2. Chapter Two - Tanner
Tanner
“Fancy running into you here.”
Reed startles when I clasp his shoulder from behind before he turns around with a glare that quickly turns into a grin.
“Tanner! Almost didn’t recognize you, it’s been forever.”
“Ha. Ha,” I say dryly as I fall into step with him. Like we didn’t run into each other last week in the gym. “Is it time for you to get glasses already?”
I expertly dodge the playful hit about to come my way before I fall into step with him as we make our way over to the terminal for private flights. One of the perks of having a hotshot CEO brother who owns a private jet.
“I definitely don’t miss those,” Reed says with a grin, nodding over to the queues forming around the TSA lines, with screaming kids and annoyed adults waiting for their turn.
It’s not like we never fly commercial. After all there’s only one jet and we’re five siblings who regularly fly around the world for jobs—well, three of them anyways.
Adam, as CEO of one of the hottest companies in the entertainment business and owner of the plane, has dibs on his jet, of course. But when he doesn’t need it, Jackson takes it to wherever his acting jobs are, Reed for his model jobs, and me?
Thankfully, I don’t really need it. I don’t mind flying, but I don’t love it either, and since I’m a voice actor, most of my work can be done in my private studio at home, or for more advanced equipment, in a rental in my city.
And Zoey, our little sister who just went off to college, doesn’t need it either. Judging by the fact none of us are hearing much from her, I guess she’s way too happy to have some space to fly in for a visit. Although she’s the only one that could get Adam to fly commercial if she gave him her infamous puppy stare.
“Same,” I finally agree with a chuckle as the two of us make our way past the deafening murmur of the TSA lines and past a ton of souvenir shops and tourists who are still figuring out where to go. Reed and I have been here often enough we’d know the way in our sleep.
“Any idea why Adam is ordering us to the Netherlands?” His ominous call came two weeks ago. Luckily still early enough for me to re-schedule a few things, yet he never bothered to let us know what this whole trip is actually about.
“Nope,” Reed says, popping the ‘p.’ “I heard from Asher that it’s Millie and Luca’s kind-of-but-also-kind-of-not bachelor parties. Apparently, they want to spend time with family instead of partying it up, and I guess Adam felt inspired.”
“Right,” I grumble and take a deep breath. “Cause that’s promising a fun time.”
Of course, I’ve heard about Millie and Luca getting engaged. The pop icon and the actor got together during a charity football match we did a few years back, and watching the two of them fall in love is the cheesiest shit I’ve ever witnessed.
Whenever they looked at each other, it was almost literally with hearts in their eyes and little angels flying around their heads playing love songs on trumpets. They played the media and had to go through a lot together, namely smear campaigns and rampant fans, and contrary to most couples in the entertainment industry, they came out on top. But there was so much else that came with it.
Millie and Kayla, the pop duo of the decade, shook up the whole entertainment industry by ditching their label and creating a new one. Even though Adam would have never said a bad thing about them, I could tell he was worried—Crony have a great reputation, but so did the Sirens and I know he was a bit scared of his talent jumping ship. Thankfully, the two companies found a balanced space in the industry and act more like co-workers than rivals.
And as fate would have it, Adam has fallen in love with their CEO, which I guess made him close with Millie and her pop group partner, Kayla.
It even made him step back from his own job, finally. Not quite sure yet if I like him having that much time on his hands, though, because now he seems to do all the butting into our lives he couldn’t bother with when we were younger.
Now he’s doing stuff like popping by our houses unannounced or ordering us to a spontaneous family vacation to Europe—which, to be fair, I can’t really be too mad about since it’s on his dime and I’m not about to say ‘no’ to a free vacation.
Thank God I was able to push one of my audiobook projects back for this.
“You think Adam and Jackson will behave?” I ask Reed and see the corners of his mouth twitch, knowing his answer before he even opens his mouth.
