I look up, breathe, ask, “Where did you get the oil?”
She doesn’t have time to answer before the door opens, and Logan steps in. “What are you doing with my baby oil?”
“Logan!” Leo screams, marching in after him.
Logan walks across the living room toward the kitchen, Leo on his heels. “It’s not my fault she’s into me, man.”
“Look at me when I’m talking to you!” Leo yells.
Logan spins, rolls his eyes.
“What now?” I ask.
Leo glares at Logan, speaks to me. “I caught Logan making out with my girlfriend.”
“What?” Lane shrieks.
“So what? She’s hot!” Logan says.
Leo punches him square in the face, and a moment later, Lachlan’s tiny, oily fist gets me in the jaw.
“Enough! Everyone in the minivan! Now!” Lane shouts, and when Lane shouts, we all listen.
We pile into the minivan, one by one, and once we’re all seated, she asks, “What do you boys want for dinner?”
Six voices shout out five different meals (the twins choose the same), and she notes them all down in her phone. Then she drives us to the grocery store and dumps a bunch of stuff in the cart while we all follow silently behind her because when Laney gets like this, we know she means business. She makes me pay for the groceries and then we head home. As soon as I’m done unpacking the bags, she says, “You need to go!”
“Go where?”
“You have the parent-teacher interview with Lachlan.”
“Shit.”
“Shit shit shit!” Lachlan shouts.
Lachlan’s teacher—a woman in her mid-forties with bright red, frizzy hair—seems disappointed that it’s me at the interview and not Dad. I tell her Dad’s away on business, and she gets that look in her eyes—worry—as if she should be calling CPS to check in on us. I look over at Lachlan, make sure there are no bruises or scratches or general boy injuries, but he’s clean. If it weren’t for the stains on his shirt and if he didn’t smell like he’d been bathing in baby oil, I’d have nothing to worry about.
I give her my most charming smile, compliment her hair, and she grins. Moves on. She says that Lachlan’s doing well, but he loses focus. A lot. He also finds it necessary to interrupt the class by standing up and singing inappropriate songs. “The other day, he told the kids in his class to…” Her voice lowers when she adds, “eat his booty like groceries.”
I stifle my laugh.
She sighs. “Maybe I should make another appointment with your father?”
“I’m sorry,” I say, straightening my features. “Could he be like…”—I push my luck—“one of those kids who’s exceptionally gifted and the class work is just too easy for him?”
“No.”
“It could be—”
“No.”
“But he’s—”
“No, Lucas. Lachlan’s not exceptionally gifted. I think you should find him an activity to focus on. Maybe start something this summer.”
“Like what? Baseball?”
“Baseball sounds great. It’ll give him the opportunity to play with kids his age instead of all his older brothers. Also, I’d recommend that you boys watch your language around him. We’ve had several parents complain that Lachlan’s the one teaching their kids swear words.”
Lachlan stands, shoves his finger in his teacher’s face. “That’s bullshit, lady!”
By the time I get home, Dad’s here and they’re all seated at the kitchen table, waiting, five different meals set out in front of them.
“Sit,” she tells me, so I do. Dad’s eyes meet mine, and he motions to Liam’s damaged face. I jerk my head once. Not now. Laney picks up a bowl filled with a bunch of folded paper and says, “You will all select one piece of paper from this bowl. This bowl has each of your names in it. You will go in age order, starting with your Dad, and you will say one thing you love about the person on that paper. Understood?”
“Yes, ma’am,” my brothers say.
“Good. Eat.” She marches toward me, kisses my cheek. “I’ll be in your apartment.”
I spend two hours with my family at the kitchen table. We don’t grab the names from the bowl, we don’t talk about the things we love about each other. Instead, we spend that time talking about the things we love about Laney. And I carry their love, along with my own, as I climb the steps to my apartment, my heart full.
She’s sitting on the couch watching TV when I open the door. “How did it go?” she asks, not looking up.
