While they made almost every situation tense with their never ending sibling rivalry, there were good times too. They had looked out for each other, never letting an issue sit on the side without assistance. Except for the criminal part, they did practically everything together; and aside from fighting, Heath was clean and had badgered Ryker to be the same.

That obviously didn’t go well at all.

“Who are you?” came a feminine voice.

I turned around and came face to face with a beautiful brunette, dressed in a miniskirt and tight white top. Her boobs were pushed up high, practically touching her chin, and her face was caked in bright make-up. She looked like your typical Hedley gem that prowled the streets at night.

I didn’t respond to her, and when she came a few steps closer, I saw the gritty look in her eyes. She put a hand on each hip and said slowly, “I asked you a question, little girl.”

Little girl? I frowned and stared daggers at her. I was eighteen. I wasn’t a little girl, but I couldn’t really blame anyone for thinking so. My body hadn’t developed as much as other girls my age. My breasts were small and I was very skinny. Mom once called me a “late bloomer.”

She smirked at me while her eyes travelled my body, scrutinizing my black board shorts and baggy white t-shirt. Her brows shot up and a look of distaste took over her features.

“If you be thinkin’ for a second that he gonna go home witchu instead of me, then you be smokin’ somethin’ heavy.”

I cringed at the verbal diarrhoea she was spewing. Girls like her made up ninety percent of the female population at my school, and they talked like they belonged in a ghetto kindergarten.

Clearly she was intending on going home with Heath, which was fine. I had no qualms with that. If he liked half-naked girls who couldn’t string two words properly then that was his prerogative. It wasn’t unusual either. From what I’d seen, he wasn’t tameable, and he wasn’t a relationship kind of guy.

“I just need to talk to Heath,” I told her, trying to avoid an argument. I wasn’t big on confrontations. I avoided them at all costs mostly because they made me anxious and shaky.

“And what makes you think Lawson gonna wanna talk witchu?”

Bloody hell, my ears ached. I heaved a shrug. “Maybe because he knows me?”

She let out an unladylike grunt, sceptical of my words. “We’ll see bout that,” she muttered defensively. She crossed her arms and leaned against the front of the truck, staring in the direction of the entrance. She snuck in dirty glances at me and I was fine with it so long as she wasn’t talking.

When Heath finally came out, he was talking to a bunch of guys. One of them was Matt, one of Ryker’s closest friends, looking pretty good in a muscle shirt and gelled up blonde hair. He still paled next to Heath. He had thrown on a shirt, but his hands were still corded in red boxing tape and his body gleamed with sweat under the moonlight. I heard his laughter as he said goodbye and made his way to the truck. His steps slowed when his eyes met mine and then flickered to the girl that was suddenly standing up straight and smiling brightly at him.

“Hey, Lawson,” she said, reaching for his arm.

“Hey,” he mumbled to her, but his focus was right back on me.

I took a step forward and waved at him lamely, opening my mouth to talk when she interrupted with, “I bet on you, you know. You gonna make it up to me?”

Heath wasn’t looking at her. He was staring hard at me with confusion on his face. “You alright?” he asked me.

I nodded stiffly. “Yeah, I’m alright.” In the physical sense, anyway. “I need to talk to you, though.”

He glimpsed around the empty streets. “Al, you’re not alone, are you?”

Al. God, I hated when he called me that. It made me sound like a boy.

I nodded again. “Yeah, I am.”

He exhaled, a look of irritation crossing his face. “It’s a real dodgy place here. You shouldn’t be alone.”

“I’m alone,” piped the girl, her hand still wrapped around his arm. “You gonna take care of that, Lawson?”

Directing his irritation at her, he snapped, “Do I know you?”

She looked unperturbed by his tone and giggled. “We met at the last party we was at. Hit it off and everything. You promised me a date. Don’t remember that?”

I watched her bat her eyelashes and stick her chest out. God, this was awkward.

“I haven’t been to a party in months,” he retorted, glaring at her now. “And I don’t promise people dates. How about you get on your way now?”

She blinked at him and then let go of his arm. “I ain’t lying –”

“Then you have me confused with someone else.” His face was hard, but he softened his tone as he added, “Hon, I’m not picking anyone up. That’s not my thing, alright?”

She didn’t respond for a moment. She was clearly not expecting that kind of reaction. She almost looked wounded.

“Go and have a good night,” he continued.

Embarrassed, she hurried away, her heels clacking against the pavement in haste. I felt a little bad for her. She obviously had her hopes up, and she had every right to given how pretty she was. I watched her fade away in the distance, impressed by his kind decline. I’d seen some awful rejections in my time.

“What’s going on, Allie?” he then asked, focusing back on me. I guessed letting girls down was a common occurrence for him because he was completely unaffected by it.

“No ‘hello, how are you’?” I asked light-heartedly.

He tilted his head to the side. “Since when have you ever come up to me before? This is not you. We’re not close. Something’s obviously up, and I don’t like beating around the bush.”

“Beating around the bush,” I repeated thoughtfully. “Interesting saying, that.”

“Allie.”

“I need your help.”

“Okay,” he said cautiously, “continue.”

Remembering the reason I was here, I shifted from foot to foot nervously. My eyes flickered away from his. I stared down at the cement and tightened my grasp on the strap of my bag when I said, “I got kicked out. I don’t have a place to stay, and I’ve tried getting a few friends to help me out, but their parents aren’t cool with me crashing. You’re kind of the only hope I have at the moment.”

Silence.

I peered up at him, trying to decipher his mood. He wasn’t giving anything away, but his eyes were moving all over my face. I tried not to blush by the intensity of his gaze, but I failed. I may have known him almost all my life, but like he said, we weren’t close. I was always by Ryker’s side. We were inseparable. Heath was sort of just the tag along that I never liked to be left alone in a room with. Things were always awkward. We never meshed, or ever had anything in common to talk about.

