right.” I nod.
These trips to Australia have been getting more and more frequent, if my mother’s whinging text messages over the past few months are anything to go by. They also seem to be getting longer each time. First it was for a few days, then a week, now we’re up to a month. Mum used to go with him all the time, but she’s being left behind more often now. The old man probably has a whole other secret family over there or something .
I wouldn’t put something like it past him.
“And anyway, Brent is coming over soon to watch a movie with me. I told him not to, just in case he gets sick, but he said that I’m worth a sore throat and snotty nose.”
I can tell that pleases her. She’s such a girl.
“And they say romance is dead,” I drawl.
Brent is a good guy. I like the kid, I do, as much as any protective big brother likes their little sister’s boyfriend. He is a genuinely nice guy though – I know I can trust him with Carley. I just don’t want to know about a single thing past hand holding. That’s a no-go zone for me. I saw a kiss on the lips the other day and I had to leave the room. A guy has his limits.
She’s still my little baby sister in my eyes.
Mostly I’m just glad that Carley has someone here when I can’t be. Someone big and strong enough to take care of her if she needs it.
It makes me feel better about not having the strength to remain living in this house.
“I know right?” She grins before coughing her head off.
Delightful. “That Brent is a lucky guy.”
“Shut up.” She glares at me.
We both watch a bit of the show she has on, the silence between us as comfortable as ever. My mind drifts to where it’s been for the past hour. Sophia.
“Guess who I ran into today? ”
“Who?” I’m about to answer her when she cuts me off. “ Wait , I bet I know. You’d never bother mentioning anyone else.” She narrows her eyes as she tries to think. “That quiet girl who was your year at school… The one you were in love with for like, ever. What was it… Sophie or something?”
Well damn, the little shit got it in one . Maybe I’m not as slick as I think I am.
“Sophia,” I correct her. “And I wasn’t in love with her.”
“Yeah, okay ,” she replies sarcastically.
I know better than to bother arguing, instead I’m going to try and blow past it. “But yeah, I ran into her in the supermarket this morning. Do you ever see her around?”
She shakes her head. “Haven’t seen her since like… probably the last day of school when you guys finished up. I heard she had a kid to that creep from your rugby team though. That’s gotta sting, bro.”
I ignore the last comment. “You’ve never seen her and her daughter around, or heard anything about her?”
I know Sophia is quiet, but surely Carley knows something. This town is small .
“No. Do I look like a PI to you? What makes you think I would have kept tabs on some teen mum?”
“Nothing.” I shake my head. “Reign in the hormones, it was just a question. I thought you might have been in the know, being the gossip queen we know you are.”
“I only gossip with my friends about things that are actually interesting .” She sniffs.
Well, burn . Guess me and my questions aren’t cool enough to be relevant anymore. Good to fucking know.
“Well, I apologise for boring you.”
“So, what did she say to you? Did she have her kid with her? Was it cute?”
I raise one brow at her in question. So much for being boring.
“ What ? I said I only gossip with my friends about interesting stuff. I can gossip about anything with you.”
“How lucky am I,” I reply dryly.
She snaps her fingers at me, urging me to get on with it.
“Yeah, she had her daughter with her. She’s gorgeous. Looks just like Sophia. Like she put herself through the dryer. It was… weird. Cutest kid I’ve ever seen.”
Carley is the only person I talk to like this. Fuck, she’s probably the only person I talk to, period. She’s my sister and I love her more than anything on this fucked-up planet, but even she doesn’t know me the way she thinks she does. Maybe one day when she’s older, I’ll tell her everything, or maybe she’ll grow into a woman perceptive enough to know when I’m not telling her everything, but for now, she’s not only my sister, she’s also my closest confidant and my best friend.
“Ah… I see .”
“See what?” I question.
“That you weren’t just in love with her back then… technically you’re still in love with her now.”
“I’m not in love with her, Carley.”
“Whatever you say, pal, but I know you, and you don’t give two shits about no one. Except that girl. Always have.”
“I give a shit about you. And the boys.”
She rolls her eyes for what I think might be the six hundredth time today. I’ll have to tell her she’s over doing it.
