Chapter Thirty
Wells
Everyone is already at my mother’s house when we arrive for breakfast. As we step inside, Bellamy’s voice rises above the clatter of pans and music coming from the kitchen. “They’re here!”
Keira, Bellamy, and Jules, with Stevie in a baby carrier on her chest, barrel out of the kitchen and exclaim, “ Victory! ” as they rush toward us like they didn’t just see her last night.
“You look like you have good knife skills,” Bellamy says.
“Should I be worried?” I ask as Bellamy and Jules reach for Victory’s hands.
“No,” they say, tugging her away. I love this for her. She glances over her shoulder with a soft laugh, gorgeous as can be in navy shorts and a white sleeveless top, and I know she’s loving it, too.
“Ooh, pretty !” Keira snags the bouquet of lilies out of my hand and smells them.
“Hey, those are for Mom.”
“I know , suck-up. You bring her flowers every time we have breakfast. Mom and Dad are picking something up at his house, so we’re in charge of cooking.”
“No wonder the music is so loud,” I say as we head for the kitchen.
Jules is whisking something in a bowl at the counter, which is littered with dishes, egg cartons, bread, flour, and other ingredients that are not necessary for our usual breakfasts.
Bellamy is peeling apples over a trash can, telling them about clothes she got for a sponsorship deal, and Victory is standing at the island, which is covered with more baking accoutrements.
She’s slicing the already-peeled apples, her hips swinging to the beat like she does this every morning with them.
Grant and Fitz are just outside the open French doors, inspecting a chair that’s lying sideways on the deck.
They glance inside, lifting their chins in greeting. I do the same in return.
I slide my hand along Victory’s back. “You okay?”
“She’s fine ,” Bellamy says.
“We’re making apple crisp and French toast casserole,” Keira says as she fills a vase with water for the flowers.
“I love apple crisp,” I say.
“Play your cards right, and maybe I’ll learn how to make it for you,” Victory taunts. She leans in for a kiss, and my fucking heart eats it up.
I squeeze her waist. “Can I help?”
“ No ,” my sisters and Jules exclaim.
I hold my hands up in surrender. “Sorry.”
“I love this song,” Jules exclaims, and sings, “ I’m not gonna waste another tequila shot on you, you, you. No, I ain’t gonna waste another spot or shot on silly old you.”
“Whiskey,” Keira corrects her.
“You sing your song. I’ll sing mine.” Jules kisses the top of Stevie’s head. “Right, sweet pea?”
Grant leans into the kitchen and says, “You tell ’em, Pix.”
I step outside with him and Fitz. “What’s going on?”
“Just a crack in the chair. It’s not a big deal,” Grant says. “We’ll fix it.”
“It wasn’t cracked last time we were here. How’d it happen?” I ask.
“You don’t want to know,” Fitz says.
“Now I do,” I say.
Grant’s jaw ticks. “Mom and Dad and too much champagne.”
“ Jesus. I kind of feel like I should be cheering Dad on, but that’s gross.”
“Right?” Fitz says.
“We can only hope we’re as randy as they are when we are their age,” Grant says.
The girls start singing “Walking on Sunshine” and dancing around the kitchen. They’re holding wooden spoons like microphones, singing to each other.
My brothers and I exchange a knowing glance.
I arch a brow, and slow smiles slide across their faces.
I tell them what song I want to sing, and with a confirmatory nod, we burst into the kitchen, and I belt out the lyrics to “Shut up and Dance” as I stalk toward Victory.
The girls crack up as I sing about keeping Victory’s eyes trained on me.
Grant and Fitz flank her, singing, “ Stop holding back .”
I take Victory’s hand, singing, “Shut that pretty mouth and dance with me.”
She laughs as I twirl her. I drop to my knees and hug her legs, singing about how she’s my destiny, earning roaring laughter from the others. The guys sing harmony as we continue our dramatic rendition of the song, and my parents dance into the kitchen, joining in on the fun.