“I think there’s a lot of mediation to be done,” he answers more or less diplomatically. “I mean please. They’ve been at each other for the past seven years or something, what makes you think this will be any different?”
I think for a moment before shaking my head. “Wishful thinking.”
“I hear you.” His sigh sounds like it’s coming from the depths of his soul.
“Don’t worry.” I nudge him, not able to hide the grin playing at my lips. “Weed’s legal there, right?”
“Why, you want to drug them?”
“I’m just saying, maybe if we all have some brownies,” I wiggle my eyebrows at him, “together and get them to talk instead of bitching at each other, it may resolve their deep-rooted parent complexes.”
“You might have a point.” He tilts his head, playing the idea over. “Let’s just see how it goes. Maybe we’ll get a very early Christmas miracle.”
“Here’s to hoping.”
“Ah, there he is,” Reed grumbles and nods towards the checkpoint in front of us, where our oldest brother is already putting his stuff on the conveyor belt for the private flight security check. He then leans down to untie his shoes, spotting us as he steps out of them and his face turns into a tight smile as he acknowledges us with a nod. It reminds me of when he’d have to smile his way through parent-teacher meetings, clearly wanting to be somewhere else.
“Wow, what crawled up your ass?” I ask him jokingly and pat his shoulder as a greeting.
“Sorry, sorry,” Adam grumbles and pinches the bridge of his nose, his face softening. “Didn’t get much sleep last night.”
Reed and I look at each other for one split second before simultaneously biting our lips to stop ourselves from bursting into laughter. It’s no secret he’s basically moved in with his girlfriend. We can very well guess why he didn’t get much sleep.
“Not that.” Adam rolls his eyes at us and shakes his head with an amused grin playing at his lips. “I had a bunch of shit to clear up, but I’m happy to tell you that I’ve left my work phone in my apartment, and for the next week, I’ll only be available for absolute emergencies. Real emergencies, like the company burning down.” Now his grin turns slightly more evil. “No distractions. We’re going to have plenty of time to spend with each other.”
“Why does that sound like a threat?” I narrow my eyes at him and start putting my stuff into the little bins for the security check.
“Not like it’s ever been a hardship to spend time with you,” I add, lying straight through my teeth. I like spending time with Adam alone, he’s a quiet fella, very focused on himself and his work. But add Jackson, our second-oldest brother to the mix? It’s made me contemplate running fast and far on more than one occasion.
“You and Jackson combined, though,” Reed continues, waving his head from side to side, and I bite back a chuckle as he voices my exact thoughts. “That’s another story.”
“It’s actually a story I wanted to talk to the two of you about,” Adam acknowledges with a nod as he walks through the metal detector without making it go off.
“Damn it, I wanted to slip him a penny,” Reed curses under his breath as he wrestles his belt from his pants and puts it into one of the trays.
I gently slap the back of his head. “Behave. It’s important to him. Don’t make him angry.”
“All right, all right,” my youngest brother assures me, then walks right through the gate himself, causing it to turn red and beep in that scary tone that goes right to your brain and hammers at it, making me flinch.
“Oh, shit,” he mutters, pulling his keys out of his pocket and throwing them at me. “I forgot.”
I shake my head at him, the irony not lost on me, biting my tongue to not rib him along the lines of ‘You don’t even need someone to slip you a penny.’ Instead, I throw his keys into a bin together with my electronics and walk through the gate myself. Thankfully, it remains silent, leaving me feeling like a proud preschooler getting his first A on a homework assignment.
Before I know it, we’ve been ushered to a car that’s bringing us to the jet in a hidden corner of the airport, where Adam’s pilot is already waiting. They greet each other like with broad smiles and a handshake like they’re the oldest of friends, while Reed and I merely lift our hands in a friendly greeting as we walk past the two chit-chatting to throw ourselves on our unofficially assigned seats.
“So, what’s this about?” Reed asks Adam once we’re in the air.
