Текст книги "Untamed"

Автор книги: S. C. Stephens

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 29 страниц)

Gibson immediately reached out for me when they got close enough. “Up!” she demanded, while Anna handed me my beer. Finally, a pair of people who wanted me more than Kellan.

Picking up my daughter with one arm so I could still drink my beer, I gave Anna an appreciative smile. You’re the best. Then, remembering my encounters lately, I frowned. “I just realized something…besides the fact that my bandmates are lying, chickenshit assholes.”

“Assholes,” Gibson mimicked with a cheesy grin.

Laughing, I gave her a high five. “Damn straight, kiddo.”

Anna compressed her lips as she shook her head. “So much for curbing the swearing…”

She was rubbing her stomach, like the baby was kicking her in the same spot. It had been doing that lately. Wanting to help her out, I snapped my fingers and hailed a roadie who was walking by. “Hey you, go find a chair for my wife.” The guy, who looked about twelve, started to turn away, and I grabbed his shoulder. “And a pillow for her back.” He turned again and I grabbed him again. “And something for her to snack on.” The guy hesitated, seeing if I needed anything else. “Now!” I snapped, shooing him off.

Anna frowned as she watched the guy hurry away. “Thank you for that, I really would like to sit, and I am kind of hungry…but maybe next time you could say please when you’re demanding something?”

I took a long swig of my beer. It was my favorite microbrew, one that we’d discovered while barhopping last year. Awesome. “The day I say please to a roadie is the day I stop touring. Being on the D-Bags crew is bragging rights for those guys, and if I don’t continually knock them down, they’ll get big heads. It’s my duty to be a jerk,” I said, completely serious.

Anna’s mouth twisted into a wry smile. “Well, continue on then. We wouldn’t want any big heads around here…” Leaning forward, she kissed my cheek; she smelled like cotton candy. Delicious. Pulling away from me, she returned our conversation to its original course. “So…what did you realize?” She started massaging my neck and some of the tension instantly started leaving me. Fuck, I loved it when she did that.

With my beer, I gestured to the fans loitering around backstage. “These fans…none of them really give a shit about me. Sure, they usually recognize me as being in the band, but they don’t know what I play, what I do. And sometimes they don’t even know my freaking name. How the fuck is that even possible? All they care about is Kellan. Kellan this, Kellan that, it’s all I hear anymore, and it’s bullshit. If they love the band, then they should love all of us. Equally. It is a group effort after all.”

Anna tilted her head as she considered. “I’m sure it’s not personal. Kellan is just…larger than life, and so are his fans. But you have your dedicated groupies too. Remember the group that snuck onto the bus a couple of nights ago. That was for you, not Kellan.”

I did remember that group, how could I not? They were all armed with green dildos that they’d wanted me to sign. But even they had asked about Kellan. Where does he sleep? Can we steal a T-shirt? Does he really fart rainbows and moonbeams, ’cause he’s so super awesome like that. Ugh. I was getting sick of it. “Well, if they are going to call themselves D-Bag fans, then they should do a better job of learning about the entire band. We’re more than just Kellan, and the rest of us deserve some sort of acknowledgment too.”

Seeing through my statement to the heart of what was really bugging me, Anna cupped my cheek. “You’ll get the praise you deserve, Griffin. I promise. You’re too big a star to stay under the radar forever. Your time is coming, you just have to wait it out and be patient.”

At first, her words sent a zing of pride through me. My wife thinks I’m awesome. But the lift to my spirits was quickly darkened by a confusing mixture of frustration and hope. When will everyone else think that? I sucked at patience, especially now that I was getting so close to what I wanted. And so far too. “I don’t know how much longer I can wait, Anna. They’re holding me underwater and I’m drowning. Something’s gotta change. And soon.”

An expression passed over Anna’s face that I hadn’t ever seen before. It vanished into blandness so quickly I almost thought I’d imagined it, but deep down I knew I hadn’t. I wasn’t completely sure what it was, but it had almost looked like…fear. Or worse than fear. That didn’t make sense though. My girl wasn’t afraid of anything. Maybe I was just misinterpreting things. But just that one tiny spark of anxiety on her face made a weird churning feeling rip through my stomach. I settled the feeling by remembering her earlier words. She had my back, she believed in me. That belief was what kept me going. Anna was the fuel to my awesome-train.

Not wanting to see that expression on her again, I said something that I thought would appease her. “Nah, don’t listen to me. I’m just talking shit again. All I need is to finish my beer, then everything will be right as rain.”

