Kye
I’m amazed there isn’t a path worn into my bedroom floor from all the pacing I’ve done in the last twenty-four hours. I haven’t spoken to Chels since she stormed out of here, crying her eyes out. The only thing that stopped me from barging after her was Leila physically blocking the front door and shaking her head. The only thing that kept me here was her marching me down to the gym in the basement and holding the punching bag for me.
I hit it without gloves until the skin that stretches over my knuckles tore open and blood marred the silver surface of the punching bag. Reckless? Stupid? Careless? Yes. But that was my point. I didn’t give a single fucking shit while I was wailing on that bag. The pain in my hands eclipsed the emotional pain until I thought it was buried. And then we recorded the song.
Conner shoved a pen and paper in front of me and forced me to write down everything. He took the mess of my emotional word vomit and cleaned it up into something that made total sense. We worked until our wrists cramped, and then we worked some more. We worked until we had it all done.
Unlike Conner and Aidan, I’ve never dealt with heartbreak. I saw the pain Con went through when Sofie disappeared, sure, and I stuck by my twin brother when his first relationship broke down, but it’s the thing I have most in common with Tate. The difference is that he never loved until Ella, and I never found anyone worth loving.
The closest person I ever came to loving is Sofie, my best friend, and she was always Conner’s. Always.
Not that I don’t love her, I do, and Ella and Jessie, but I love them the way I love Leila. As my sisters. I’d be gutted if that ever changed, for sure, but not like this.
I wouldn’t feel like my fucking soul is tearing itself apart.
That is Chelsey. That’s the difference she’s made to my life. She tore through my heart like the ferocious hurricane she is, and then she left, leaving nothing but the fucking horrific pain of her rejection.
I wonder if she knows just how fucking much I’m hurting. If she’s hurting even an ounce as much as I am. ’Cause, fuck. I’ve never felt a pain like this. Never hurt like this. It’s like getting out of bed is a mammoth goddamn task and smiling is out of the question. Not gonna happen. I feel like a miserable bastard, but whatever. I am a miserable bastard right now.
I open my bedroom door when the rumble of voices makes its way up the stairs.
“That is enough, y’all!” Mom snaps. “I don’t care if y’all have moved out. My house, my rules, and there’s a sweet girl just through there who doesn’t care for y’all’s bitchin’!”
I make it to the bottom of the stairs in time to hear Mila utter, “Uh, Nana? Dollar.” I walk into the kitchen to find said sweet girl with her chubby hand outstretched and a look of total disappointment on her face.
“Sorry, Mila,” Mom says, turning. She pulls a jar from the top of the fridge and extracts a dollar bill for her. Mila stuffs it in her jeans pocket, half of it sticking out, and plops down on her butt. Presumably she’s sitting vigil in case any more dollars come up for grabs.
Toddlers. Smart as fuck.
“Pops is in his shed, sweetheart,” Mom tells her, reaching for the back door. “He’s buildin’ again.”
Mila’s eyes light up, but she looks visibly torn between my brothers and the shed. Free dollars or unlimited bashing with a toy hammer?
If only all life’s problems were that hard.
The crazy dark-haired toddler thinks it over for another moment before scrambling to her feet. “Otay,” she says, running into the front room. Tate and Ads share a glance when there’s a crash, but Mom and Conner look only mildly affected by the noise. “Hear,” she says, holding up a Disney walkie-talkie.
Mom nods, and Mila toddles off outside. I peer through the window until she makes it to Dad’s shed and pounds on the door with a resounding, “Pop! Pop! Pop!” He lets her in and shuts the door.
“Uh, Mom?” I ask, turning to her.
She shrugs. “What’s she gonna hear? The other one is in the toy box.”
Tate slams his fist on the table. “Right. Now that we’re free from dollar-demanding distractions and fuckin’ Misery Face has joined us, let’s sort this out.”
Honestly, you’d think that with the three of them in their own places, we could meet anywhere but our mom’s house.