I’m just glad he didn’t throw up this time. Reed is prone to doing so during take-offs and landings, but he’s only looking a bit pale this time and slowly nursing his glass of water.
From what I gather, Jackson, my second oldest brother, is already in Amsterdam—figures with him living in London that we would meet up there. I’m just curious if he’s bringing his new girlfriend. We haven’t met her yet, hell, he hasn’t even introduced her to us yet officially. Adam’s run into her, but he’s keeping his mouth shut about her.
Well. Good on him for getting a girlfriend. I much prefer the company of women to be short-lived.
“This is about the fact that it’s been forever since we did something as a family,” Adam explains, getting up to retrieve a bottle of sparkling water from the little fridge we have at the back of the plane, right next to the bedroom.
“I beg to differ, we do plenty of gaming evenings as a family.” I can’t help but tease him. He shoots me a glare, fully well knowing I’m poking a sensitive spot since he’s missed quite a few of those to live his newfound freedom or spend time with his girlfriend.
“The last one must have been the charity match,” Reed points out, ignoring the tension. Adam’s grimace when he mentions the match definitely helps to lighten the mood.
“Yeah,” Adam agrees with a deep sigh, “well, I couldn’t exactly come up with something like that from thin air just to spend some time with you.”
“I mean you could have,” Reed grumbles, but one narrow-eyed stare from Adam and he quickly shuts up.
“But why now?” I lift an eyebrow at him. It just doesn’t make any sense. Why did he spring this on us out of the blue?
“It’s just…” He sighs as he sits down again—a sigh so deep he might just have exhaled his soul. “I’ve had a talk with Jackson.”
Reed and I freeze, our wide eyes meeting as we stare at each other mouth agape. When did this happen?
“And you’re both still alive?” Reed asks, astonished, and I can’t help but nod along just as confused. “For real?”
“Yes,” Adam chuckles. “For real. And I promise you, he’s still alive.”
“I’m more amazed that you are,” I mumble and this time it’s Reed’s turn to nod along.
“Listen, don’t be too hard on Jackson,” Adam says with a sigh and twists his bottle open. “He obviously had some issues with me. And I had some with him. We’ve had a talk, and I hope things are looking up. That’s all I’ll say about our talk without him here.”
“Are they, though? Looking up?”
“Between him and me?” His gaze grows distant, until he suddenly shakes his head like he’s shaking off a dream. “I’d say so. But in other directions,” he crosses his arms in front of his chest, “I’m not so sure. I actually have a bone to pick with you.”
“With us?”
We look at each other, this time faces grimacing with confusion. That’s not where I thought the conversation was going.
“What the hell did I do now?” I cross my arms in front of my chest.
“Should I have brought a lawyer?”
I shake my head at Reed’s attempt to be funny.
“No lawyer required. And the two of you can relax, I’m not about to ground you.” Adam chuckles and takes a sip of his drink.
“You know I love you, right? So I’m saying this with the best of intentions, but you two can act like ungrateful brats.”
Before Reed or I can even open our mouths to utter the ‘what the fuck’s that are running through our brains, he continues.
“I don’t expect a gold medal for stepping up, but what I do expect are some sort of check-ins, every once in a while. More often than on a birthday or New Year's Eve.” He takes a deep breath and my heart sinks.
Are we really that bad?
“I mean at this point, I barely know anything about your life apart from what I see at work when one of your managers check in. Do you know how much it sucks to hear from a third party that either of you have been nominated for awards?”
Reeds eyes jump to mine and I can’t help but drop my gaze to the ground. He got me there. Half a year ago, I was nominated for a voice actor award for a movie I did and actually won. Truth be told, I only went there to get drunk, meet some women, have a great time. Who knew I’d actually be called to stage? I certainly didn’t expect it.
“To be fair, the ceremony was in LA,” I point out. “None of you could have gone anyways.”
