Chaos at Westbrook High (The Kingston Brothers #3)

Epilogue

Ten years later

“Dad, I need a new phone,”Quinn says, resting her forearms on the island opposite us.

Wren almost spits his water out.

Sloane, Quinn’s twin sister, snaps her head up in our direction. My three year old daughter, Maeve, is sitting on her lap on the living room floor, an unplugged PlayStation controller in her tiny hands as they play video games together.

Damon and Callie pretend to mind their business while Damon makes pancakes—still our Friday morning tradition—and Callie sets the dining room table, their two boys running circles around it.

I smile at my fumbling twin brother while my five year old daughter, Blakely, tries to braid my hair while I hold her on my hip.

Struggling not to choke, Wren does his best to compose himself. “I’m not buying you another phone, Quinn.”

“Why not?”

“That’s the second one you’ve broken this year.”

She pouts. “It was an accident this time.”

He huffs. The girl’s got the Kingston temper. The last time she broke her phone, it was because some girl at school hollered across the cafeteria that she and Sloane aren’t real Kingstons, they’re the Kingston’s trash. After seeing the hurt in her sister’s eyes, she threw the first thing she could get her hands on at the girl, that thing being her phone. She felt awful about it afterwards. Not about the girl”s head, but about breaking the phone Wren and Levi bought her when she started high school.

“Please.”

Wren pinches the bridge of his nose, and I do my best not to laugh. It’s killing him to say no to her.

Four years ago, when the twins were eleven, their foster mother died of an overdose. Before the police showed up, the girls made a run for it, terrified they’d be separated in the system. Wren and Callie found them on the street two days later, starving, filthy, and alone. Quinn begged them not to call the police, so they didn’t. They brought them home instead. Wren was a mess. The thought of those girls being torn apart made him sick, and I knew why. We would have run away too if we had been in their situation when we were their age.

Wren and Levi had to fight like hell for them. Their piece of shit biological father came looking for them when he found out they were staying with the Kingstons, and shit got messy. But they eventually won and adopted them three months later. Wren and Levi asked if they wanted to change their last names to Kingston, and they eventually said yes. Well, Quinn said yes for both of them after they spoke about it privately for a while. Sloane’s not mute, but she doesn’t speak in front of anyone but her sister.

The elevator opens, and Levi walks in with his hands full of shopping bags. After slipping Sloane a new pair of headphones and earning a grin from her, he drops a brand new iPhone box into Quinn’s hands. Quinn beams at him as Wren throws his hands up, exasperated.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Levi mutters. “How am I supposed to track them if they don’t have phones?”

“You track us?”

“If it was legal to chip you, I would.”

Quinn’s nostrils flare. “Like dogs?”

He grins. “Exactly.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“You’re welcome.”

A smile touches Quinn’s lips as she holds the box to her chest. “Thank you,” she says sincerely.

Her dads smile back at her.

“Did you get me something?” Damon and Callie’s four year old son, Travis, asks Levi.

“I wouldn’t forget you, T.” He passes him one of the bags before bumping his little fist.

After peeking inside the bag, Travis whispers, “Awesome,” before running off.

“Travis!” Callie hollers at her son. “No candy before breakfast.”

“Okay, Momma!” The kid keeps on running toward his little brother and his cousins in the living room. His momma didn’t say nothin’ about no cookies.

“Hey!” Callie shouts, tipping her chin at Travis. “Give me one of those.”

The boy laughs as he runs back, shoving a cookie into her open mouth.

Frozen in front of the stove, Damon stares at his wife and son. Callie does a double take at him, her brows pulled in as she chews. “Are you burning those?”

Cursing, he quickly takes the pan off the stove.

“What is it?” Callie asks.

Damon shakes his head with a smile. “Nothing.”

Done with my hair, Blakely accepts the cookie from Travis and takes a bite out of it, crawling across the counter to push her face into Quinn’s.

“You called Uncle Wren your daddy,” Blakely says.

