Chapter 19
Nightmares are bullshit.
There are some things you spend half your life thinking you’ll grow out of. Hoping you’ll grow out of, anyway. And maybe, after a while, you resigned yourself to the idea that you’d never grow out of them. You’d be an old man driving north in the middle of the night to hide that he’s a wreck.
And then, when you least expect it, you kidnap an angel in a parking lot and learn that the cure was true love all along.
Just kidding. I expected to kidnap Lily in the parking lot. I saw her come out of her grandfather’s house in Cobble Hill, followed her, and snatched her up. It wasn’t my original plan, but it wasn’t a surprise.
Except for Lily. She was surprised.
I’m just fucking with you about the true love thing, too. A little bit. The way you grow out of something you never had a chance to grow out of is by doing the growing, even when you’re late.
Which is how, after almost a month throwing pool parties at Zeus’s house, Lily and I go back to Mason’s with Mason and Sunshine and Robin and Snowball. Gabriel and Elise and Nate and Lydia go back to his brownstone.
I can appreciate the irony in finally having a wife—a pregnant wife—and still living with my older brother after I spent years sneaking off to my cottage. There’s a lesson about avoidance in there, probably.
But there’s no two ways about it. If I’m going to have a normal life—ha, ha—then I have to retrain my body and mind to understand that my siblings aren’t dead. From what I can tell, the only way to do that is to institute a nightmare protocol of waking up one of my siblings.
Surprise! I’m Remy now. I’m the seven-year-old bothering everyone in the middle of the night, only I’m definitely not seven, and she was never embarrassed about it like I am the first few times I burst into Mason’s room at three in the morning, still crying. Part of the nightmare protocol is saying what the dream was, and guess what? I fucking hate that.
I try to bother everyone equally, for fairness. In fairness to them, they try to be around as much as possible. Gabriel and Elise and their artsy teen housemates spend a lot of four-day weekends at Mason’s. It does seem less atrocious when we can have brunch the next morning and go in Mason’s pool or descend on Zeus’s house to bother his cook, who I’m pretty sure secretly likes being bothered by a horde of weirdos.
After a few weeks, I figure out that most of the time, Mason’s waiting for me to wake up in the night, which is why he’s always suspiciously close to his bedroom door or already in the hallway when I get there. He listens to all my horrifying dreams and pats my hair and lets me cling to his shirt like an overgrown seven-year-old until I’m extremely sure he and Gabriel and Remy are alive. My brother’s a stand-up guy, so he doesn’t tease me about it.
Nate, on the other hand, approaches me like I’m a skittish cat every time he sees me, lays a hand on my shoulder, and says good brother, I pray you have not yet been consumed by the terrors.
I was the family clown before Nate was a twinkle in anyone’s eye, so I always respond to this by loudly fake-crying until he has no choice but to fake-cry, too.
“You have to stop,” Lily scolds, the fifth time this happens. “You’re scaring Snowball.”
I assume everyone is taking it like a joke—because, like, what else are we supposed to do—until one Tuesday morning when Lily and I get up early to drink tea and coffee before I go to the office.
Just kidding. We get up early to fuck. I bend her over a pillow and lick her until she’s whimpering into the mattress, then fuck her slow and deep and steady while I make her come all over my cock. Lily likes to make out after we fuck, so she drapes herself over my lap and puts her arms around my neck and kisses me until we have to fuck again.
See? Angel.
Then we take a shower and go to have tea and coffee in the living room, and when that’s done, Mason’s still not up my ass about leaving for Phoenix.
“What do I do in this situation?” I put my hand on Lily’s nape so I can feel her shivering into my touch. “Do I—leave for work without him? So I can be on time to the office?”
She wrinkles her nose. “Ew.”
“What have I become? Who am I, if I’m concerned with being late to Mason’s office? What’s the point of nepotism, if?—”
“Hey.” Lily takes my wrist in her hand, looking at me with gorgeous seriousness. “It’s not nepotism. You’re really, really good at communities. And buildings. And it’s kind of weird how you know all those numbers off the top of your head.”