“How do you know?” Reed is in offensive mode, glaring at me. “I would have made the time.”
“If you had let us, we would have found a way,” Adam adds, and I roll my eyes.
“Sure, Mr. ‘I’m-skipping-Saturday-game-nights-to-spend-time-with-my-girlfriend,’” I shoot back, my glare intensifying when Adam slowly shakes his head.
“I’m not saying I’m all innocent here,” he admits, his tone returning to its usual bossy self. “So don’t twist this around. I’ve booked this holiday so we can spend some time together. I don’t expect all of us to be the best of buddies afterward but let me be real with you two for a moment.” He closes his bottle again and leans closer. “I’m not going to continue to financially support strangers.” His eyes jump from Reed to me, and I gulp.
It’s not like either of us would become homeless if he closed the money-faucet on us, but it’d be… noticeable.
“Okay. So why isn’t Zoey coming?” I ask, raising an eyebrow at him but he steadily holds my glare.
“Because it’s her exam season,” Adam points out and I deflate at once, conceding. “And don’t worry,” he adds, leaning back again, but his jaw tightening with stress. “We’re going to do another vacation with Zoey. But you’ve already gone through the same phase Zoey is in—freshly found freedom, no brothers up your asses all the time. Let’s give her some time to find herself before ambushing her. God knows having to deal with four brothers can’t have been easy on her.”
“And fighting. Always fighting brothers, nonetheless,” Reed points out, slowly regaining his composure. But I can see his jaw twitching, the way his fingers flex against his arms. He’s not happy. And neither am I.
Adam takes a deep breath and pinches the bridge of his nose.
“Yeah, I’m sorry for my part in that,” he says, lowering his hand and holding Reed’s angry gaze. Holy shit, he’s good at that. Nothing seems to faze him. “Still, all Jackson and I are asking is that you keep in touch, okay? We’re doing our parts to better ourselves and manage time together without fighting. But we’re a family. Not acquaintances. Jackson and I can’t fix this without you two meeting us halfway.”
“All right,” Reed finally agrees, the corners of his mouth twitching into a mischievous grin. I can already imagine the kind of malicious compliance my younger brother might come up with. “God knows we’re all grown now. We should be able to handle a message or call from time to time.”
I can see Adam struggling, probably with the urge to throw his still half-full water bottle at him, knowing him as well as I do.
“Okay,” I add when his eyes jump over to me. “Yeah. I guess I’ll do that.”
“Good.” He seems happier now, like a weight is off his shoulders. “I wanted to get that off my chest in the beginning. Now we can enjoy our time in Amsterdam. Although I can imagine Jackson will want to talk to you guys as well.”
“Well, let him, we’ll survive.” Reed waves him off. “You do know that I’m spending at least one evening during this trip stoned out of my mind, though, right?”
“I had no doubts about that,” Adam answers with a hint of an amused grin playing on his lips. “Just make sure you’ve got nothing stashed in some pocket when you’re going through TSA on our way back, all right? Because I’m not bailing you out for something that stupid.”
“Mean,” Reed grumbles as he crosses his arms in front of his chest, and I try to swallow a chuckle.
That’s totally something Reed would do, and as funny as that would be, I’ll definitely check his pockets before our flight back. I’m with Adam on this one, that would be a painfully stupid reason for him to land in jail. If we get the first criminal in this family, it better be for something good.
Blissful silence falls in the jet as Adam takes out his phone and Reed’s stare is firmly fixed to the window right next to him.
“Anything else we need to talk about, or can I go take a nap?” I finally ask, hiding a yawn behind my hand. I didn’t sleep too well and knowing the time difference, jet lag is going to be a killer.
Reed gives me a shrug; my main focus is on Adam though, who waves me off without even looking up like he’s some kind of king ordering his peasants around.
“Sleep well,” is all he grumbles, and I quickly scramble off, sleep already tugging at my consciousness. As soon as my head hits the pillow, I’m out.