Page 28 of Don’t Say You’re Sorry (Hawthorne University #2)

EASTON

Easton

Did your mom tell you I have a girlfriend? I hope she did, and I hope it killed you.

I’m moving in with her tomorrow. I hate this fucking apartment.

“ H e changed his mind, didn’t he?” Adam asks, tipping his chin at my car where Axel is waiting for us in the back seat. “He wasn’t gonna come back.”

I shake my head. “No, but don’t worry. I gave him the push he wanted. It wasn’t that hard to get him here.”

He gives me a small smile. “Thanks.”

I curl my lip. “I didn’t do it for him, and you know it.”

“If you say so.” He shrugs, and we get in the car. “Hey,” he says to his brother, reaching between the seats to give him a hug. Axel looks unimpressed, not one for affection, but he still leans forward and pats Adam on the back. “You’ve been out here for ages. Why didn’t you come in?”

“And overhear whatever it is you two were doing in there?” He gestures between us with a flick of his wrist. “I’d rather die of boredom out here.”

I raise a brow at him through the rearview.

“Axel.” Adam sighs. “Shut the fuck up.”

“Relax. I’m joking,” he says. “I wasn’t bored. I have my book.” He waves a book at us.

“Is that Alter Arlo by Nordika Night?” Adam asks.

“Yeah.”

“That’s my book.” Adam snatches it, checking the paperback for damage. “I’ve been looking for this everywhere. Did you steal it from my room?”

“No. I borrowed it.” Leaning forward, Axel plucks it back and continues reading.

Adam’s jaw tics, but he lets him have it. “Do you like it?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

Adam looks offended. “What? Why?”

“Because it’s messing with my head. I don’t know who the fuck Arlo is,” he grumbles under his breath as he turns the page. “Is he the guy who’s supposed to be dead?”

“I’m not spoiling it for you. The twist is the best part.” Adam chuckles, then turns around in his seat to point at his brother, a warning in his eyes. “If you crack that spine, I’ll beat you with it.”

Axel feigns a cringe. “Should I not have dog-eared the pages either?”

“ What ?! Give me that, you wanker.”

Jaw tight, I look between them as they start fighting over the book. I haven’t even turned the car on yet, too preoccupied watching their back and forth.

Is this what it’s been like for the last few years? Them bickering over books and clothes and TV shows and takeout options, just as Adam and I used to do, while I’ve been here on my own? I mean, I’m glad he had someone. But that someone could have been me . It should have been me.

When I realize they’ve gone quiet, I look over at Adam and find him watching me. He’s back in his seat now, no book in his hands, his sad, knowing eyes on mine. He subtly shakes his head, and I know what he’s thinking without him having to say it. No, it wasn’t always like this.

It doesn’t make me feel any better.

I drive toward the iron gates.

Axel uses the book he’s holding to point at the R8. “Is that your car?” he asks Adam.

He nods. “Easton bought it back for me.”

“When?”

Adam doesn’t know when, so he looks to me for the answer. Curling my fingers around the steering wheel, I say, “A couple days after you left.”

Adam chews on his lower lip.

Head lowered, I watch Axel in the rearview as he looks at me and his brother from beneath his brows. When he opens his mouth to say something, I reach out, place my palm on Adam’s forehead, and hit the brakes hard. Axel jolts forward, hitting his head on the seat. “ Ow .”

“I thought you were told to shut the fuck up,” I grumble, dropping my hand to Adam’s lap.

Adam looks at my fingers curling around his thigh, hiding a smile as he looks out the window.

The three of us walk through our parents’ house into the kitchen, and my stepmother looks up at us from her laptop, doing a double take at her oldest son.

“I’ll ring you back,” she says into the phone at her ear, dropping it on the island and jumping out of her seat.

She looks like she’s about to burst into tears as she barrels into Axel’s chest. She squeezes her arms around his middle, and he swallows, hugging her back just as tightly, his chin resting on the top of her head.

He whispers something we can’t hear, and she shakes her head firmly.

After a few more moments, she releases him from her death grip and wipes the moisture from her eyes.

“What’s going on?” she asks all of us. “Is everything okay?”

Adam nods, biting his lip to stop it from trembling.

“Are you back?” she asks hopefully. “Both of you?”

Adam nods again, and she exhales as if a huge weight has been lifted off her chest, a big smile on her face as she forces all three of us into a group hug.

Lovely . Axel’s hand accidentally brushes mine on Adam’s back, and I smack it away.

He smacks me right back, and I glare at him over Adam’s shoulder, tempted to pull his brother away from him and demand he never touch him again.

