3. Be Settled
3
BE SETTLED
“Y ou’re on the shit list,” Talia, his youngest sister, said to him on Sunday morning.
“Nothing new there,” Foster said.
He’d barely gotten out of his SUV when his baby sister announced that to him on Easter morning.
“Mom was looking for you for thirty minutes on Friday night before she realized you’d left the wedding.”
“She knew I was leaving,” he said. Just because his mother didn’t want him to didn’t mean he was going to listen to her.
Talia snorted. “I heard she stopped you.”
“Guess it didn’t work,” he said, smirking. “What are you doing out here?”
They were in front of West’s Hampton home. As far as he knew, the rest of his siblings stayed in the hotel for the past two days. They were celebrating Easter and then West’s jet would take some of his family back to North Carolina. Other than Rowan, who lived in California, the remaining family was located in Manhattan and would either drive or take a helicopter back home.
“I needed some air,” Talia said.
He laughed. “So I’m not the only one that having so many people around gets to?”
Talia stood up from where she’d been sitting on the front steps. “No,” Talia said. “It’s not the people.”
He moved closer to her. “Then what’s going on?” he asked softly.
“Are you being nice to me?” Talia said. “You’re never nice to anyone other than when you’re working and someone talks to you behind a computer screen.”
He snorted. “Hardly that,” he said. “Are you going to tell me what the problem is or not? If I stand out here too long, Mom will come searching and give me more shit.”
Talia forced a grin. “She’s waiting for you.”
“I know that,” he said. He’d gotten a few texts after not showing up for breakfast with everyone yesterday at the hotel. He’d planned on it. He really had.
But after two cups of coffee, he couldn’t get his feet to leave the house.
When he felt that clawing up his spine, he knew damn well he’d be miserable and it was best to not go and say something he’d regret.
The fact he’d gotten an alert that servers were down on one of West’s newest acquisitions and he had to spend five hours getting it back up gave him a great excuse.
“I feel like a failure,” Talia said quietly.
He put his arm around her. “Grow up and figure your life out and you won’t feel that way.”
“Don’t be like the rest of them,” Talia said, frowning.
“I know you don’t want to hear you need tough love, but you graduated from college almost a year ago and what are you doing?”
“I’m working,” Talia said.
“Making jewelry,” he said. “I know.”
“That’s just a hobby,” Talia said, waving her hand. “You don’t even know what is going on in my life.”
Shit. “What did I miss? What are you doing? If it was something with West, I’d know.”
“It’s not,” Talia said. “Which is why I feel like a failure. I don’t know what I want to do. I’m working for a temp agency and they are placing me in jobs that are three to six months. I thought if I tried a bunch of things, I’d find something I really wanted. It’s not as if I’m sitting home doing nothing.”
“You know, Talia. That’s not a bad idea.”
She turned, her eyes damp. “You think so? No one else does. Or are you just babying me?”
“I think it’s a good idea. You be you and don’t rush it. There isn’t anything wrong with that.”
She leaned up and kissed him on the cheek. “Thanks, Foster. I’m not sure if you’re pacifying me or not, but the fact I feel better is good enough.”
He’d been honest with her, but his family didn’t get him much either, so maybe he felt that kinship with his sister.
“That’s what big brothers are for,” he said. “Let’s go in so everyone can see me get my ass handed to me.”
“I’ll stand up for you,” Talia said. “Tell them you had an emergency at work yesterday.”
“I actually did,” he said. “No lie.”
“There you go,” Talia said. “West will back you and you know it.”
“I don’t need anyone to back me,” he said.
“We know you don’t like social events,” Talia said. “Not sure why Mom made a big deal about it.”
“Because it’s Mom and what she does best,” he said. “We still love her.”
Talia laughed. “You don’t live with her and have to deal with it daily. I want to move out.”
“Don’t ask me to be in your corner on that. It’s between you and Mom and West.”
“I know,” Talia said. “I just want to be settled like the rest of you.”
He wasn’t so sure he was settled the way his mother would like, but he was content in his life and to him that was more than enough.
“Things happen when they do,” he said, opening the door.
The two of them walked to the back of the house where the rest of the family was sitting at the table or in the kitchen talking.
He had flashbacks of this growing up.
The noise and the chaos.
No place to go to just have some quiet.
Maybe if he’d had that place as a kid he could have handled things differently.
Or not.
As he’d told his sister, you had to be who you were.
“Foster,” his mother said. “Last one to arrive as always. If you even show up.”
“Good to see you too, Mom,” he said, walking to her and kissing her on the cheek.
He loved her but couldn’t wait until she was several states away.
“What’s your excuse about yesterday?” his mother asked. She had a smirk on her face and he knew she was busting him. She knew her children well, but that didn’t mean he liked to be the center of attention either.
He wasn’t going to be disciplined or talked to like he was a kid, but she’d get her licks in.
“Work,” he said. “Something came up and it took me five hours to fix it.”
He looked over at West to see if he’d get any support there.
“You’ve got more than enough staff that could have dealt with it,” his mother said.
“If Foster said he had to take care of it, then he did,” West said. “He uses his judgment wisely.”
That could have been a shot at him or support. He wasn’t sure which and wasn’t going to question it. Sometimes he overthought too much.
“Daddy’s getting married,” Penelope said, his sister’s boyfriend’s daughter.
“What?” he asked and looked at Laken sitting next to her boyfriend, Jamie Wilde. Laken held her hand up showing off her ring.
“How come no one told me?” he asked.
He was closest to West, Braylon and Laken in terms of location and who he spoke with more than anyone. At least from a work end.
“If you showed up for breakfast yesterday,” his mother said, “you would have known.”
He looked at Elias and wondered why his brother didn’t text him. But his brother just shrugged with a grin. Then he turned to Talia. “How come you didn’t say anything to me outside?”
“I was too busy soaking up the fact my big brother was comforting me,” Talia said and put her head on his shoulder.
His mother’s eyes softened immediately. “Foster is good at being there when you need him.”
Damn, his sister knew how to have his back. “Thanks,” he whispered.
“No,” Talia said. “Thank you.”
He managed to get through Easter dinner and wasn’t even the first person to leave. He actually left at the same time everyone else did, but many were going to the airport or getting the helicopter. He was just as happy to walk to his vehicle to drive the short distance home.
The fact he got out of the day without having his skin peeled off his ass by his mother was more than he could have hoped for and even put him in a fairly good mood.
That mood changed when he turned down his driveway and saw the new neighbor carrying a ladder way too big and clunky for her and watched her lose her grip on it, only to have it fall to the ground, her going down with it.