“It was… eye-opening.” I move behind the couch, shift her hair off her shoulder and kiss her neck. “Meet me in the bedroom?”
When she gets into bed, the first and only thing I do is cuggles her.
She falls asleep almost instantly, not used to living off of such little sleep.
I spend the next eighteen minutes watching her sleep and after realizing what I’m doing, I try to convince myself that I’m not a creep. That it’s completely normal to be doing what I’m doing because she is my girlfriend and I do love her. I want to shout it from the rooftops… but I’m not that creepy, and I’m also a little afraid of heights. And where did that expression come from anyway? In what world is the area small enough that a message from a rooftop could be heard? Was there no wind around to carry the dude’s voice? Fuck, I need sleep. And I also need to claim Lane (because it’s the 1950s and women are property, apparently). So I do our generation’s version of rooftops and dame claims; I make us Facebook official.
Take that, Cooper Kennedy.
I pull her closer to me, a smile on my face, until I remember the day we had and the shit Liam’s going through. I scan my brain, try to think of ways to fix it, but I come up blank. And so I do the only thing I know to do; I contact the one person I look up to for guidance when it comes to dealing with my brothers: Cameron, our brother-in-law.
Chapter Thirty-One
LUCAS
Cameron sits in a recliner as if he’s The Godfather, chewing on a fake cigar with a smirk on his lips. We're in Lucy's cabin with Cam's friends “Big Logan” and Jake while Lucy and Lane are in the apartment.
As soon as I told Cameron what was going on with Liam and Linc, he promised to come home for the weekend and bring some reinforcements. They’d already planned out everything by the time I meet them on Friday night.
Jake says, his Australian accent thick, “We need to discuss possible roadblocks.”
Logan nods. “Women.”
Cam grunts and keeps his same tone when he says, “I’ll take care of the wife.” Then he points to me.
“Um…” I look between them. Crazy assholes. “Lane’s working, so she won’t be a problem. Also, you guys are fucking weird.”
Jake chuckles.
Logan rubs his hands together. “Middle School Mayhem, motherfuckers!”
The plan is simple, really, and besides me walking the streets to pick up dog shit in the middle of the night, my brother Logan pissing into a different type of cup, and Cameron fucking with the chains on Benny Watson’s bike during his little league baseball game, my brothers and I stay out of the actual mayhem. It’s too obvious if people see us; six Preston punks plus our brother-in-law? Yeah, we're kind of hard to miss. But we all wanted to be here to see it go down, so we watch from behind the tinted windows of the minivan. “Here he comes!” Linc whispers, and we all scoot to one side of the van, press our noses to the windows.
“How far do you think he can get?” Logan asks Cam.
“Not far.”
“This is bad,” Liam says. “You guys, maybe we shouldn’t do this.”
“Shut up!” Linc snaps. “He called you a fag and beat the crap out of you. This is nothing compared.”
“What’s a fag?” Lachlan asks.
Logan groans. “I told you we shouldn’t have brought him.”
Lachlan repeats the question.
Leo says, “It’s a guy who likes other guys.”
“Why is
that bad?” Lachlan questions.
“It’s not,” I tell him. “Come here.” I rear back so he can sit in front of me and see what’s going on. Then I point to Benny Watson. “See that kid getting on the bike?”
He nods.
“He wasn’t very nice to Liam. He hurt him.”
“Inside or outside?”
“Both,” I tell him. “And you remember Cam and Lucy’s friends Jake and Big Logan?”
He nods again.
“They’re here to help him understand why it’s wrong to hurt people.”
Benny starts to pedal, and it takes less than three seconds for the bike to lock up. The little punk flies over the handlebars and falls on all fours, and I almost feel sorry for him. But then I look over at Liam and the damage on his face and arms and that feeling fades real quick. My brothers stifle their laughs while they watch part two of Middle School Mayhem come to fruition. Big Logan and Jake rush toward him, perfect in their display of fake concern. Cam puts his phone on speaker, connected to Jake's phone so we can hear what they're saying. “You okay, mate?” Jake asks. He and Big Logan squat in front of Benny, a hand on each of his shoulders.
