“What did he say?” I asked hastily, sitting up in the seat with a pained grunt.
I wanted to give him answers and set him at ease, I really did, but if my brother called me, it had to be bordering on an emergency. He didn’t just call me to call me. He didn’t check in to see how my life was going.
“Not much. Just wanted you to call him when you could.”
I snatched the phone up, rushing to get to the call log. An outgoing call to Reed, I recognized the number right away. There was also an incoming which had to be my brother. That number wasn’t familiar, so he must have changed his phone number. It was a reoccurring thing with him. I hoped it wasn’t because he was being harassed again.
I called it back without giving myself a chance to think about anything else.
“Austin?” My brother answered before the second ring. He sounded tired.
“Yeah, Braden. My… friend said you called but didn’t say why. What’s goin’ on?” I hated how I instantly fell into that Southern accent when I talked to my brother. It was like a trigger in my brain that I couldn’t stop from clicking. I locked my gaze forward, scared to see if Ford had noticed and what his face would have said about it if he had.
What the hell was I talking about? Of course he fucking noticed. He noticed everything.
“I don’t know what to say.” Braden blew out a hard, heavy breath. “Look, Ma isn’t doing good.”
“What do you mean?”
“These people called. Something about an interview about… about…”
“Yeah, I get it,” I said quickly. Neither one of us wanted to say it out loud. In fact, I wanted this conversation over as quickly as possible.
But I did. I kept trying, because of my sisters. At this point, they were the only reason I even put up with the ridiculous nonsense Ma lived her life by.
“I thought she was getting better, but the call just stirred up everything. She thinks it would be a good platform to… ugh, you fuckin’ know what I mean. Don’t make me say it.”
I did know. It was the major reason I didn’t have a relationship with her. It was why Braden barely had one with her. Why I had this damn phone so my younger sisters could always reach me if they needed to.
What was the point of him calling me? Ma didn’t want me around. We fought nearly every time I tried and went to see her. It always ended the same way, with her saying shit I couldn’t believe a mother would say to her son and me storming out of the house, vowing I wasn’t going to come back.
Because, plainly put, my mother lost her mind when they took my father in.
I zoned out, only half listening to Braden and giving short responses at the appropriate times. I didn’t need to hear the conversation, and he didn’t really expect me to listen. He called because he wanted me to tell him what to do. He wanted me to step in and figure it out.
But above everything, he wanted me to tell him it was okay to walk away, and then he wanted to make me feel like shit because I gave him the permission he couldn’t give himself.
It was a fucked up cycle we lived in.
I didn’t give him what he wanted.
I didn’t have it in me at the moment. I was in pain. My head was still foggy. I was fucking exhausted. And I still had to figure out how the fuck to keep Ford safe. I had to get him out of this mess so that he could have his life back.
For once, I wasn’t using my job as an excuse not to deal with my family, though I did think the missions I went out on were more important than family drama. This time, I was putting my job first as a stand. Maybe my brother wouldn’t get it. Maybe my mother wouldn’t even care. But to me, it meant a whole fuck of a lot, because I had someone I wanted to fight for, to help make their life better.
I sighed as my brother’s tone got snippy because I wasn’t responding the way he wanted me to. I hated that we’d fallen into this pattern. One thing I needed to fix once this shit was all over.
“Austin, are you hearing me? I can only take off three days from work. I’m running out of personal time.”
“I hear you,” I replied flatly. “Give her a day and see how she’s doing.”
“And if it doesn’t get better?” He huffed out a breath. “What am I supposed to do, pack the twins up and take them back home with me?”
“Yes,” I snapped, then immediately regretted it. This was the last thing I needed. “It won’t be forever. But I need you to handle it for a few days.”
I hung up before he got another word out.
Slumping back into the seat, I felt like shit. I shouldn’t have treated him like that.