“Why y’all can’t do this in your own homes is beyond me,” Mom cuts in, stealing my line. “This isn’t Dirty B. HQ.”
“You wanna be? We’ll pay you.” Tate throws her a shit-eating grin.
Mom slices him down with one scathing look. “I read on Facebook that some guy added up what his wife should be paid as a housewife for their one child. Somethin’ around ninety thousand dollars a year. Now I’ve got four of you plus your sister, so y’all owe me some serious money. You bet your ass you’re gonna pay me if you keep havin’ your dumbass panic meetin’s here!”
“Hey!” Ads protests. “They ain’t panic meetin’s, Mom. They’re serious shit.”
“Got a new manager yet?” The same scathing gaze she just hit Tate with coasts across all four of us, and none of us answer.
“No manager is better than a corrupt manager,” Tate points out.
“Panic meetings,” Mom finishes, flouncing out of the room without a care in the world.
I glance after her and then focus on my brothers. “What the hell are y’all doin’ here?”
Conner’s demeanor changes instantly, and I get the impression that he’d been keeping the anger now etched across his face hidden for both Mila’s and Mom’s benefit. “Some asshole wants us to wait until the New Year to sign a manager.” He nods his head toward Tate.
“It’s Christmas this fuckin’ weekend!” Tate protests.
“And we leave in three days!” Conner growls. “You’re not the one who’s bein’ asked to leave your daughter behind!”
“He’s got a point,” Ads and I say at the same time.
Tate looks at us the way he always does when we do that. Old habits die hard, even if we do live apart these days.
“Come on, Tate. There’s nothin’ wrong with Trident,” I tell him, getting his attention. “They’ve given us the most convincing deal so far, and they’re based in Charleston. Let’s negotiate down to a two-year contract and sign the damn thing. We all have reasons for staying here.”
He takes a deep breath and pushes the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I don’t wanna make the wrong decision. What if it’s fuckin’ stupid for us to go with some two-bit management team and everythin’ we’ve done falls to pieces?”
Ads snorts. “Come on. That won’t happen. We’re still us no matter who manages us. We just lay down all our expectations and needs on our side of the discussions and then it’s problem solved. We were gonna do a world tour next year, so that’s gotta be in the agreement. The label’s gonna pay for that anyway; Trident can’t complain. They’d have it made with us.”
“But do we have it made with them?” Tate asks.
Conner runs his fingers through his hair then gets up. “Know what? My vote is yes, but you do what you want, Tate. Either way, there ain’t a chance in hell I’m missin’ my first Christmas with my baby girl.” His chair bounces against the side of Aidan’s, and Ads reaches out to steady it as Conner walks out the back door and slams it behind him.
Tate looks between me and Aidan. We both shrug at the exact same time.
“It’d mean more time at home,” Ads reminds him. “More time with family.”
“I just wanna get it right,” Tate mutters, slumping in his chair.
“We know, man. We know.” I lean against the counter. “But what if ‘right’ is what’s right for us as people and not for money making? We didn’t get into this for money anyway. We did it for the love of music. Now there’s a whole lotta people in Shelton Bay we love, and we can love them while we make music. What’s the problem?”
Tate takes a deep breath, and when he meets my eyes, I sense his resignation and inner admission that I’ve just hit the nail on the head. “You know what, Kye?” He gets up and slaps my shoulder. “Nailed it, bro. Fuckin’ nailed it. Y’all email me specifications. I’m gonna go write up an email right now.”
With those words, he takes to the front door and disappears, and an electric charge jolts through my body.
“Well, shit.” Ads looks at me. “What does that mean for you? With Chelsey?”
The realization that we aren’t going to L.A. filters through my bloodstream, hot on the tails of the electric charge. It’s a mixture of relief and excitement and determination, and not to mention red-blooded desire to get my girl back where she belongs—with me.
My lips curve into a slow smirk as I meet my twin’s gaze. “It means it’s fuckin’ on.”