“This building is worth?—”
She covers my mouth. “You’re good at your job. And you look hot in business clothes.”
I pull her hand down. “I think I look hotter without them. Should we test it one more time?”
“Maybe, if?—”
A faint tweeting interrupts us.
“Do not abandon him,” Lily orders.
As if I would ever abandon my bird.
We go Snowball’s new cage—a three-story thing with its own nook in the kitchen—and welcome him to the day. Then Lily starts musing about her five-year-plan—to be my wife and maybe open a dance studio.
“Hang on.” I hold up a hand. “Not a gentlemen’s club?
Lily looks me dead in the eyes, her stomach resting on her still-flat-but-softening belly. “Maybe a gentlemen’s club.”
“I fucking love you like this.”
“Go see if your brother’s ready or what. Or maybe just text him. I don’t know, but I have faith in you.”
“I’m the bread of the world.”
“I have no idea what that—” Her voice trails off as she goes to find her laptop.
I stroke Snowball’s head one more time, listen to his tentative plans for the day—tweet, eat seeds, flutter around his cage, tweet some more, nap—and go to see if Mason’s ready.
I’m almost to his doorway when the sound of crying reaches my ears.
It’s Mason, not Robin, and he’s crying in those big gasping, gulping sobs that do nothing to make themselves less conspicuous.
“It’s okay,” Sunshine says. “Oh, you’re—what else can I do?”
“Nothing,” Mason gasps. “I know. It’s fine. It’s good. I just never thought he’d?—”
He cries some more.
“He had to be ready. Reminds me of someone I know,” Sunshine says gently.
“Goddamn it,” says Mason. “I’m going to look like I’m having a nervous breakdown.”
“You look so handsome. Let me get you a washcloth.”
I don’t know. Maybe it’s the power of true love, or maybe I’m just over trying to hide everything from each other. Instead of tiptoeing back down the hall, I rap on Mason’s doorframe.
“Hey, Mase. What’s up?”
He glowers at me and wipes his eyes with a discarded T-shirt. Of course he’s dressed and ready. He’s just having too many feelings to leave. It’s a far cry from how it was when our lives got ruined and the getting dressed and ready part was agony.
“I’m fine.”
“You look fine. Is this because I got arrested?”
Mason’s mouth drops open. “You did not fucking get arrested.”
“No, I didn’t.” I spread my arms wide. “I’m reformed. Bring it in.”
“Get out.”
I go toward him instead, arms extended. “I’m the bread?—”
“You motherfucker,” he whispers as I close the final distance and throw my arms around him.
“In the name of the father, the brothers, the sister, and the holy bird,” I whisper into his ear.
“Stop.”
“I am the bread of the?—”
“Jamie, fucking stop.”
“Are you going to laugh? Is that why?” He’s already laughing. “I can’t stop until I bring the light to your face. It’s my bread to bear. You are the least of my brothers.”
Mason hugs me back, forcing all the air out of my lungs. “I’ll flatten the bread of life out of you.”
“Sunshine,” I wheeze. “Help.”
She comes back into the bedroom with a wet washcloth in one hand and Robin over her shoulder, a big sunshine smile on her face. “Nah. I think you’ll be just fine.”
Lily’s plansfor her dance studio aren’t finalized, so she takes me to a different one. It’s actually me, Lily, and a bunch of security, since Mason has gone full-on Protective Dad Mode after I dreamed too hard and gave myself seizures. According to Mason’s friends, anyway. They were probably right.
“Why did I expect ballet?” I ask her when we enter the main room.
She laughs. “I have no idea. I didn’t do ballet at the club.”
“Did you ever do ballet?”
“When I was, like, five? I can’t remember how long.”
“The ballet to gentlemen’s club pipeline,” I say sagely.
Lily slaps my arm. “Come on. I’ll show you the stuff.”
The stuff is a lot of intense dance equipment. Acrobatic equipment? I guess you can do both. There are big hoops hanging from the ceiling.
“What are those?”
Lily follows the path of my pointing. “Aerial straps.”
