Page 17 of What If We Break?
Lily returned home with Kieran an hour ago because the kid hated crowds almost as much as he did talking to strangers. Huge birthday parties weren’t his thing, so it was a surprise he even agreed to show up at all. He usually only hung around Jamie, his cousin. He even refused to attend school if Jamie was sick. He really wasn’t much of a people person.
“I think I should move out,” I told Colin, who almost instantly looked at me.
“Come again.”
“I’m just saying. I spend two hours driving back and forth from college five days a week, even more when the traffic sucks. That’s at least two hours I’m wasting when I could do something far more productive,” I said.
“I mean, I get that.” Colin chuckled. “That was one of the reasons I moved out a week before I started college.”
St. Trewery didn’t require their freshmen to move into the dorms for their first year, so I thought stayinghome was a good idea. Guess it wasn’t my smartest idea, but it allowed me to see Brooke more often.
Kim turned around on her father’s lap, frowning up at him. “You no go to college, Daddy.”
“That wasn’t me?” Colin hummed as Kim shook her head. “Damn, where’d I meet your mommy, then?”
Kim shrugged. “By the hockey game with Uncle ReeRee.”
It was a good theory, but I doubted it was true. I had no idea how Colin and Lily met, I just always assumed it was in class or at a game. Perhaps I knew once upon a time, but I barely had any recollection of my life before I turned five.
I couldn’t even remember my brother and sister, which stung a lot more when I sat at a table with my family, and all they did was talk about them. It always made me feel left out because they all had memories of Aiden and Eira, and all I had were pictures that proved I met them before they died.
I sat sideways on the bench, then stole my niece from my brother. “Daddy’s just a liar, right?”
Kim nodded with conviction. “And we no lie.”
“Exactly. We don’t lie in this house.”
Kim was the youngest of them all, which, unfortunately, made her the kid in the family nobody played with. She only turned three back in June. The youngest before her was Ash, Grey, and Luan’s son, who turned six last May.
Kieran and Kayden played with her sometimes, but they were both way older, so they never knew what to do with her. At least they tried.
“Are you stealing my daughter right now?” Colin asked, giving me his all-famous disappointed look. It didn’t work on me anymore as much as it used to.
“It’s not stealing when she loves me more. Right, little Kiwi?”
Kim nodded again, giggling when she fell back into my arms. “Down, Uncle ReeRee.”
So much to loving me more.
I carefully set Kim down on the floor, watching her wait a whole second before she ran off to find someone to play with.
“Back to the topic of you moving out,” Colin said before reaching for his water to take a sip—the pause was for dramatic purposes, I assumed. “When will that happen? Tomorrow or…?”
“Wow, Colin.” My eyes rolled. “You should get an award for brother of the year.”
“Right?”
I knew he was joking. He never even hinted at wanting me out of the house, and I would’ve understood if he did. I’d been living with him since I was thirteen, surely he wanted some more time with just his wife and kids. I was only his annoying younger brother anyway.
“It’s not going to be tomorrow,” I said eventually. “I still have to even look for an apartment. It was just a thought.”
“Wondering what I think of the idea?” he asked to which I nodded. As much as I hated being compared to Colin and being called his shadow, I still valued his opinion. “Is Brooke moving in with you?”
Just as he mentioned her name, Brooke’s laughter echoed through the air. At the sound of her voice, my eyes immediately started to look around the backyard, searching for her.
When I found her, I could feel my heart beating a bit faster than usual. Just looking at her made my heart swell with so much love for her, it was ridiculous, but I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
“I didn’t ask.” I didn’t have to either. She wouldn’t move over to New City to be closer tomyuniversity and furtheraway from her own. And the last time we talked about it, she said she wasn’t ready to leave home yet.
