Chapter 2 #2
Quite a few of my siblings had children very close in age.
Almost alarmingly close, as a matter of fact.
Of the three triplets, I was the only one without any children.
Lake and her husband, Mark, already had Beau and Brinx, who were four and three, respectively.
Lana and Clay not only had Marley, who was eleven going on thirty-four, but they also had Stevie, who was almost the same age as Beau.
Even at four years old, Stevie had the same high-maintenance drama-queen attitude her sister had developed recently.
I just hoped they’d outgrow it before we all went crazy.
Rounding out the Traumatizing Toddler group was Sawyer, the little three-year-old princess who belonged to my brother Wes, his best friend, Max, and their mutual partner, Damaris, along with Donnie, the three-year-old wild man who looked nothing like Jolie and everything like his dad, Dante.
Growing up in a family of eight children, we thrived on chaos.
But having toddlers around along with teenagers was a special kind of hell I wasn’t sure any of us would survive.
If we made it, we’d all be deaf and suffering from a myriad of mental disorders.
Living together on one floor of this building, we had emotional sisters, terrific sisters-in-law, smelly brothers, irritating husbands and partners, and children who all seemed to be competing for the loudest, wildest, most emotional, and most irritating.
Just thinking about it made me want to call my parents and apologize for every past sin I’d committed and even a few I’d only thought about.
Even with all of that in mind, I still wanted to join the ranks of harried parents who were hanging on by a thread with everything in me, and I was willing to do almost anything to make it happen.
“Damaris is having a night out with Wes and Max while Sawyer hangs out with Stevie at my house,” Lana explained. “Marley and Zeb are probably plotting world domination upstairs while Clay and Dante are too busy chasing the little ones around to pay attention.”
“Kyla is camped out on her couch with noise-canceling headphones, guarding the door to make sure none of the girls go rogue and try to sneak out, especially since their new little friend is spending the night.”
I thought about their explanation for a few seconds before I said, “You forgot one, didn’t you?”
My sisters looked confused. I could practically see them ticking off names in their heads before Jolie exclaimed, “Resa! She’s with Clay too!”
“I’m so happy that you realize you have another child and hope that you feel immeasurable guilt and shame for forgetting her,” I said drolly. “And I’m glad that the forgotten child is safe with responsible adults while you laze around in my house like you don’t have a million things to do.”
“For someone who is about to go out on a date with a dreamworthy biker man, you sure are in a pissy mood.”
“I’m not sure I want to go.” I thought about it for a second before I said, “And to be honest, I don’t think I should. He didn’t ask me on a date. He basically just told me when he’d pick me up!”
“I knew one of us should have gone down there the second Colbie told me what happened,” Jolie muttered.
“I thought the same thing,” Lana admitted.
“I knew this would happen!” Lake chimed in.
“You knew what would happen?”
“That you’d get all up in your thoughts and fears, take a few shots of doubt to make them worse, and then shoot this poor guy down before he even got a chance,” Lana explained. “You’ve been doing that since before you met Jeremy.”
“I do not do that,” I scoffed as I walked into the kitchen for a bottle of water.
“You sure as hell do,” Lake argued. “As a matter of fact, if I recall correctly, we had this same discussion encouraging you to give Jeremy a chance.”
“If that’s the case, I wouldn’t exactly be boasting about your success rate,” I quipped before taking a drink.
“He was a wolf in sheep's clothing,” Jolie complained. “What a prick. And what the hell is he doing showing up all the time now? Doesn’t he have a job?”
“And kids to raise?” Lana added.
“And some demons to summon?” Lake muttered. “Asshole.”
“I don’t know about the demon part, but yes to the other two.
I’m not sure why he’s all over me now. He wasn’t like that when we were together.
I actually liked that he let me go my own way, and he went his.
Although now I see that wasn’t because he trusted me; it’s because he knew he had me hooked with his bullshit and lies. ”
“I’m sorry, La,” Jolie said softly.
“It’s not your fault,” I assured her.
It wasn’t anyone’s fault. Jeremy was just that good at subterfuge.
He’d run the gauntlet and come out the other side intact after dealing with Mark, who made it his mission to rile him up and make him jealous; Mike, who insulted him just to see if he could make him snap; Wes, who refused to speak directly to him; Quinn and James who tag-teamed the “let’s make Jeremy feel stupid” mission; and the girls, who studied him like a lab specimen for the first six months of our relationship.
Usually, one of the best benefits of having a family as large and as close as mine was knowing that they had my back and would do anything to make sure I was safe. After the trauma we went through when Lake was in danger, everyone had been on edge and had become just a tad bit overprotective.
Lana never had to worry about it because we’d all loved Clay since the beginning.
And since Jolie got back together with Dante, her first love and high school sweetheart, he was also a known entity.
But Lake’s first husband was a mistake from day one.
We’d all felt it. So when she and Quinn’s oldest friend, Mark, got together, it was perfectly natural for all of us to accept his place at her side.
Now, with almost all of my siblings in happy relationships with children around them to love, they knew that was what I wanted more than anything.
So, they were intent on helping me find that, even if that included weeding out the weaklings.
Even if I didn’t go with their decisions and dump whoever the poor guy was that they happened to critique, I appreciated the fact that they were just looking out for me the same way I tried to look out for them.
“I guess I’m not going to be able to get rid of y’all, am I?”
“Not a chance,” Lake and Lana said in unison as Jolie shook her head.
“Fine. Dress me and make me beautiful, but you’re not gonna hover when my date comes to pick me up.”
“Like hell we’re not! We saw him on the video Jolie pulled up and got a play-by-play from Colbie, Quinlee, and Nica. They said his growly protectiveness was hot as hell. You wouldn’t be able to keep me away if you tried,” Jolie insisted.
“That’s what I was afraid of.”