“Can we both be on them at the same time?”
She stares at me for a beat like she doesn’t know if I’m kidding.
Then she smiles.
Dance lessons are torture.
I mean, they’re fun. It’s a great workout. And watching Lily move herself around that aerial hoop makes my cock so hard I get lightheaded. My angel loves to dance, so she’s fine with two one-hour sessions with a break in the middle to rest.
Just kidding. The break is so we can fuck in one of the private bathrooms.
A guy named Marcus who goes around in flowing pants and no shirt teaches us—teaches me, mainly—to swing myself around on a pair of resistance bands, then the aerial hoop, then, finally, after forever, the straps.
It’s fun as fuck.
Not as fun as fucking, but close.
When we’ve worked our way to being on them at the same time—you can do some really cool spins, if you pay attention to the lessons and don’t fuck around—I take Lily in a loop while she arches her back.
“Fuck.” I don’t lose my positioning. I’m not going to drop her. We’re balanced against each other and against the straps, hanging above the ground, and every single muscle is involved. “I fucking love you like this.”
She meets my eyes. “Did you get a boner again?”
“Of course I did.”
“I can’t do anything about it up here.”
“Not with that attitude.”
Lily arches an eyebrow. “Gabriel thought I could keep you off the streets through the power of dance.”
“That’s not what I would call it.”
She laughs, and we keep dancing.
I’ve spent a lot of time in my life running away from things. Cops. Emotions. Nightmares. It’s a good thing I found Lily. Now I know how good it feels to fly.
It’s a warm autumn,and it probably seems even warmer because I can’t keep my hands off Lily. She’s got the cutest round little bump and sometimes I call in sick to work because I have to keep my hand on it all day.
Just kidding. I call in sick so we can fuck.
Just kidding. I use a personal day.
I’m using one such personal day, balls deep in the sweetest pussy known to humankind and riding out a mind-melting orgasm, when my phone rings.
It buzzes itself off the bedside table.
I collapse on top of Lily and kiss her like a wild animal until she pushes me away and bends over the side of the bed to get my phone. She settles herself on the pillows, runs her fingers through my sex-ruined man bun, and squints at the screen.
“Uh oh. What did we forget about?”
She shows it to me.
Gabriel: are you coming?
Jameson: just did LOL
Gabriel: oh my fucking god
Gabriel: get in the car we’re all down here
Gabriel: it’s my birthday prick
Jameson: Happy birthday to you
Jameson: Happy birthday to you
Gabriel: Put some clothes on and get your ass down here
Jameson: ok loverboy calm your tits
Gabriel sends me a string of aggressive emojis.
Lily and I play our shower race game, where we try to shower in under three minutes without fucking each other.
We lose.
Fifteen minutes later, clothed and with Snowball and his traveling cage in tow, we leave Mason’s apartment.
“I guess it was suspiciously empty,” Lily says in the elevator.
“The workday ended a while ago, but there was no way I was going to notice.”
It’s not the car waiting for us in the parking garage but two SUVs, since all of us don’t really fit in one vehicle anymore with Nate and Lydia and Robin’s car seat and how everyone’s married or engaged but Remy. I get in the front seat of Mason’s SUV. Lily climbs in the back with Sunshine and Robin. Nate flips me off from Gabriel’s car. I fake-cry at him.
“Excited about your wedding present?” Mason asks as he backs out of the spot.
“What? On Gabriel’s birthday?”
“Yeah.” He gives a beleaguered sigh. “Listen. I thought it was time you got your own place.”
I slap a hand to my chest. “What do you mean, my own place? How am I supposed to find you and tell you about my dreams?”
“You haven’t had one of those in almost a month,” he points out.
“Oh.” I drop my hand. “I didn’t realize you were keeping track.”
“I was keeping track.” He cuts a Protective Dad glance at me. Robin grizzles in the backseat, and Mason’s eyes snap to the rearview mirror.
“Another level of Protective Dad Mode attained,” I whisper.
“You’re evicted.”
“And you’re throwing a party?”
