Page 9 of Falling With You

Our biological mom that is.

When the piece of trash that called herself our mother called Cameron for help, which we later found out was because she was about to lose custody of Dillon, Cameron had gone to California, and I had been a douche about it.

I could admit that now. I had been a horrible human being. And I would regret that ‘til the end of my days.

We hadn’t known exactly why our birth mom needed us at the time, only that she’d said she needed us there. I assumed it had been for money or drugs or for something else I didn’t want to deal with. But Cameron had the softer heart, so Cameron had gone, and found out about Dillon.

And I had felt like I lost my twin. I felt betrayed. As if everything we had worked for to make our new family wasn’t worth it. As if Cameron didn’t want any of it.

And so, I’d stayed. I left my brother to deal with whatever the woman wanted. And when Cameron had tried to contact Brendon and me to tell us about Dillon, I hadn’t answered those calls. I had thrown away the letters. Deleted the emails.

I had done everything I could to ignore the fact that Cameron was my blood because I was just so pissed.

I was hurt, and I had lashed out. And I had been a fucking idiot.

So, I hadn’t known that Dillon was my brother until he showed up at Cameron’s side, an eighteen-year-old kid about to start college and in need of a family.

Cameron had helped to raise the kid, and I hadn’t been there.

I had lost my brother, more than one actually, and I would never forgive myself.

But now the kid was here, and we were doing okay. Cameron and I had talked things out, and Brendon and I had done the same since Brendon had taken my cue and cut out Cameron, as well.

It had been a few months now, but I was getting used to the fact that Dillon was my brother. It was even kind of cool.

He wasn’t too much of an idiot, even though he had done some pretty stupid things when he was a younger teenager. Like lying about applying for colleges. Because of that, he missed out on his first semester. Cameron had torn him a new one, but I thought Dillon had learned his lesson. Now, the kid was finally in the middle of his first semester at UCD, taking some gen-ed courses while he figured out what he wanted to do.

Although I had a feeling he was going to end up in culinary school like me. That was pretty cool. The fact that the kid I hadn’t really known, the one that I hadn’t helped raise, wanted to follow in my footsteps…yeah, pretty cool.

I didn’t think it had anything to do with me, though. Because, like I said, even though my ego was pretty large, I wasn’t that much of an idiot. Okay, I was, but still.

Dillon just liked working with food, enjoyed figuring out new recipes and trying some of the basics. And he was really damn good at it.

So, I didn’t mind taking the extra time and steps to teach Dillon what I knew to get him prepared if hedidwant to go to culinary school.

We would see what would happen with that, though I liked the idea of Dillon taking that route. But I wouldn’t push him. He’d been pushed enough by our birth mom, and I wouldn’t be that asshole. Not again.

“You’re staring at me,” Dillon said, tilting his head as he studied my face. “What’s wrong? Do you need some water or something?”

I shook my head and then rubbed my temple. “I’m fine.”

“You have a headache?” Dillon popped up from the couch. “I can go get you a pain pill.”

“I’m fine. Really. I have a headache because I didn’t sleep well. But I already took the one pain pill I’m allowing myself for the day. My hand doesn’t hurt that much anymore, which is nice.”

“You’re taking the prescribed dose though, right?” Cameron asked, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “Don’t make yourself hurt because you’re afraid of what our mother did. Okay?”

We were all doing really good about just putting those fears and words out in the open. We used to hide the fact that we were afraid we would end up drug addicts and alcoholics like our birth parents, but we were getting better at the whole communication thing.

Probably because of the women in our lives.

No, the women in my brothers’ lives.

Cameron had Violet. Brendon had Harmony. And I had…well, I didn’t have anyone. And that was fine with me.

But Sienna was around. Or, at least, she had been. And so was Meadow, their new friend that was hanging out with them. I rubbed my hand over my heart, trying not to think about whowasn’twith us.

Allison. My old friend. My ex-girlfriend. The one that wasn’t around anymore.