Hope Against Hope: The Hope Brothers Series Read Online Free PDF

the two top winners of the bull riding portion of the Sugar Hill Round-Up Rodeo. Crit had been practicing every free moment since then to get ready for the state championship. Beau, and all the other riders from around the state, were going to provide some fierce competition for him, though. However, Crit had one advantage - he had the biggest heart of any of them, and I just knew he was going to blow them all out of the arena.
    “Of course I can,” I replied, smiling at him. “I’ll pay the bills, too, and have dinner ready by six.”
    Crit leaned over and kissed me on the forehead.
    “You’re a good kid, George.”
    “I’m twenty-one, for fuck’s sake.”
    “You’ll always be a kid to me, so don’t say ‘fuck’, it ain’t ladylike!”
    He stood up, ruffled my hair and walked out of the room.
    I laid back in bed, the harsh reality of my life now washing over me. I felt nothing but dread.
    “Fuck,” I whispered to the empty room.

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    Being the oldest son comes with a lot of responsibilities. To be honest, it’s kind of a pain in the ass. You’re supposed to be the role model, the strong one, the perfect student. All the while, my dumb ass brother, Lee, gets to be the one to fuck off and get in trouble. I’d say that he gets to be the one having all the fun, but jail and the after-effects of booze and drugs was never all that fun to me.
    I knew, because I had learned the hard way. The real fuckin’ hard way. As soon as I started running with the wrong crowd when I turned thirteen, my life plummeted down an ugly spiral of drinking and doing really stupid shit. I shuddered when I thought about it all, still to this day.
    It’s been so many years, and I can still see Marisa’s face. We were seventeen, and I’d lost her in a stupid split-second mistake, on an empty back road with a lifted truck and a handle of whiskey. I had made the fateful choice to race a friend and instead of winning, I rolled the truck. I made it. Marisa, my sweet girlfriend, did not.
    If it hadn’t been for that whole thing, I’d probably have ended up just like Lee. I’d not been much of a drinker since, to say the least. A few beers here and there, a whiskey or two when I was stressed, but that was it. After the accident, I spent a year in juvie, a small price to pay for Marisa’s life. Once I got out, I stayed on the straight-and-narrow for the most part.
    As much as I tried to convince the black-sheep of our family of the existence of greener pastures, the more he resisted. He was as stubborn as a black Angus bull, that fella. Lee wasn’t known for taking advice well. Anything I said to him, he took as a criticism. After a while, I just gave up. He was a grown man now, hell, we all were, and it was time we all took responsibility for ourselves.
    Lee was a mess, it’s true. Thankfully, he wasn’t here today, so I didn’t have to deal with his bullshit. He was around less and less often these days. Where he went was anyone’s guess, since he wasn’t too keen on keeping us informed of his whereabouts. But if I had to guess, I’d say he was laid up with a woman somewhere. That was just how he worked. Booze, drugs and women were all he ever seemed interested in.
    The thing that pissed me off the most about Lee was that he had no real reason to rebel so hard. These days, he was only fighting against himself, but he had always been like this. It started with getting in fights at school, stealing from the corner gas station, and it just escalated from there. Maybe it was because he was the middle child, and he always thought he was ignored or something. I don’t know.
    But what I do know was that Lee Haggard came from a damn good home, with a loving family, and wonderful parents. He had no reason to act like such a fool. He was blessed to have parents like ours. Hell, we both were, but I figured it out pretty quickly.
    Not everyone was so lucky.
    I thought about the Hope kids as I sat at the kitchen table