Levi’s eyes widen as he looks between Quinn and Wren. Wren hides a laugh behind his knuckles.

Quinn raises a brow, thanking Travis for the cookie before turning her attention back to my daughter, their noses almost touching. “I did no such thing.”

“You liar. You said Dad. I saw you.”

“You’re a perceptive little thing, aren’t you?”

Blakely squints her baby blue eyes into thin slits. “Asshole is a bad word.”

“Asshole’s a great word.”

“Is it your favorite?”

“No.”

“What’s your favorite?”

“I’ll tell you when you’re six,” Quinn whispers.

“Okay!” Blakely says excitedly. “Travis! Let’s go give my mommy a cookie!”

Oh, shit.

As she hops down and runs toward the stairs, Wren catches her and Travis before I can and picks them up, holding one on each shoulder. “Nope.”

“Why?”

“Mommy’s sleeping.”

Leaving Wren to entertain the kids in the living room, I gratefully take the two iced coffees Levi picked up from Valerie’s on his way home. Subtly tilting my head at the one with Hailey’s name written on it, I whisper, “This is decaf, right?”

He nods, smirking at me as he sets Wren and Callie’s coffees on the counter. He knows Hailey’s pregnant again because I told Wren, and naturally, Wren told Levi. Damon knows because Damon knows everything that goes on around here. We found out last night, but none of us have had the balls to tell Callie yet. Every time Hailey gets pregnant, Callie gets pregnant within the year. Travis is ten months younger than Blakely, and Sawyer, Damon and Callie’s two year old son, is only four months younger than Maeve. We didn’t plan that. Callie thinks it’s contagious. I think it’s fucking hilarious. Kind of. I won’t be laughing when Callie’s kicking my ass when she finds out.

Callie was certain she didn’t want children when she and Damon first got married, but somewhere along the way, she changed her mind. She wanted to bring a child into this world and give them something she never had until she met us. A home. Unconditional love. A family they could fucking count on. Always.

Still, when she got pregnant with Travis, she wasn’t expecting it, and she cried for so long that I didn’t think she’d ever stop. Even setting a ten minute timer like our mom used to do for us didn’t work. She couldn’t speak. Damon panicked. She threw up. Damon almost tore his own hair out. He was sure he’d forced her into it, that she’d only agreed to make him happy, and now that it was really happening, she was regretting it.

She wasn’t regretting it.

She had so much love for someone she’d never met before, for someone she’d only just found out existed, that it was consuming her. Damon stayed with her on the bathroom floor, and she hugged herself for a long time, rocking herself back and forth as her tears tracked down her face.

“Kai.”

I blink, finding Callie watching me with a knowing look, her hip leaning against the counter. I run away like a pussy, heading upstairs to find my sweet, beautiful wife. When I peek into our dark bedroom, I playfully narrow my eyes at her. She’s not sleeping, she’s reading. When she sees me, she covers the bottom half of her face with her kindle, hiding her guilty smile. She knows she never has to feel guilty about having some time to herself, but I love to tease my girl.

“You little shit.”

She laughs, sitting up and holding her grabby hands out. I go to her. Pulling the blanket back, I kneel on the bed and straddle her thighs. Her hands land on my waist as I hold out the decaf iced coffee. She sips hers through the straw while I scoop the whipped cream off mine with my tongue.

“Quinn called Wren Dad.”

With the straw between her lips, her brows jump.

“She played it cool. No one made a big deal out of it,” I tell her. “Well, Blakely did.”

“Of course she did.” Hailey chuckles. “Girl’s got a big mouth.”

Just like her dad.

I grin, setting the coffees down on the nightstand and leaning down, my hands pressed into the mattress on either side of her head while I kiss her sweet mouth. “Do you have to work today?”

“No. I’m taking the day off.”