Brother or not, he doesn’t get to touch what’s mine.

You’re pathetic , Axel mouths.

Just as I’m about to reach over and hit him, Adam fists my shirt and discreetly pulls me away, breaking the group hug. “Has Michael started making dinner yet?” he asks, distracting his mom.

“Not yet,” my dad says from somewhere behind us, making Adam jump and drop his hand.

My dad cuts his eyes between the two of us, at the way we’re standing too close to each other, and I don’t miss the slight tic in his jaw. Adam pretends not to notice and plasters a smile on his face. “Great. Axel wants to make it.”

Axel pulls his head back. Just as he opens his mouth to deny it, Adam widens his eyes at him with a pointed look, and Axel rolls his eyes. “Great,” he says, mocking his brother’s tone.

“Great,” I echo, just to be a dick.

“Great…” Veronica says, making me laugh.

Grabbing his mom’s baby blue apron, Axel pulls it on and ties it at the back before stepping up to do his thing.

He’s a chef. I heard he’d been working at one of the top restaurants in London before I dragged him back here.

He loves food as much as I do, which is something we bonded over before my love for him turned to hatred.

He taught me how to cook when we were in high school.

He tried to teach Adam as well, but my boy wasn’t that interested.

He was content to sit at the table with his iPad and draw while he watched us.

Like Axel, my dad’s not one for affection—with the exception of his wife—so Veronica doesn’t find it odd that he doesn’t greet her sons with the same enthusiasm she did. He nods at them before taking her hands and pulling her into his arms.

“Hi,” he says to her, looking at me over her head.

My nostrils flare.

“Hi,” she says back. “Did you hear…”

I don’t catch the rest of Veronica’s sentence because Adam’s hand is on my chest again, his face close to mine now that my dad is preoccupied.

“Will you relax?” he whispers.

“I’m relaxed.”

“Really? Because it looks like you’re torn between who to hit first. My brother or your dad.”

I laugh lightly at how panicked he looks. “Will you relax?” I tease, watching the way he’s worrying his full bottom lip between his teeth. “I’m not going to hit them. But I do need to blow off a little steam. Wanna play a game?”

He eyes me skeptically.

I tip my chin at him, and he follows me upstairs. In my bedroom, I lock the door and toss a black pair of swim shorts at him. He frowns at them before looking up at me. “What’s the game?”

“Strip,” I demand, leaving a few feet of space between us. “First one to get hard gets thrown in the pool.”

He pushes out a breath, gaze locked on my fingers while I slowly unzip my jeans.

Ten minutes later, I toss his ass in the inground pool in our backyard and jump in after him.

“You still have an office upstairs, don’t you?” Adam asks his mom, exasperated as he moves her laptop and all her things from the kitchen island. “Your stuff is everywhere. How do you get any work done surrounded by all this mess?”

Amused, I watch him from across the room. He’s frustrated—sexually—and it’s making my dick hard. I love it when he gets like this. Neurotic and twitchy. Desperate for me to fuck the cum out of him.

If what he tells me is true, it’s been about two and a half weeks since he’s gotten off. I wonder if I can edge him for another two weeks or if he’ll explode by then. My money’s on the latter.

I teased him in the pool. We were just messing around at first—like good, platonic brothers do.

I dunked his head under the water, and he swam after me, pulling me down with him.

I was barely touching him, but then his legs somehow got tangled around my waist, and my hand was on his ass, pulling him into me.

When I tapped his hole with my finger over his shorts, he snapped out of it and swam away before getting out of the pool.

We changed in separate rooms after that.

“Which one of you is the designated driver?” my dad asks, and my stepbrothers point at me.

My dad hands them a beer before handing me a soda, leaning against the counter next to me.

He says nothing, and neither do I, both of us watching quietly as Axel cooks and Adam and his mom get into a heated debate over how many notebooks she owns but never uses.

I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face if I wanted to.

“Don’t even think about it,” I say for my dad’s ears only.

“What?” he asks. I don’t look away from Adam, but I can feel the way my dad’s gaze travels over from Adam to me.

He knows what. He’s been staring at the side of my boy’s head for the last five minutes, his hand white-knuckling the beer he’s holding.

“You remember why your wife kicked her ex-husband’s ass to the curb, right?” I ask calmly, not giving him a chance to respond. “Not because he wronged her, but because he wronged her children.” I pause for dramatic effect. “How do you think she’d react if she knew what you’ve done to her child?”

I feel his glare on me, but he doesn’t answer my question. Not that I thought he would.