A glorious smile lit up her face, and any worry that may or may not have passed over her was gone. “Well then, drink up.”

I held the bottle up to her in a salute, then started downing it. Yeah, a beer would solve everything. For now.

Chapter 5

Meet the Awesomes

They say that all good things come to those who wait. Well fuck whoever said that, because I had waited as patiently as a person could be expected to wait, and nothing fucking changed. The entire tour went by and all I heard was the same old line—Not tonight, maybe tomorrow. I heard it so often I was considering getting it tattooed on my forehead.

My mood was foul when I got back home to my same old boring-ass routine. Anna was a week or so from bursting, so she was in a foul mood too. Between the two of us, it had been bitch central at the house lately. It was an odd vibe for us, since we were usually so laid back. Or Anna was, at least. It took a lot to ruffle her.

“Not tonight, maybe tomorrow,” I said in a high-pitched, mocking voice. I was in our pool, floating in an inflatable chair, a beer in each cup holder and a third one in my hand. Smacking my fist against the water, I muttered, “They can kiss my ass tomorrow, is what they can do. All I’ve ever wanted, since this fucking band formed, was one tiny second in the spotlight, but none of those assholes will give me a chance. Fame whores.”

Anna sighed from the lounge chair she was resting on; she’d heard this rant before. Several times. I was sure she was getting tired of hearing it, but she was my sounding board; I needed her to listen. “I can’t bend over anymore,” she said in a whine. “And the only shoes that fit my feet are slippers.” She looked over at me with pouted lips. “I seriously want this baby out. It better come early. I don’t think I can survive six more days of this crap.”

Examining her looking all swollen and uncomfortable, yet still the sexiest thing on earth in her two-piece, I sympathized; her feet did look like overdone sausages about to burst. I was kind of scared to touch them for fear they would explode on me. “At least your hell will be over soon. Mine is perpetual. So long as Kellan and Matt are running the show, I’m fucked.” Taking a swig of my drink, I flicked the water with my forefinger. I wished it was Kellan’s face. Or Matt’s. I’d even accept Evan’s, since he wasn’t exactly campaigning for me. Kellan and Matt had him firmly under their thumbs. Conformist.

A couple of droplets landed on Anna and she frowned at me as she rubbed them off her thigh. “You just need to keep trying. If you want this, don’t give up. Show them you’re serious, and they’ll change their minds and give you a chance.”

Because I was in a shitty mood, I scowled at her, but I supposed she did have a point. If I could prove to the guys that I wouldn’t embarrass them, maybe they’d cave on their ridiculous stance that I couldn’t be trusted with anything more important than mixing their drinks. I was so much more than a bartender, and it was time those fuckers realized it.

Anna cocked an eyebrow at me. “Speaking of serious…when are you going to call Matt back? He’s left four messages on the machine.”

Yeah, and even more were on my cell phone. I fully expected him to show up at my door any moment. But I was irritated and didn’t want to deal with him yet. Besides, what he wanted to do was preposterous. “Did you listen to the message? He wants to start working on the third album. We just finished the last one. How about we let our brains rest for a sec before we cram more stuff in there? Just saying.”

She looked about to comment on that suggestion, but the doorbell rang. Anna grimaced as the loud gong vibrated the walls. “I’m pretty sure that just woke Gibson up,” she muttered before painstakingly rising from her chair. I thought about climbing out to help her, but by the time I was finished thinking it, she was already standing.

As Anna left the pool room to see who was here, I cringed too. Had Matt finally taken the initiative to come collect me, since I clearly wasn’t in any hurry to contact him? Only one way to find out. Finishing my beer, I tucked the can by my hip and, using my fingers as paddles, I pushed myself over to the edge.

Grabbing the cool tile, I pulled myself out. I started to walk away, but then I remembered how much Anna hated it when I left wet footprints all over the house, and I dried myself off with a nearby towel. Awesome husband, party of one.

Strutting through the house, letting it all hang loose, I headed for the front door to see who was here. When I got to the door, it was wide open, revealing an assortment of people I hadn’t expected to see. Anna was standing in front of them, still dressed in her bikini. Hearing my approach, she looked back at me. The smile on her face was clearly forced; so was her cheery voice. “Griffin…your family is here. Isn’t that…great?” Her eyes widened on the word “great,” and I could tell what she really meant was, What the hell are they doing here?

Moving to stand beside Anna, I waved at my dad and my brother, Liam. Both of them were loaded down with bags. Behind them I could see my mom and my sister, Chelsey, getting even more bags out of a minivan; my sister’s twin girls were with them. From the looks of all the crap they were unloading, the gang was moving in for months. “Hey guys, good to see you. Wasn’t expecting you yet.”