Yet I was blushing like a moron because he was extremely good looking. More so than Ryker because his body was filled out to the brim in muscle and his face was rougher. Despite the eighteen month gap between the brothers, Ryker had a lot of catching up to do. So, naturally, my body seemed to have a mind of its own. I supposed that was normal for a teenage girl, though. Hormones and all that at the slightest attention from a good looking guy and our shallow minds were drinking it up.

“Why would your mother kick you out?” he asked curiously. “I’ve always thought she wasn’t that kind of person to do that.”

Again, I shifted nervously. “Do we have to talk about this here?”

“It’s either here or in the truck.”

I looked around our surroundings, making sure no one was within earshot. We were completely alone, not a peep heard from nearby.

“Homeless people will be due out soon,” I muttered. Hedley was packed with them, and many of them stuck together and prowled the streets at night, causing havoc. You didn’t want to be alone out here if they were kicking about.

“Truck it is, then.”

He unlocked the doors and I hopped into the passenger seat. I immediately wound down the window, letting whatever little breeze there was inside. Heath sat down in the driver’s seat, his face turned in my direction.

“Out with it then,” he pressed, wasting no time. Either he was genuinely concerned about me, or he wanted to get whatever was up out of the way. In that moment, I had a feeling it was the latter.

“I just need a place to stay,” I told him, looking out into the parking lot. Heath’s dark eyes were a thing to be feared. When he looked at you, he really looked at you, and it was like he could read your every freaking thought. I didn’t want him to know mine.

“It’ll only be for a couple days,” I added hastily. “I’m not looking to impede on your life for a long time. I know it’s an inconvenience –”

“I want to know why you got kicked out,” he interrupted coolly. “As far as crashing my place goes, I’m not bothered by that. It was Ryker’s place not too long ago, so the room’s practically yours. But I have to know what’s up, Allie. He promised me to look out for you, and it’s only been four weeks since he’s been gone and you’ve already been kicked out of your house. I need to know why.”

I swallowed hard. This was hard to talk about. I didn’t want to do it now. I just wanted a goddamn roof over my head. Today had been hell. A confrontation with my ultra-religious mother and I was thrown out the door with nothing but the bag on my back, told never to come home again unless I was seeking to be saved. I was the sinner. The horrible temptation that others in her community would be disgusted by.

Anxiety built inside of me as he continued to watch me. I suppressed the tears, reliving the decision I made right after she’d thrown me out. It was hard, but it was the right thing to do, and I still had to endure the pain of it soon.

“The problem is going to be taken care of,” I told him. “So it doesn’t matter.”

He shifted his body around to look at me closely. I glanced at him, shrouded in the dark with those eyes pinned to me.

“Taken care of,” he repeated slowly.

“Yeah. So don’t worry about it.”

Slowly, the realization dawned on him, and with a heavy sigh he said, “Shit. You’re pregnant, aren’t you?”

With a nod that made my chest ache, I whispered, “Yes, I am.”

Three

Allie

“Shit,” he cursed again, shaking his head. His nose flared and his eyes darkened as he ran a hand through his buzz. “I thought you were smart, Allie.”

“I was never smart,” I replied flatly.

Harsh silence filled the air. He was lost in thought, looking away from me and out the windshield. “Is it Ryker’s?” he then asked, tensing his jaw.

I fought the anger inside of me unsuccessfully. “Of course it’s Ryker’s,” I answered rudely. “He’s the only person I’ve ever been with, Heath. Everyone knows that.”

“I’m just making sure,” he retorted, casting me a bitter look. Jeez, what the hell was wrong with him?

“Look,” I said on a sigh, “like I said, it’s going to be taken care of.”

“You’re going to have an abortion, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“I booked it in for this week. I’m going down to the clinic tomorrow to see what my options are –”

“Jesus Christ,” he interrupted, huffing angrily now, “how far along are you?”

“Eight weeks.”

“And you’ve known for how long?”

“Two.”

Another painful silence. One that had me feeling ashamed. I looked down into my lap, fighting the tears that were suddenly springing in the back of my eyes. I didn’t expect a positive reaction from anyone – after all, Ryker and I were to blame for this mess – but a bit of understanding wouldn’t kill. Instead, I got kicked out of my house by my piece of shit mother who was screaming scripture at me and then being glared at by Heath like I was the biggest disappointment of all.

And maybe I was.

“Have you told Ryker?”

Panic shot through me. “No,” I said glumly. “I haven’t.”

“So you’re going to have an abortion without his say?”

I rubbed my face in exasperation. “Heath, he told me himself he never wants to be a dad. He’s always used condoms to stop that from happening, but we’ve had a scare before and the first thing he said when my period was late was to get it fixed. He will not have a different opinion about this.”

“He still has the right to know.”

I shook my head, frustrated that he was making this difficult. “I’ll deal with that on my own terms. It’s none of your business, anyway –”

“It’s none of my business?” He laughed without humour and shook his head in shock. “You made it my business by coming to me!”

This was not how I thought this would go. A part of me sort of hoped he’d just agree to let me crash at his place and leave me be. Of course that was stupid, naïve thinking. I should have known Heath would want to ask questions. He was never the kind of person that just went with the flow and kept to himself. He had to know everything.

“Look, I’m sorry,” I said calmly, trying to diffuse the situation immediately. “I’m sorry, Heath. I know you must be disappointed in me, and I am too. But please, don’t work against me right now. I’m scared. Alright? I can’t do this, and Ryker would agree. He’s in prison, and I’m out here on my own, and it’s hard…”