Chapter 4
“You can’t always get what you want,
but if you try, sometimes you just might find,
you get what you need.”
~ The Rolling Stones
Patrick
Growing up, surrounded by family, never feeling like the only child that I actually am, never wondering who had my back, or where I’d be on a holiday, was something I couldn’t fathom. Hell, no one I knew at the school we just moved from, Saint Mary’s, had that issue either.
Right now, my ass is driving in circles, waiting for the brownie brothers to sober up a bit more before pulling into the same vacation house all our families rent every summer but are now sharing until the houses each of my father’s brothers bought for their families close. Never a moment alone, which is something I’ll never take for granted, but once in a while, it gets a bit taxing.
The move was something all eight of us first cousins and the other distant relatives who didn’t make the move basically begged for since middle school. It wasn’t until my cousins, Truth and Kiki, got in trouble then kicked out of school that it actually happened. It wasn’t a reward for bad behavior; it was the fact that my uncles, Cyrus and Jase, finally saw firsthand how nasty those nuns could be.
And yeah, Kiki found out she was knocked up and wasn’t going back there, so here we are. And yeah, everyone is stoked. But after tonight, I’m pretty damn sure we’ll be dealing with a different kind of mean girls, and not ones in penguin costumes—the nuns—but ones wearing navy blue blazers.
First world problems, I remind myself.
I wasn’t so “privileged” that I was blind to what I just witnessed. My aunt Tara was in the foster care system until she was eighteen, and my parents own a record label, manage artists, and they haven’t shielded me from anything that goes on in that world. But fuck, seeing the little badass at The Bean change when those bitches cut her down, it fucking hurt my soul. Hurt worse that she didn’t accept the olive branch, and not because I want to fuck her. I mean, of course I want to rub all up on her and her all up on me. I legit think I’ve lost my mind with how much I want her, but not when she’s been soul fucked by the sisterhood.
“Tricks,” Amias yawns. “Told Dad we’d be back at eleven.”
I pull into a drug store parking lot and do a U-turn. “And we will.”
* * *
After Justice unlocked the lower level doors and Max and Amias snuck in, I pulled into the driveway and parked. I grab my phone off the charger and shake my head as I laugh to myself or, rather, at myself for tonight’s escapades and make a mental note not to fuck another girl who attends Seashore … unless it’s Savannah.
Closing the front door behind me, I kick off my sneakers next to the line of other shoes and try really fucking hard to remember that each of them have taken their own path, and that all made it to this point.
“You okay?”
I look up as Mom comes down the stairs. “Yeah, fine.”
“Oh, shit, Irish”—Dad laughs as he follows her—“he said he’s fine.”
“Maxie back?” I look up from the foyer to the main floor where Uncle Jase is leaning over the railing.
“He and Amias are downstairs, getting their showers in tonight.”
“You hungry?” Aunt Carly calls from somewhere up there. “We have a pie that didn’t quite make it.”
“Coconut crème?” I ask.
She leans down. “Your favorite.”
“Perfect.”
“I’ll get your slice ready,” she says as if she’s just won the lottery.
I look over at the four sets of eyes burning a hole in the side of my head. “You two okay?”
“We are, but your friend”—Dad gives me a tight smile, the same one he always does when his one country star, Brandon Falcon, gives him a hard time—“is being a pain in the ass.”
“Gonna have to give me more than that to work with.” I laugh.
“He’s refusing to go to the AMAs.”
I know damn well why. He’s got the hots for Kiki, and based on the message he sent earlier, she blocked him from messaging her. I would have told him to leave her alone myself, because she’s knocked up, but that’s Crew, and I’m not blowing her spot. And I can’t say shit to her, because he’s a friend, and trust and loyalty are like the Hudson River—they flow both ways. That is also why I can’t tell my parents that he’s going to be a fuck of a lot harder to deal with when he finds out she’s pregnant, if he truly is in love with her, like he said he has been for years.
“He leaves for his European tour soon. Maybe he—”
“It’s the AMAs,” Dad growls.
I watch Mom roll her eyes and can’t help but find it amusing.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“You’re going to be an amazing manager.” Dad gives my shoulder a squeeze.
“Yeah?” I laugh. “Is that what I’m gonna be?”
“Little dude, you can be whatever the hell you want to be, and you’ll be amazing at it. Just saying, option’s there.”
I can see Mom smiling out of my peripheral. “He’ll be amazing at whatever he does, big dude. Now let the boy eat some pie.”
“Didn’t you go on a date tonight?” Dad asks.
“Oh my God, Xavier, not all seventeen-year-old boys are as nasty as you and your brothers were.”
“Hey, I resent that remark,” Zandor calls from the main level.
“I’m pretty sure all four of you fools do,” Mom says, walking up the stairs.
“Not for nothing, Taelyn. But had you women been around in those days, we wouldn’t have had to try the proverbial glass slipper on so many feet,” Uncle Cyrus chimes in.
“Ass slipper, you mean?” Aunt Bekah laughs.
“Kitten, are you projecting?” her husband, Uncle Zandor, asks.
“There are children in the room.” Carly laughs as