“The party is for Gabriel. I just wanted you to know.”
I tease him about the eviction while we drive. I can’t tell if it’s a joke or not. Big if true.
I’m so busy pretending to be distraught about the eviction and bothering Mason that I don’t pay attention to where we’re going.
But then one of the turns is familiar.
The next one is even more familiar.
“What the fuck?” I look again, just to be sure. “Are we having a birthday party at the cemetery?”
“No,” Mason says.
“Where?”
He doesn’t tell me, the Protective Dad bastard.
But the turns keep getting more and more and more familiar. My heart keeps doing an out-of-rhythm jumpjumpjumpPOUND thing that makes me think I might hurl.
“Mason. Tell me what the fuck is happening,” I demand instead of throwing up.
“Be patient.”
“Fuck no.”
“You’re going to teach Robin to say the word fuck, and then it’s going to be your fault.”
“He can’t even say the word dad. Calm down.”
“You calm down.” Mason reaches over the center console and pats my hand. “We’re almost there.”
The last few turns stop my heart.
And then he pulls into the driveway of our old house.
It looks just the same as it did.
Better?
There’s fresh white paint. Cherry red door. I can see us all there, almost as real as a hallucination, but it’s just a memory—it’s a memory of the family portrait in Mason’s living room, with three-year-old Remy in my dad’s arms and all of us beaming.
“Mason.”
“Come on, Jamie.”
He gets out of the car. I follow him on numb legs. Gabriel and Elise pull in behind us, Nate and Lydia after them. Sunshine lifts Robin out of his seat, cooing to him. Lily climbs down and slips her free hand into mine. Snowball tweets excitedly in his cage.
“This is just—” Holy fuck. Holy fuck. “For. The party?”
“Just for you.” Mason holds out a set of keys.
I take the keys. “You’re actually kicking me out.”
“No, I’m not.” His green eyes—pretty much the same as mine—are serious. “You don’t have to move if you don’t want to. I just thought you might like it. It’s good for kids. And…” He glances at the house. “We could have some outdoor brunches. Switch off weeks with Gabriel, if you wanted.”
Pain flashes across my chest.
“Is it—” I can’t breathe. “On the inside, is it?—”
Mason grins. “Go see.”
The house is just how it was, but better.
Same color floors. Polished hardwood. Similar-ish walls, but fresh paint.
“Dev helped,” Mason mentions. “Somebody had done some fuckery to the stairs, so I had them restored.”
“Holy shit.”
“I hope—” He winces. “I thought you’d want it how it was. Sorry if that was a bad assumption.”
I give him an enormous, too-tight, choking hug, partially because the moment calls for it and partially because I have to.
And then I take Lily—and all of us—on a tour of the house.
I keep saying this is where we. This is where Gabriel and I got in a water gun fight and Mason slipped in the puddle. This is where Remy almost saw Dad being Santa. This is where Mom kept—where Dad kept—where we—where we—where we.
It feels so fucking good.
I know houses aren’t everything. I know things aren’t everything. But when I take Lily into the main bedroom—not exactly the same, new bed, new carpet, new paint, a room I’m proud to offer to my wife—and drop down onto the edge of the bed, I have to focus on not passing out.
“I wanted this,” I admit to her. Mason’s showing everybody how he had the walk-in closet redone. “I would have—” A laugh falls out of my mouth. “I would have torn the house down to keep anyone else from having it, but I didn’t have time. And now I have it.”
“Now you have it.” Lily kisses my cheek. “That has to feel good.”
“It does,” I tell her, and burst into tears.
Obviously,Mason didn’t give me an unfurnished house. He and Sunshine and Dev did a conspiracy to choose new furniture that I’d like while remaining in the spirit of the home, which was where a goofball who was obsessed with his wife had four kids and a great life right up until it was over.
I’d forgotten—until that dream—how funny my dad was.
Surprise! I grew up in his image after all.
When we’ve thoroughly toured the upstairs—no, I do not mean that Lily and I fuck, although we will later—Mason leads us down to the kitchen.