I pull Victory into my arms, and as everyone sings about shutting up and dancing with them, I sing, “Shut up and put that mouth on me,” and then I kiss her breathless.
Breakfast is the usual banter and heckling, and Victory gives it right back to all of us.
We catch up on the latest with my siblings, learning that Grant is thinking about expanding the foundation to help veterans who live overseas, and Bellamy is considering another lucrative sponsorship opportunity.
We’re all glad to hear she’s off the reality-show kick.
Fitz says he’s looking forward to doing some surfing in Costa Rica, and Keira jokes about setting up a retreat for herself at an exotic location as a write-off, which sparks a slew of ideas from us.
Although we all know she won’t leave her bakery long enough to enjoy herself.
As we finish cleaning up, my father says, “We have something to show you.”
“Please tell me you didn’t break more furniture,” Fitz says.
My father shakes his head. “We thought it would be fun to show Victory some pictures of Wells when he was little.”
The girls all talk at once, excited to reveal all my embarrassing stories, and Victory seems just as thrilled to get the dirt on me. My mother brings a stack of photo albums down from her bedroom, and they gather around her in the living room and gush over photo albums full of our childhood photos.
I’m talking with my brothers and father when Jules says, “Look at those cute butts!”
I peer over their shoulders and see a picture of me, Grant, and Fitz standing at the edge of the property with our pants around our ankles, peeing off the bluff. “Jesus.”
“Oh, honey. You were adorable,” my mother says.
“I’ll say,” Victory says with a sexy smile.
“That was my idea,” Grant chimes in.
My father claps a hand on his shoulder. “Yes, it was. But you were eight, and when we asked you not to do it anymore, you stopped. Your brothers were not as easy to convince.”
“Are you saying Fitz didn’t follow the rules?” Bellamy asks.
“He wasn’t always a Goody-Two shoes,” Grant says.
My mother looks up and says, “Fitz would have stopped if Wells didn’t run outside every time he had to pee and holler, ‘Pee time, Fitzy!’”
Everyone cracks up.
“ Wells ,” Victory says.
“What can I say? I liked to feel the wind on my willy.” I wink, and the blush on her cheeks tells me she’s thinking of last night, too. We made love three times on the deck of my boat and woke up with the sun, insatiable for each other again.
“TMI,” Bellamy says, and they go through more pictures.
“Is that Wells with purple hair?” Victory asks.
“Yes,” Keira says. “Remember that, Wells?”
“How could I forget? It lasted forever.”
“You got the best brother award for that one.” Keira turns to Victory and says, “When I was in third grade, I wanted to dye my hair purple, but my parents thought the other kids might tease me, so Wells did it to his hair first. He said if anyone got teased, it would be him.”
Victory looks at me and says, “That was so sweet of you.”
“I’m a good guy.”
“He’s the same guy who pretended to read from Kei’s diary at her slumber party when she was a teenager,” Fitz reminds us.
“Oh my gosh. You did not ,” Victory says.
Keira scowls. “Yes, he did. Mr. Charming has an evil side.”
“It wasn’t evil. I just waved your diary around and said something like, Dear Diary, I think Jamison is the cutest boy on the island .”
“I was mortified,” Keira says.
“I had no idea you really liked him,” I remind her.
“It was a momentary lapse in judgment,” Keira says sharply.
“What is it with brothers and their need to embarrass their sisters?” Victory says.
“I had a sleepover in high school, and Clay and Flynn eavesdropped on us. They found out who my friends and I had crushes on, and then they had their friend call and say he was one of the boys we liked. He asked us to sneak out at midnight to meet him. As soon as we started sneaking out, my brothers called the police and said they thought somebody was breaking in.”
“Oh my goodness,” my mother says.
I chuckle, but the girls scowl at me. Quickly schooling my expression, I say, “You want me to make them pay for that?”
“You and what army?” Bellamy says.
I look at Grant and Fitz, and they say, “ No ,” making the others laugh.