My dad gestured at my lack of clothing. “We see that.”

Liam dropped his bags and covered his eyes like he’d just been splashed with acid. Falling to his knees, he began dramatically moaning and groaning. “My eyes, my eyes!” he screamed, sounding like the dying witch in Wizard of Oz. Liam fancied himself as an actor. I flipped him off while Anna excused herself to grab me something to wear. And probably to curse me out behind closed doors. We’d planned on calling my parents when she went into labor, so they could arrive right after the baby was born.

Dad looked down at Liam still writhing on the ground, then ignored him and turned back to me. “I’m probably going to regret asking this, but why are you naked?”

Shrugging, I told him, “I was in the pool.”

“Naked?” He bunched his brows. They had been blond like mine when he was younger, but Dad was mostly gray now. He said that was because of us kids, but I called bullshit on that remark. If there was any reason Dad was gray, it was because of Mom. She rode him hard then put him away wet every time she could. More than once I’d joked that he should have Property of Marsha Hancock tattooed across his backside. He never laughed when I said that.

I nodded at his question and repeated my answer. “In a pool.” When he still didn’t seem any less confused, I clarified. “It’s basically a gigantic bathtub, and I don’t know anyone who uses their suit in the bathtub…that’s just weird.”

Dad blinked; I swear even his eyes had shifted from blue to gray. “I…guess that makes sense.”

Liam, his act apparently over, finally stood up. “Hey, bro,” he said, give me a chin nod. “Nice place you got here. You leasing it?” Liam refused to believe that I was actually more successful than he was. Before the D-Bags got big, he’d constantly rub it in my face how much money he made. But now that I was in the world’s biggest band, he may as well have picked his meager income from my ass crack. He was having a hard time adjusting to this new reality.

“Nah,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. It made my package more predominant, but I didn’t care. My package was worth the view. “I bought it outright.” I hadn’t, I still owed a shitload on this place, probably more than it was worth, since I was pretty sure I’d overpaid in my eagerness to live here, but Liam didn’t need to know any of that.

He frowned and sniffed in a haughty way that I hated. Liam liked to compare his looks to Brad Pitt, but I thought he looked more like the Sarlacc pit. Okay, maybe not that monstrous. He was a Hancock after all, and he did have our charm, trademark blond hair, and striking blue eyes, but even with all that, he was no A-list movie star.

“Oh,” he muttered. Trying to sound wise, he said, “You probably shouldn’t have sunk all your money into real estate. Diversification is the key to long-term wealth. Big mistake, bro. Big mistake.”

Looking him straight in the eye, I told him exactly what I felt about his opinion on my wealth. “Bite me.”

Just as Anna came back with some shorts for me, I heard my mom bellow from the van—“Gregory! Liam! These bags aren’t going to move themselves! Set your shit down and get your asses back here for the rest of the luggage!”

I smiled as I slipped the Superman shorts on. Good old Mom. As Dad and Liam scurried away to do her bidding, I turned to Anna. “I better help too. Mom can get nasty when she doesn’t get her way.”

Anna raised an eyebrow. “So can I. Why are they here so soon?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s cool though, huh? Now we have help for Gibson. You can rest more…” Sounded good to me. Ever since we’d come back from the tour she’d been complaining about being tired. I think she was still suffering from motion sickness, even though it had been a few days since we’d last been on a bus.

Her green eyes flashed in the sunlight as she thought about that small positive. Accepting the situation, since it was too late to change it, she let out a long sigh. “Oh well. At least it’s only twenty days. Too bad for them though, they’re missing out on time with Baby Hancock. They should have waited so they had more time with he/she.”

Smiling, I lifted a finger. “Actually, that wasn’t part of our negotiations.” Knowing this wasn’t going to go well, I started wading through the bags that Dad and Liam had left on the doorstep to go help Mom with the rest of their stuff.

From behind me, Anna snapped, “What? What are you talking about?” I looked back at her. She was still just in a bikini, but that wasn’t stopping her from following me to the driveway. Anna was about as self-conscious about her body as I was. I totally dug that about her.

“The deal was twenty days. Period,” she said. Her voice was firm, unyielding. Technically she was right, but there was one small flaw in the pact, and I fully planned on exploiting it.

I raised a finger at her. “No, the deal was that they could stay twenty days after the baby was born. That was what you put on the table. We never talked about how long they could stay before the baby was born, so these days leading up to it don’t count.”