“When was the last time you talked to Cullen and Pax?” She’s looking at me in question, but she doesn’t stop talking long enough to actually get an answer. “I bet you haven’t spoken to either of them in weeks – or whenever they last called you. You’re a weirdo recluse… no offence.”
“You’re mean when you’re sick.”
“I’m honest .”
“We’re not even talking about me. You asked about Sophia and her baby, and I told you.”
“If you say so. Is she still with that loser that knocked her up?”
I shrug. I know they live together. I didn’t actually ask, but I assume so. “I dunno. Guess so. ”
“He creeps me out. Never did or said anything to me, but the vibes were off, massively . Me and my friends hated it when he came to your parties.”
That’s not really what I want to be hearing. I mean, fuck, I know Tonksy isn’t exactly the most stand-up guy there is. He was the school drug dealer for years, and his family is dodgy as fuck, but I didn’t think he was the town creep.
He’s definitely not the guy I imagined sweet, innocent little Sophia winding up with, but maybe that’s because in my mind, that guy was always me.
Carley’s a pain in my ass, but she’s called it right on this occasion. I don’t know about love, but Sophia is something to me. Has been for years. Still is now.
I’ve wanted her since the moment she walked right into me, in year ten, her nose stuck in some book that she was reading.
I’ve been pining after her in silence ever since.
But stupidly I never did anything about it. Closest I ever came to shooting my shot was kissing her at that party I had, and she wound up so drunk she had to be carried out, so it doesn’t even count.
I’ll never forget it, but I pretended it never happened to save her the embarrassment.
“I hope she’s happy,” I say.
Carley scoffs. “I doubt she is. She’s what, nineteen? Got a baby and is stuck here in this lame-ass town, with a dickhead for a boyfriend. Her life is the stuff nightmares are made of.”
Harsh. But fair, I guess.
“I still can’t believe you didn’t leave the second you had the chance,” she says, her voice accusing.
She’s baffled by the fact that I turned down going away to university in favour of staying close by and doing my degree online. She plans to get out as soon as she can, and I want nothing more for her than to do exactly that. One of us may as well take Mummy and Daddy’s money and run with it.
The fact that she doesn’t have any idea why I stayed close by, means that I’ve done my job well. I’ve filled my role.
“I like it here,” I lie. “Maybe next year I’ll move.”
Truthfully, I do like it here. It’s the kind of place you don’t appreciate growing up, and it’s full of small-town bullshit, but it’s one of those things where I bet you go off and experience other places and things, and always wind up coming back to where you started.
It’s the kind of place you raise your family.
Doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t have liked to get in my car, get the hell out and not come back any time soon.
“I’ll believe that when I see it.”
“Technically, I did get out. I don’t live in this town anymore.”
“Oooh yeah, a ten-minute drive away… way to think outside, but pressed right up against the box.”
I chuckle. She’s such a smart little shit these days. Long gone are the days of the sweet little girl who followed me around everywhere and acted like I was the coolest person she knew.
“It’s twenty minutes,” I correct her.
I hear my mother talking, on the phone I presume, from downstairs. And that is my cue to leave. I love my mum, but only in small doses and I’m all out of patience for today.
“I better get going, I’ve got an online lecture this afternoon.”
“Sure, just leave me here all alone then.” She pouts.
“I’m sure you’ll be just fine here in your mansion.”
She’s scrolling on her phone now. I head for the door but linger for a second.
Something about my interaction in the supermarket today didn’t sit right with me, and short of going at the same time next week in the hopes I’ll run into her again, I don’t know how I’m meant to find out if she’s really okay or not.
“Can you do me a favour? If you do hear anything about Sophia or Tonksy, can you let me know?”
She looks up from the screen and takes in the look on my face.
“You’re worried about her, aren’t you?”
I shrug. Truthfully, I am. She didn’t have that spark in her eye anymore. It was there when she spoke to her daughter, but there’s something else going on, something I can’t put my finger on.
“Call it curiosity. But regardless, if you hear anything…” I trail off.
“You’ll be the first to know,” she promises.