“Mom,” Keira says. “Show Vic the pictures from when Wells played baseball in high school.”
“He was so cute.” My mom looks at the photo albums on the coffee table and says, “I must have left it upstairs. Wells, honey, would you mind grabbing the photo albums from the shelves in my room?”
“Sure.” I head up to the master suite, and as I reach for the photo albums on the bookshelves, I see my mother’s gardening books and remember what Grant said about the flowers I’d given her.
I pull out one of the thickest books and leaf through the pages, but I don’t find any dried flowers.
An unexpected pang of disappointment hits, and I pull another gardening book from the shelf and page through it.
There are no flowers in that one, either.
I look through three more books, and there’s no denying the disappointment I feel.
“Those aren’t albums, son,” my father says from the doorway.
I had no idea he was standing there. “Yeah, I know. Sorry, I was…” I put the books back on the shelf, not wanting to explain myself.
“No need to be sorry.” He walks over and crouches in front of the bookshelves. He pulls a thick book from the bottom shelf. It has several rubber bands wrapped around it. “I think you’re looking for this.”
He hands it to me. Better Homes and Gardens New Garden Book. There are gaps between the pages, which I’m sure are from the flowers.
“It was your grandmother’s gardening book,” my father says. “Every flower you gave her after I moved out is in there, along with the notes you wrote.”
My chest constricts. “How did you know I was looking for this?”
“I didn’t when I came in. Your mom asked me to see if you needed help finding the album. When I saw you holding gardening books, I figured it out.”
I look at the book, bound by old rubber bands like my mother didn’t want to chance losing a single flower or note. I’m not sure why, but I feel like I’m invading my mother’s privacy. “I shouldn’t have looked for it. Grant told me she kept the flowers, and I was just curious.”
“It’s okay to be curious. I’m sorry we put you kids in such a difficult position when you were little.”
“It’s okay. Life happens.”
“Life does happen, and it can throw you for one hell of a loop, but looking back now, we could’ve handled it better.
We were just kids ourselves, fumbling through a life we didn’t know how to manage.
Something happens when you fall in love, Wells.
Your world becomes less about you and more about the other person. ”
“Yeah. I found that out.”
“I know. That’s why I’m telling you this.
Maybe it’ll help you avoid the mistakes we made.
When you have kids, that special person moves to second place because babies are vulnerable and they just need us more.
In our case, your mother and I moved to sixth place in each other’s lives.
We were so busy trying to become responsible parents, we didn’t see the chasm forming between us until it was too late.
I fell in love with your mother when I was nineteen, and by the time I was thirty, we were raising five kids and loving every minute of it.
But we were doing it while I was learning how to put aside my artistic dreams to become a businessman I had no interest in being, and your mother was suddenly no longer Margot , but someone’s mom, five times over, and a Silver to boot.
I was busy creating an identity while she was losing hers. ”
That hits deep, and possibly for the first time ever, I really see my parents not as Mom and Dad, but as a man and a woman who fell in love when they were teenagers and somehow made it through all the pressures of life and family without losing their love for each other.
“Are you telling me this as a warning not to have kids?”
He smiles. “No, son. Kids are worth every second of the joy, and the hell, they bring. Which strangely enough can be intertwined. I’m telling you this as a cautionary tale, so you never lose sight of the person who made you want to bring children into your life in the first place.”
“I can’t imagine that ever happening.” I put the book back and push to my feet.
“Nobody falls in love thinking those all-consuming feelings can ever be nudged aside.” He grabs the photo albums from the top shelf and hands them to me.
“If you’re lucky, and you work hard at it, your love will weather any storm.
Look at me and your mother. We’ve been together nearly forty years, and we’re still breaking furniture. ”
I wince. “Dad.”
He laughs as we head down the hall. “Would it be cooler to tell you I’d still burn down the world for her?”
“Yes, much cooler.”
“But nowhere near as fun.”