Her jaw dropped and I hurried away from her. “You’re an ass,” she murmured, right on my heels. She could move quickly when she needed to.

She thwacked me across the backside right as we got to the car. I let out a tiny cry of pain just as Mom handed me a bag. Anna hadn’t held back, and my ass was probably bruised now. Mom loaded me up with three more bags, then patted my shoulder. “Good to see you, baby. Why don’t you put Chelsey’s bags in a room for her, then come back for Dawn and Della’s stuff.” From the way she said it, it was clear that helping my sister and her kids get settled wasn’t an option.

“Yeah, okay, Mom.” I turned to give one of the bags to Anna and Mom thumped me across the head. I rubbed the knot with a scowl on my face.

“Your pregnant wife does not need to be schlepping bags around. All she should be doing is resting.” Mom gently took Anna by the arm and Anna finally smiled. “Now come on, dear, let’s get you on the couch.” She glanced down at Anna’s nearly bare body and her lips pressed into a thin line. “Maybe dressed too.”

My sister was wrangling her kids when Mom walked off with Anna, but she paused in chasing them to smirk at me. “Nice shorts. Thanks for putting them on before the girls noticed.”

Annoyance twisted my features. “They’re four. They don’t know enough to care.” Both of my nieces had their hair in matching French braids; they looked like they could be the spokeschildren for Swiss Miss with their fair skin, pale eyes, and platinum hair. Chelsey’s husband was a burly, muscular dark-haired guy that I had affectionately nicknamed the Italian Stallion, or I.S. for short, since he reminded me of Rocky. The girls looked nothing like him. The Hancock genes were just too strong for Rock.

“Where’s I.S.?” I asked her, looking around for the mountain of a man. Was he still in the car? You’d think the bulging muscles would be easy to spot.

Chelsey gave me a sigh I was all too familiar with from people. It was a Why don’t you know this? sound that really got under my skin. “Dustin shipped out three weeks ago, Griffin. He’s on deployment for at least a year. I know I mentioned that a couple times recently.”

I nodded, like I’d known that all along. And now that she mentioned it, it did seem like I’d heard that somewhere before.

Chelsey smiled at me, then turned and barked, “Girls! To me, right now!” Dawn and Della instantly responded. Stopping in front of Chelsey, they stood tall and straight, at attention for their commander. Chelsey had a tendency to talk to her kids like she was a drill sergeant and they were new recruits, and they usually responded to it right away. I’d have to remember that with Gibson and Newbie, although I didn’t think Anna would be cool with me shouting at our kids.

Once Chelsey had the girls following her like ducklings, we headed toward the house. Out of the three of us siblings, I was the youngest. Liam was the oldest. Chelsey was pretty close in age to me, just a year older. She was also the coolest sibling, besides me, of course, and the most attractive. Also, aside from me. Good looks ran deep in my family, but they ran a little deeper in Chelsey. She just had that California girl thing working for her, which meant I’d spent a lot of time when we were younger kicking losers’ asses who’d thought they had a shot with her. Dreamers.

The pair of us had been pretty tight when we were younger, and we still got along really well. Chelsey was a dancer, the regular kind, not the exotic kind. Before she’d had kids, she’d belonged to a ballet troupe in L.A. I’d been forced to go to so many of her recitals as I kid that I’d refused to go as an adult. I felt kind of bad about that now, since her career was essentially over. With Dustin gone so often, she was practically a single mother.

Dawn and Della ambled inside after us, and I shut the heavy door behind them. Dad and Liam had come into the house with Mom, and I could hear them upstairs claiming rooms. I could also hear Gibson talking to Anna in the living room. Guess all the commotion really had woken her up.

Chelsey let out a low whistle as she looked around. “I’m sure I’ve said this before, but this really is a nice place you’ve got here, Griffin. You know, in case none of us have ever mentioned it before, we’re all very proud of you. Our little brother, the rock star…it’s pretty amazing what you’ve accomplished.”

The praise made me instantly uncomfortable. It wasn’t that I didn’t like praise. I loved that shit! But pride from a family member, that was just…weird. That was taking awesomeness and applying emotion to it, and I didn’t do emotion. I’d rather just skip over all that mumbo jumbo and stick to cold hard facts, like nobody could shred it like me. That I’d be totally cool with hearing.

“Uh, thanks,” I mumbled. “Want to go pick your room, before Dad and Liam nab all the best ones? I think the pink taco room is still open,” I added with a laugh.