“That was rough, dude,” Logan says, his voice dripping with worry.
Benny looks up at them, tears in his eyes, and I wonder what Liam was like when he was copping a fucking beating from this asshole.
“Here.” Jake slips a backpack off his shoulders and unzips it. “You look like you’re about to pass out. You need to eat something.” He pulls out the gourmet dog shit/peanut butter sandwich I crafted and hands it over to Benny. “You’ll feel better,” Jake pushes.
Benny takes a bite, munches a few times before spitting it out and cursing. The minivan erupts with laughter while Jake shakes his head, his brow bunched. “What’s wrong, little man?”
Benny’s still splattering everywhere, his tongue out, trying to get the taste of shit off his tongue. “What the hell is that?”
Jake shrugs. “Peanut butter and vegemite. Sorry, man. Must be an acquired taste.” He takes the Logan-piss-filled drink bottle from the backpack. “You want to wash it down with something?”
Without a thought, Benny takes the bottle from him, tilts his head back, lifts the bottle, and squeezes. As soon as the liquid hits his tongue, his eyes squeeze shut, and he coughs and spurts everywhere.
Dying. We're fucking dying in the minivan, watching it all go down, and Benny tries to stand, but Jake keeps him in place. Benny's nothing but flailing arms and legs. “What the fuck?!” he shouts.
Big Logan says, “Ur-ine a lot of trouble here, kid.”
Jake chuckles.
“Who the fuck are you?” Benny screams.
“We’re delivering a message from Liam and Lincoln,” Jake says. “You fuck with the Prestons, you fuck with their friends. You so much as look in their direction, you’ll be eating more than dog shit and piss. You got it?”
I’d put money that Benny’s pissing his pants right now. “Y-y-yes, sir.”
They smile brightly at him and help him to his feet. “Have a fantastic day!” Big Logan exaggerates. “Asshole.”
Middle School Mayhem is great.
Later in the afternoon while I walk to my truck, Cam calls out, running up to me.
“What’s up?” I ask.
“We need to talk.”
“I have to pick Laney up from work.”
“It's quick,” he says. “You know that check you sent us to give Cooper?”
“Yeah?”
“I can’t find him on campus.”
“What do you mean you can’t find him?”
He shrugs. “He hasn’t been in his dorm for days, and I asked Jake to ask around… jocks, you know, they stick together.”
“And?”
“And Jake says no one on the track team's seen him for a while. He's missed training the last couple days. That jerk's AWOL.”
I keep this information from Lane when I pick her up from work which I don’t feel too bad about. It’s not like she’s asked, and come to think of it, her phone hasn’t been blowing up the way it used to. At least not when I’m around.
I tell her about what happened today, the shit sandwich and piss bottle, and she’s sad she missed out on it. I thought she’d be disappointed in the way we chose to retaliate, and I tell her that. She shakes her head, says, “You know, I followed that little punk home from school one day so I could see where he lives and speak to his parents. His dad’s just as vile and pathetic as he is.”
We go to her house to pick up her sewing machine to go with all the other crafting supplies she keeps in our little apartment where we still haven’t had sex because we’re taking it slow, doing it right. And then we go back home where we save dinner by “helping” Lucy in the kitchen, which means taking over without Lucy realizing it. After we eat, I help Lachlan with his bath and his bedtime and his one minute, and Lucy invites us to hang out at the cabin. Lane says she wants to shower, so she does that while I wait in the living room. Then her phone rings, and I know I shouldn't look, shouldn't answer. But I do look, and I see Cooper's name flash on the screen, and I do answer because I want to know what the hell he still wants and where the hell he is.
