Chapter 17
The next morning when I asked Oliver about the fight, he shrugged the whole thing off and claimed it was nothing.
I knew he was only dodging my questions, and I would have pushed for a better answer, but JJ was humming and acting like everything was fine.
Maybe he wasn’t the type of person to stay mad for long, but I had a hunch he was setting the matter aside for a different time.
That was because today was special—the Heartbreakers were performing in Portland, and it turned out to be the best show I’d seen by far.
Playing in their hometown fired the boys up like I’d never seen, and by the end of the show, I caught myself singing along with the rest of the crowd.
When it was over, we all went over to JJ’s house for dinner. And by dinner I mean a block party.
Okay, so maybe it wasn’t actually a block party, but there were so many children playing in the street when we arrived at JJ’s that we had to get out of the car on the corner and walk down to the large, two-story house with blue shutters.
“Who are all these kids?” I asked as we crossed the driveway. The smell of barbecue was drifting toward us from the backyard, along with the sound of a Mellencamp song.
“The Morrises run an orphanage,” Oliver joked.
JJ rolled his eyes. “I have a big family.”
To me, a big family meant four siblings at most, which JJ found comical. He was the oldest of eight—three boys and five girls. And then there was everyone else who’d shown up to celebrate the band’s homecoming: aunt, uncles, cousins, second cousins, neighbors.
There were so many people at the party that I quickly lost track of the boys.
Xander was the first to disappear, rushing off to find his family as soon as we stepped inside.
Not long after, JJ’s younger brothers dragged him and Oliver off to play football.
Alec kept me company the longest—since he was from California he didn’t have any family at the party—but he got caught up in a conversation with one of JJ’s cousins, and I excused myself after ten minutes of listening to them talk about some band I didn’t know.
The kitchen seemed to be the center of the party.
A huge spread of food was laid out on the table, and people swarmed around it like bugs, snatching up the easy-to-eat finger food.
My camera quickly found its way into my hands, and I stood off to the side of the room, snapping pictures of strangers.
A bulky figure stepped in front of me, blocking my view. “Stella, what are you doing?”
I looked up from my camera and found JJ standing over me. A little girl was clinging to his back, an adorable bundle of dark curls and green saucer eyes who couldn’t have been more than two.
“I’m not working, I swear,” I said, as I adjust the lens and focused in on her. She was too cute to ignore. “Who’s this princess?”
“My youngest sister, Audrella.” JJ twisted his neck to look at her. “Aud, can you say hi to Stella?” She shook her head and buried her face in her brother’s shoulder. “No? Okay then.”
We both laughed.
An older girl who had the same dark curls as Audrella looked up from ransacking the candy bowl. Chocolate was smeared around the corners of her mouth. “Is Stella your girlfriend?” She said “girlfriend” like it was something funny.
“Jenny!” JJ said, gaping at who I assumed was another one of his little sisters.
“What?” Jenny said, all attitude as she propped a hand on her hip. “It’s just a question.”
“No,” he told her, gritting his teeth. “Stella is not my girlfriend. Stop being so nosy.”
She sighed, her face falling slightly. “Figures,” she mumbled.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Ignoring her brother’s question, Jenny turned her green gaze on me, a new smile already on her face. “Do you think my brother is cute?” she asked, and JJ’s scowl was replaced with a look of horror.
Swallowing my laughter, I grinned down at Jenny. “Oh, I think your brother is super cute,” I told her.
“Good,” she said. “You should marry him. Then we’d be sisters.”
This time, I couldn’t hold back my laugh. “I’m a bit too young to get married.”
Jenny nodded her head in understanding. “My mom says I’m too young to get married too,” she told me as she reached for more candy, “but I already have my wedding planned out. Do you know Oliver Perry? He’s the cutest boy in the whole world. When I’m older, I’m going to marry him.”
“Are you now?” I said as a slight blush dusted my cheeks. I secretly agreed with her—Oliver was cute. Annoyingly cute.
“All right,” JJ said, grabbing Jenny by the arm and taking the chocolate from her hand. “I think that’s enough sugar for one day.”
“Hey!” Jenny complained. When JJ let her go, she dodged around him and snagged a brownie off one of the trays. Then she stuck her tongue out at him and ran out of the kitchen before he could stop her.