Chelsey rolled her eyes again, but laughed. “You’re so gross, I don’t know how Anna puts up with you.”

Sometimes I didn’t either. Instead of admitting that, I told her, “Puts up with me? She’s just as bad as me, maybe worse.” Thinking about my crazy, sexy wife made me smile. Anna was perfect. Fucking perfect.

Chelsey laughed at the look on my face. “Never thought I’d see the day a girl made you look like that.”

Gibson came trouncing into the room then. She must have heard me and wriggled away from Anna and Grandma to get to me. She did that a lot. It really pissed Anna off. Releasing the bags about to pull my arms out of my sockets, I scooped her up. She kissed my nose and I laughed as I rubbed her back.

“Yeah,” I told Chelsey, “Now I have two girls who knock me to the floor. I’m not the man I used to be.” I said it with a forlorn sigh, meant to generate sympathy and compassion, but Chelsey nodded with enthusiasm.

“No, you’re not.” Just as I was about to get offended, she added, “You’re about a thousand times better than the man you used to be.”

Again, that uncomfortable feeling settled around me. When did Chelsey get all soft and girly? Aside from ballet, she’d been the toughest chick in the neighborhood growing up, doing all the tomboy stuff that the prim and proper girls hated—skateboarding with me and Matt, throwing out curses and insults that would get us whooped if our parents heard us, and snaring every rodent, reptile, or arachnid we could find. Aside from the budding boobs and pointe shoes, she’d practically been a guy. In fact, I think she still held the record for farthest loogey launched.

Guess marriage and kids had softened her some. Oh well, she was still my favorite sibling, and I hated the thought of stuff being hard for her while Dustin was gone being a hero. She didn’t have to be alone. “Hey, just to let you know, my place is plenty big enough for you and the girls. Stay as long as you like.” Anna was going to kill me for weaseling out of our negotiation, but surely she more meant my parents and my brother. Chelsey was different, and Anna would be cool with it once she got to know her.

With a soft smile, Chelsey nodded. “Thanks, Griffin. That means a lot to me.” After she said it, she walked over and knuckle punched me in the arm. It stung like a bitch, but I laughed as I flipped her off. Guess she hadn’t softened as much as I’d thought.

After a couple of hours, everyone was all settled in and Mom was making dinner. Anna was still smiling, so I had to believe she was pleased with having my family around. So far, at least. Dawn and Della were keeping Gibson entertained while Mom worked on her to-die-for spaghetti sauce. My stomach was already growling, and I knew it wouldn’t be done for another couple hours. Can’t rush perfection.

Anna was trying to help Mom, but Mom just made her sit down whenever she tried. Mom’s hair was still the perfect shade of blonde, and she kept it in a short, sensible style that required little fuss or muss. If we were at home, Mom would have a cigarette in her mouth while she worked, but she was being respectful of our house and keeping her vice to brief visits outside. Smoking was the one thing Mom had been an absolute hypocrite about growing up; she’d constantly forbid us to pick up the “nasty habit,” as she called it. When I was eleven, she’d caught me with one of hers. Instead of grounding me, or giving me a slap on the wrist or something, she’d made me smoke it, plus the rest of the pack, and then another pack after that. I’d never been so sick in all my life. Even now, cigarettes made me nauseous.

I was having a beer with Dad and Liam, and Liam was filling us in on a commercial audition that he was sure he’d nailed for a high-end watch company. He really wanted to get the job; he’d heard that he’d get to make out with a model in it.

In my distracted state of homelife bliss, I did something out of habit that I’d been purposely avoiding doing for a while: I answered the phone when it rang. “Griffin? You are alive. Where have you been? I’ve been trying to get a hold of you.”

Hearing Matt’s voice on the other end made me clench my jaw. I wasn’t ready to talk to him yet, but it was too late now. With a shrug he couldn’t see, I told him, “My family is in town. I’ve been busy with them.” It was only a partial lie. True, they’d just gotten here a few hours ago, but I was busy with them.

Matt’s voice instantly changed. “Oh, okay. Well, tell them hi for me, and we’ll catch up soon.”

Great. He was going to want to come over now. “Yep. Will do. Thanks for calling.”

I was about to hang up, but Matt quickly said, “Wait! I wanted to talk to you about rehearsals. We want to get together as soon as possible and start on the next album.”

Now I knew I should have been all gung ho about work to impress both Matt and Kellan, but we’d just fucking gotten home. I needed a few weeks off. And fuck them if they didn’t understand that. When I responded to Matt, my voice came out in a whine. Maybe it wasn’t the best way to deal with him, but I couldn’t help the reaction. “We just finished one. Let’s take a break. Relax.”

