“I asked my mother about it, but she’s the worst liar ever. Then later that night, both mom and dad spoke to me about it, about you.”
“What makes you think it’s me?”
“I wasn’t sure, I just had a hunch. When I asked that scary guy at the door for Mr. Carter, he called you Phoenix.” Scary guy. If I hadn’t been so stressed, I would have laughed at that one.
Shoving my hands into the pockets of my jeans, I rocked back on my feet. “You’re a bright kid. I’ll give you that. And what did your parents say about me?”
“They said that she gave you up when you were little. Mom wasn’t in a good place at the time. She said it was for the best.”
For the best, my ass.
“So why are you here?”
“Well, at first, I just wanted to tell you to stay away from us. My mother doesn’t need you coming back and messing stuff up, but on the bus, I started to change my mind.”
My knees trembled.
“You did?”
“Yeah.”
Color bloomed in Alex’s cheeks, and he started fiddling with the zip of his hoodie.
“OK.” My mouth was as dry as fuck. I totally didn’t know what to say.
“I don’t have any friends or anything, and I don’t know, I thought maybe it would be cool—having an older brother. Especially one as big as you.”
I found his comment odd but cute. The freckles on his nose gathered into a blob as he gave me a toothy grin. “Yeah. You could protect me and pummel all the kids that fuck with me at school,”
I raised my eyebrows, that older brother role snapping in automatically. I mean, it wasn’t like I didn’t know how to be a brother. I had three foster ones who I’d more than cut my teeth on. But I’d never dealt with a real one, and so much younger than me. “You kiss your momma with that mouth?” The words just slid out.
Alex looked impressed. “See. That’s exactly what a big brother would say.”
I exhaled and planted my hands on my hips. “Look, I don’t want to burst your bubble or anything, kid, but you shouldn’t be here.”
He shook his head and held his hands up. “Alex,” he corrected, now deadly serious.
His interruption flummoxed me. “What?”
“My name is Alex.”
I dropped my hands to my sides. “Yeah. Sorry. Alex. Look, it’s all a bit complicated.”
Alex shook his head and stepped towards me, his face full of yearning. Was he really that lonely? We hadjustmet, and so why was he looking at me in awe, like I was his hero or something? I was nobody's hero.
“It doesn’t need to be,” he said quietly in that broken voice of his.
The sound of my brothers coming out of the den made me hurry up.
Glancing down the corridor, I drew my gaze back to my brother. “If your mother doesn’t know you’re here, where does she think you are?”
The younger boy strummed a hand across his nose. “I told her I’m with friends, but that shows you how well she doesn’t know me, since I don’t have any. And anyway, she lied to me.”
“About what?
“Dur, about you.” Shit, I hadn’t heard dur from anyone other than Harper, and that’s when I realized how different we were. “She said you lived miles away.”
“How old are you?”