I don’t speak when the call connects, just listen to him breathe. “Lois?” he says, and I keep quiet. “Why haven’t you answered any of my calls, baby?” Baby? Seriously? At least I know she’s not talking to him, listening to his blended, spoon-fed bullshit. “I need to see you. Just once. Please, Lo.” He exhales into the phone while I hold my breath, waiting for more. “Please, baby.” And I’ve had enough and I hang up because he’s nothing but poison in her veins, and the sooner he’s out of her system, the better off she’ll be. I go through her phone, through the missed calls and messages. If he’s been messaging her, she’s been deleting them because there isn’t a single one there. But there are a lot of missed calls from him. Too many to count. She's probably tried to delete that evidence, too, but she doesn't know how to because she's one of the few in our generation who can survive without an iPhone glued to her hand. I delete the call just made, the one that shows I picked up, and when she gets out of the bathroom, her hair still wet, I pretend like nothing happened. Because really, nothing did happen.
At the cabin, I tell Cameron about the interview with Lachlan's teacher and how she recommended Lachlan get into some form of organized sport. “I was looking into getting him on a baseball team during the summer league, but they're all full. But, the league’s still accepting new teams…”
He eyes me sideways. “So what? You want to start a whole new team?”
“Not just me. You and me, and I thought the twins could help assist, you know, give them something to do during the break? We can throw in a few bucks, get the company to sponsor them, get some uniforms. It's not too late.”
He thinks about this a moment. “You know, if we do that it'll be a bunch of Lachlan's friends, and you've met Lachlan's friends, right?”
I chuckle. “We could name the team The Misfits.”
Cameron says he’s in and that it’ll be good times. Then somehow, the conversation switches to the senior prom. Lane smiles at me from across the room, and I wonder if she remembers the pact we made on her sixteenth birthday; that regardless of who we were to each other, we'd go together. I don't think either of us would've imagined that we'd be where we are, her practically living in my apartment and making plans for our future while subconsciously dodging the fact that come August, I'll be two and a half hours away and she has no real idea what she'll be doing. “Tickets go on sale next Monday,” Lucy says, and how she knows this stuff about a school she left three years ago, I have no idea. She must see the question in my eyes, because she laughs. “I still get the high school newsletter emailed to me.” She looks at Laney. “Are you excited about it?”
Laney nods once, her gaze distant, and I know she, too, is lost in the memory of fancy restaurants and lobster and bracelets and Wonderwalls.
Chapte
r Thirty-Two
LOIS
I sit in my car on the Prestons’ driveway looking between the main house and Lucas's apartment, and I have no idea how I got here. The sky is dark, the stars bright, and I've never felt so much silence. I wipe at my eyes when the porch light comes on, look at the clock. It's 4:30 am. Tom's leaving for work. Shit. I had no concept of time, no idea how long I’ve been sitting here. I try to scoot down in my seat, hoping he’ll assume I’m just spending the night with Luke. My heart pounds, the tears come again. Knock knock on my window. “Lane?”
I wind down the window, do my best to smile.
“Why are you sitting in your car?” he asks, concern dripping in his words. He looks at the apartment. “Does Luke know you’re here?”
“No, sir.” I shake my head. “I finished work late last night and I didn't want to go home and I just started driving, ended up here, and I know Luke's got so much going on with his meet this weekend and I didn't want to wake him, so I've just been here…” A sob creeps up my throat, forces its way out of me. “I'm sorry. I'm just going to go.”
“No, sweetheart. Come inside. You shouldn’t be driving right now.”
I nod, gather my stuff, gather myself.
The house is eerily silent, and I tell Tom that as I follow him to the kitchen. He switches on the coffee pot, turns to me. “It's peaceful, huh? But it's also kind of lonely when you're used to the general mayhem.” He points to a chair at the kitchen table, and I take a seat, listen to the clock ticking, the tap leaking, the coffee pouring.
“I’m sorry. You were on your way to work and I…”
He sets a cup of coffee in front of me, sips on his as he sits in his usual chair at the head of the table. He covers my hand with his, says, “I don’t live to work, Lane. I work to live, and my life is my family. That includes you, so talk to me.”