The firm, no-nonsense Matt answered me. “We can’t, Griffin. This business is competitive, we have to continuously release new stuff to stay relevant. We need to keep pushing the envelope.”

Irritation ripped up my spine so fast, the hair stood up on my arms. Push the envelope, stay fresh? That was the same shit I’d been saying on tour, when I’d tried to get them to give me five seconds in the sun. Hadn’t meant a damn to them then, so why should it now? “You were fine sticking to the same ole on tour. What’s it matter now?”

My voice echoed my mood, and Matt let out that damn impatient sigh that everyone around me seemed to have mastered. “Griffin…” Just the condescending way he said my name set me off. I wasn’t three, and he wasn’t my dad.

“Don’t ‘Griffin’ me, I have a point and you know it. You guys blew me off, even before the tour, when you flat-out told me no, I couldn’t advance my position. So why should I give you the time of day? What’s in it for me to be a part of this band?”

Silence fell around my home, and I could feel everyone’s eyes on me. Maybe I should have taken this into the other room. Matt was silent a moment before he answered me. “What’s in it for you is what’s always been in it for you—fame, money, and women. That’s all you care about, all you’ve ever cared about, so don’t act like we’re screwing you over by making sure you get exactly what you love. Rehearsal is tomorrow at three. I’ll see you then.”

He hung up the phone before I could respond, and all I could do was stare at the damn thing and wait for my fluctuating mood to even out. Fame, money, and women? Yeah, maybe that had been my goal in the beginning…and maybe it still was now, but…something was missing. I had a hole in me that wasn’t being filled properly, and FMW just wasn’t enough anymore.

Dad was giving me concerned eyes when I put the phone away. “Everything okay?”

Trying not to sound too disgruntled, I told him, “Yeah. Matt was just being a douche is all, like normal. He says hi, by the way, and wants to hang out while you’re in town.”

Dad’s worry faded away as he smiled. My parents both loved Matt to pieces. Matt used to joke that they wished he was their son and not me, but I knew that wasn’t true. Well, I was pretty sure that wasn’t true. I was the coolest person my parents knew. They had bragging rights for being able to say they’d encoded my DNA. They couldn’t say the same about Matt. He was Uncle Billy’s kid through and through. They even had the same stick poking out their assholes.

I considered bailing on rehearsal, but Matt would just hound me until I showed up, and Mom and Dad wanted to go “watch the show.” I told them a few times there wouldn’t be much of one, since the “show” was mainly going to consist of Matt, Kellan, and Evan huddling around a piece of paper covered with lyrics that, to be brutally honest, didn’t make any sense at all.

They insisted on coming though, along with Liam, Chelsey, and the girls, so the whole damn family was packing up to head out to the countryside. Oh well. At least Dawn and Della would get a kick out of running around Kellan’s farm. Okay, he technically didn’t have a farm since the only animals on the property were a couple of stray cats, but it had that rural, rustic, there-are-pigs-in-the-shed feel to it.

I sighed as I took one last look at my backyard. It butted up against Lake Washington, and there was a private dock, with a few feet of shoreline that created a shallow area for Gibson to play. But the favorite part of my backyard…there was no grass to mow. The entire space was one gargantuan tennis court. I didn’t even own a mower. Neither Anna nor I could play tennis for shit, but just the fact that my “grass” was artificial was amazing. You couldn’t find crap like that in the countryside. Kellan was missing out.

When we finally got to Kellan’s ostentatious security system, I let Kellan know that my family was with me. Maybe I should have asked if they could come, but asking permission wasn’t my style.

After ringing the Let me the fuck in buzzer, I said into the intercom box, “Hey, Kell…Anna and I are here, and uh…we’ve got two cars…’cause, you know, I have family visiting and they want to see your spread.” Leaning over the steering wheel, I added, “And just so you’re aware, if my dad has a heart attack climbing up your forty thousand steps, I’m totally suing you.”

“Always a pleasure, Griffin,” Kellan’s tinny voice responded.

I smiled up at the camera while the gate squeaked open, then I made an exaggerated waving motion with my hand so Dad would know to follow me. Our caravan wound its way up Kellan’s driveway. When we pulled to a stop at the bottom of the steep slope where Kellan’s palatial home rested, Liam oohed and aahed. You’d think he hadn’t been to my house at all by the way he acted. I mean, come on, my pool was indoors!