There’s a new nook for Snowball in the kitchen. The cabinets are full of dishes and stuff that Sunshine picked out. There’s a whole row of mugs, same as at Mason’s.
“We should all have them. For the rotating brunches,” he says, his cheeks red.
“Hell yes we should.”
The kitchen is sunny and warm and I cannot fucking wait to eat off the fancy china Sunshine picked. I cannot wait to stand here and see my family in the backyard.
“I can’t fucking wait to host brunch,” I announce. “Who have I become?”
“Our little baby is all grown up,” Nate says, fanning away fake tears.
“Just you wait,” I tell him, as menacingly as possible. “One day, it’ll be your turn to host brunch.”
His eyes go wide, and then his face turns red, and Gabriel steps in to put an arm around his shoulders.
“Hey, Mase,” Gabriel says, exceptionally casually. “Did you happen to bring those papers?”
“These?” Mason pulls a slim packet out of his back pocket, opens it, and shakes out the papers inside. “Yeah. I brought them.”
I gasp. “Did Nate get a wedding present, too?”
Gabriel considers. “More of a birthday, I think.”
Mason hands the papers to Gabriel, who gives them to Nate. He reads them, tears welling in his eyes.
“I thought—” He swallows. “I thought there was some court thing, like—you had to go to court.”
“I paid off the judge,” Mason says, and we all have a hearty laugh. “Did you want to do the court thing? We can, if you need a gavel.”
Nate shakes his head so fast that his hair ruffles. “No. No. I’m—that’s fine. I don’t like—I don’t need that. This is it? This is done?”
“Mason is your dad now,” Gabriel intones. “Just like he’s our—no. He’s not our dad. That’s too weird. He’s your legal guardian now. Elise and I are, too, but Mason’s the main one.”
Nate looks from Mason to Gabriel like he’s expecting to wake up from a dream any second. “Main?”
Gabriel nods. “When our parents died, Mason was the only one who was eighteen. So he was our legal guardian—Remy and Jamie and me. We thought it made more sense to add a brother. That way, the will is less complicated.”
“How?” Nate breathes.
“You’re a Hill now.” Gabriel points at a line on the paper. “I know how you felt about your name. If this isn’t good?—”
“This is so fucking perfect,” Nate says, and then he bursts into tears.
There’sfood and cake and a fire in the stone firepit my dad insisted on building and sparklers and more food. August and Julien show up and August photographs the party, then takes a new family portrait in front of the red door.
“Jameson,” Julien says for him as we’re all trying to stand still. “Stop crying.”
“Did he say Jameson or Jamie?” I call back.
August signs.
“Jameson,” says Julien.
“I shortened it. It’s Jamie now.”
August gives me an incredibly aggrieved fingerspelling of my name.
“Jamie. Better?” Julien asks.
I give them both a thumbs up.
Later,August goes around to the backyard to take photos of Charlotte and Robin. Lily and Elise are out there, too, and I have a feeling it’s going to turn into a group photo session any second. Nate and Lydia supervise.
I can’t remember why we all came into the kitchen, but we’re here.
Just the four of us.
“This is a good day,” Mason says. “Thanks for having a birthday, Gabriel.”
“Any time,” Gabriel sings.
Remy puts her arms around my waist. “Do you like your new house?”
“I fucking love my new house. But I’ll miss you. Promise you’ll visit.”
“Obviously.” She rolls her eyes, grinning.
Snowball hops up in his cage and tweets. Pay attention. Pay attention!
“To what?”
He tweets some more, bobbing his head.
I turn around to see what he’s looking at.
“Snowball, it’s just a cabinet. You don’t have to freak out.” There’s a single cabinet above the fridge in just enough of an awkward spot that I’m not sure what you’d keep in there. “It’s empty. See?”
I flip the cabinet open and point.
Remy gasps.
Mason and Gabriel stare.
I turn around slow, because I have no fucking idea what could have startled them like this.
In the middle of the otherwise empty cabinet is one of my mom’s teacups, perfectly shiny, perfectly whole.