AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you, too. Can I ask you something?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Can you give him a chance? Conrad,” she explains when I look over at her, my brow furrowed. “It’s not his fault, and he’s lost a lot as well. Can you just get to know him?”
I consider my answer. I don’t want to lie to her, but at the same time, I know I’m not really going to have a choice. Tom and Conrad have been hanging out, and I know at some point I’m going to have to accept the fact that we’re related. “I don’t really have a choice,” I tell her honestly. “But it’s going to take some time because accepting him as my half-brother means I lost you.”
A sob bursts free from Ellie, and I pull her into me, resting my chin on her head. My hand rubs up and down her back as she cries. My eyes burn, but I know we’re doing the right thing.
FOUR
HARLEY
AFTER MY BREAKUP with Ellie, I lay low, giving her the opportunity to control the narrative. Surprisingly, Tom doesn’t give me too much hell about it. I think now that I’m home, he can see how much I’m struggling with it all. I miss her every single day, and I have to stop myself from picking up my phone and calling or texting her. What’s worse is I know she’s going to be leaving in a couple of weeks. It’s eating me up inside.
She’s waiting until after Ivy’s twenty-first. I’m still trying to decide if I’m going to go. I’ve been friends with Ivy since primary school; it would be pretty shit of me to miss it. But at the same time, her dating Conrad has made things awkward between us. It’s not that I don’t want her to be happy, I do. I’m just not ready to be the guy’s best friend… or brother. And it’s also going to suck knowing I have to say another goodbye to Ellie.
A week after I arrived home, Tom barges into my room, where I’m lying on my bed sketching. Before I have achance to cover what I’m working on, he pulls my sketchbook from my hands.
“Wow. This is really good.”
“Give it back,” I growl, sitting up and trying to snatch it back.
“It looks just like her.” His voice chokes up as his eyes wash over the half-finished portrait of our mum.
“What do you want?” I snap, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Get up,” he says, placing my sketchbook next to my stereo.
“Why?”
“Just get up. Chuck on your training gear. Come on.”
“Fuck off, Tom. I’m not in the mood.”
My brother ignores me, grabbing my surf club muscle top and a pair of shorts and tossing them at me. “Just trust me. Get dressed. I’m not taking no for an answer. We need to duke this out.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
He just crosses his arms and arches his brow. Against my better judgement and muttering a few choice curse words under my breath, I get changed and follow him out to his ute.
“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” I ask, slumping in my seat and staring out of the window as Tom drives out of town a little way towards Jordan and Lachy’s old place.
“Nope,” he replies. He turns down a side road about ten minutes out of Blue Haven.
Two kilometres down the road, we come up over a big hill, and a giant warehouse comes into view. There’re about forty cars parked in the parking lot.
“What is this place?” I sit up straighter, taking it all in.
“It’s a new gym. They specialise in mixed martial arts.”
Suddenly, the meaning of his words back in my room hit me. “You wanna fight me?” We’ve engaged in our fair share of brotherly tussles over the years, but this is taking it to the next level.
I glance over at my brother. I have an extra couple of inches over him in the height department, and I keep fit with my surfing and a couple of weekly gym sessions at the surf club with Brady and Jordan, but Tom’s no slouch. He has at least an extra ten kilos on me, and his biceps get a good workout with his work at the garage. All in all, I’d say we’re pretty evenly matched.
Tom snorts. “I don’t have a death wish.” His gaze meets mine. “Is that what you want? To fight me?” I scowl at him and turn back to look out the window as he pulls into the parking lot. He shuts off the car and nudges my shoulder. “Is that seriously what you want? To beat the shit out of me? I said I was sorry. I didn’t know how to tell you when I first found out. What was I supposed to do? I was locked up. I didn’t want to break Mum’s heart even more by telling you guys on a visit: ‘oh, hey, by the way, Dad cheated on you and has another kid’. That’s not fair. And then three weeks after I got out, Mum was gone.”