My grin grows at the thought of being able to spend the entire day with her. After we graduated college, Damon, Wren, Levi, and I went to work with my dad, learning the ropes before he eventually steps down and hands the empire over to us, and Hailey and Callie went into business together. They run Valerie’s together now, as well as two indie bookstores, one in Westbrook, and one in LA. They’ve worked with authors all over the world, but their goal is to get as many independently published books on their shelves as possible. They also have a podcast and are pretty popular on bookish social media. Ten years ago, Hailey would have hated all the attention they’re getting, but now, she’s confident enough to put herself out there and talk about what she loves, promoting the books and authors, and giving them the visibility they deserve. The book community loves them. Some of the authors and their fellow readers have even come from out of state to visit their bookstores just to meet them in person. It’s a dream come true for them.

When we renovated the penthouse after Blakely and Travis were born, we added three more bedrooms upstairs, and a library downstairs, which is filled with books from wall to wall and floor to ceiling. That’s where they film most of their content and record their podcast.

“Does Callie know?”

I nod, moving my mouth down to her neck. “I think so.”

“Is she mad?”

“Not mad, just…okay, maybe a little mad. She knows we’re keeping something from her.”

She groans. “I’m the worst sister ever.”

“Nah. She loves the fuck out of you. I know she’s excited even if she’s pretending she’s pissed.” Crawling down her body, I lift her oversized shirt and push it up to her ribs, kissing the skin below her belly button. “We’re gonna have to run for our lives if it’s twins though.”

“What?”

“I think it’s twins, Hails,” I whisper, gently kissing her twice. “Two boys.”

She smacks me upside the head, her jaw dropped in outrage. “Why would you say that? Why would you even think that into existence?”

I laugh and keep kissing her. She sighs contentedly and sinks back into the pillows, her eyes filling with tears as she whispers, “I think it’s twins too.”

I snap my eyes up. “For real?”

She nods, sniffing as the tears fall.

“I love it when you cry like this,” I confess, reaching up to catch one with my thumb. “When you’re so happy you can’t contain it. You’re beautiful.”

Taking my hand, she holds my palm against her face. “You say that to me every day.”

“And I’ll keep saying it.” Reaching into my pocket, I pull out the squished up daisy our daughters and I picked for her this morning and hand it to her. “Every day, baby girl.”

After Hailey takesa quick shower and gets dressed, we head downstairs to the madness, and the twelve of us eat breakfast together. It’s as loud and chaotic as it always is around here.

I was the one who suggested we all live here together after graduation, and I’ve never regretted it for a second. I love this fucking family. I couldn’t live a day without them.

After breakfast, while the kids run and play and scream, Quinn and Sloane watch a movie on the couch together, and the rest of us clean up. We don’t have live-in housekeepers anymore. After Blakely and Travis were born, Callie’s intrusive thoughts made her so anxious that she couldn’t sleep. I swear to God, the girl didn’t rest for a year. She’d stay up all night, sitting in the rocking chair next to the babies’ cribs, terrified someone was going to come in and take them in the middle of the night. When she finally told us what was going on, we had the housekeepers pack up and leave. They still come a few times a week, but they’re not around all the time anymore. Callie fought us on it, said we shouldn’t have to change the way we’ve lived forever and that she would deal, but we fought her harder. She shouldn’t have to deal.

While I’m loading the dishwasher, I peek over my shoulder to find Hailey whispering to Callie in the corner. Callie’s forcing a glare, but she can’t hold it for long. After a couple beats, the glare falls, and she chokes, wrapping her arms around Hailey and pulling her in tight.

I smile and get back to the dishes.

Leaning on the counter next to me, Wren accepts the last cookie from Travis and tosses it into his mouth, waiting until the kid’s out of earshot before he says, “I bet you fifty bucks it’s twins.”

Hailey and I both whip our heads around to gape at him. “What?”

“I think it’s twins,” he says quietly, his eyes on Hailey’s stomach as he chews. “Two boys.”

Hailey looks at me, wide eyed and stunned. I blink at her a few times. Damon groans out a curse. Callie’s glare is back, her nostrils flaring as she bounces her eyes between me and my wife.

“You motherfuckers.”

The End.