“Sorry about that,” JJ said as he set the chocolate back down on the table. “She doesn’t have a filter.”
I grinned. “Must run in the family.”
JJ opened his mouth to respond, but Audrella, who was still clinging to his back like a monkey, tugged on his shirt and pointed down at the candy. “Colate! Colate!” she demanded.
“Okay, but only one piece,” JJ said and picked out a red M&M for his little sister. “Don’t tell Mommy.”
“Jeremiah James!” a woman yelled from the other side of the kitchen. “I better not have just seen what I think I did. You know not to give Audrella candy!”
“Sorry, Mom,” he said as he peeled his sister off his back and set her on the ground.
“Jeremiah?” I snickered.
“Shut it,” he said. “It’s a family name.” I didn’t get a chance to tease him further because the doorbell rang, and JJ shot off down the hall calling, “I’ll get it!”
He returned a minute later, a woman in her late twenties trailing behind him. She had hair so blond it looked white, and her eyes were such a startling shade of gray that I instantly recognized them.
“Vanessa!” Alec shot across the living room like a blur and barreled into the woman.
She stumbled back a step, but laughed and returned his hug.
I’d never seen him so excited before, and if I hadn’t seen the entire incident myself, I’d never have believed it.
“What are you doing here?” he asked when they finally pulled apart. “Are you staying long?”
“Chill, baby bro,” Vanessa said, ruffling his head, and Alec didn’t even flinch as she ruined his always-perfect hair. “One question at a time.”
The largest smile I’d ever seen was plastered across his face. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”
“Because it was a surprise, silly. Oliver paid for my flight so you wouldn’t be the only one here without family.”
“He did that?” I blurted out. Vanessa turned her ashen eyes on me and I blushed. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt.”
She raised an eyebrow, glanced at her brother, and asked, “Stella, right? The photographer?” He nodded his head, and then she offered me a smile. “Alec showed me some of the pictures you took. They’re quite good.”
“Um, thanks.” Who hadn’t Alec shown my pictures to?
“You’re welcome. And to answer your question, yes. Oliver flew me up here so I could spend the weekend with Alec. Speaking of, where is he? I haven’t properly thanked him.”
“Haven’t seen him since we got here,” Alec said.
Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t either. “I’ll go look for him,” I offered and backed away from the group before I could embarrass myself further.
But there was one more reason I had a sudden urge to find Oliver. Now that I’d met Vanessa, I realized I’d been introduced to every one of the boys’ families. That is, everyone’s except for Oliver’s.
***
I’d been looking for near an hour, weaving my way through the crowd in the Morrises’ house, but Oliver was MIA.
I checked the entire downstairs before moving outside and searching the yard.
The place was so crowded that it was hard to know for sure if I’d missed him, but I was almost positive that Oliver wasn’t anywhere at the party.
So I decided to venture upstairs.
The second floor was one long hallway of doors, each one labeled with one or more of the Morris kids’ names: Audrella and Joanne, Aiden, Jenny and Amy, Jordan, Annasophia. At the end of the hallway I found the door with JJ’s name, which had a yellow-and-black sign that read: DANGER! TOXIC ZONE.
Rolling my eyes, I disregarded the warning and pushed open the door, not knowing where else to look for Oliver.
The room was small—a single bed ran the length of the left wall, and a dresser and desk were pushed up against the right.
Someone had left the lamp atop the desk on, drawing attention to the bulletin board hanging above it.
Tacked to the cork was a collection of photographs.
Although Oliver wasn’t physically in JJ’s room, he was still here, smiling up at me from most of the pictures.
There was one of JJ and him when they couldn’t have been more than six, covered in mud and smiling like loons.
In another they were dressed up for Halloween as Jedi, JJ wielding a green lightsaber and Oliver a red.
As the boys got older, Xander started to appear in more of the pictures: a camping trip, a birthday party, a high-school dance.
The bulletin board was like a chronological snapshot of JJ and Oliver’s childhood, so it was appropriate that the final picture pinned to the bottom right-hand side was one with Alec, a group shot of the band.
Using my nail, I dug the tack from the cork and pulled the photo down to get a better look.
It was only dated from two years ago, but all four boys looked different, much younger—JJ’s tattoo was missing, Alec was a foot shorter, Xander had braces, and Oliver’s hair was long and floppy.
“Hey.”