3. Hendrix
HENDRIX
Success doesn’t happen because you want it to.
It happens because you absolutely refuse to accept the possibility that it won’t.
Mediocrity is a crutch.
Be fucking unstoppable.
—Declan Sinclair’s advice to his sons
“Okay, Henny. You’re up.” Gracie lifts her stemless wineglass, smiling as every set of eyes around my parents’ table turns my way.
My family always does this. It doesn’t matter if it’s Thanksgiving or the Fourth of July. They love to go around the table and say what we’re grateful for when we’re all together.
And at the rate my brothers and sisters are adding to the family, we’re going to need a bigger table before next summer. Every seat is full, and high chairs are squeezed in between.
Mom and Dad sit at either end, with Uncle Tommy next to Mom.
Good twin and her husband are working on fielding their own hockey team with the way Gracie’s been popping out kids.
Bad twin—not that Everly’s husband, Cross, lets us call her that anymore—is beside Gracie.
My oldest brother, Nixon, is alone tonight because his wife is home with his sick kid.
And the ultimate middle child, Leo, has his arm around Addie, while his girls fight beside him.
Then there’s Bodhi and me.
The perpetual baby of the family with my own baby.
In reality, he’s why I moved home. The main reason at least.
He deserves this. To be surrounded by a loving family. Not just a dad with a job that takes him away as much as hockey does once the season kicks in. And if it’s time to get my life back on track, being back in Kroydon Hills is only step one.
We’re Sinclairs. We fight hard and love harder.
And we drive each other batshit crazy, while we’re at it.
I raise my beer and grin. It’s fake as fuck, but no one realizes that.
For as up my ass as they’ve been this past year, they’ve been willing to accept whatever bullshit I’ve shoveled their way as gospel. Since Brittany died, it’s like no one wants to push for more. They’re happy to accept anything if it means I’m talking.
Fortunately, I’ve gotten good at faking it.
For everyone.
I run my hand over Bodhi’s blond curls and pray I made the right choice coming here. Coming home. He’s lost too much already.
“When I was drafted to Chicago, I thought it would be home . . .” Not a lie.
I was disappointed at first. I’d dreamed of playing beside my family.
Wearing the same jersey as my brothers and brothers-in-law.
Winning the cup. Together. But life had other plans.
Plans that kicked my ass more than once.
“But it turns out, Chicago is where I worked, and yeah, it’s where we lived.
” I look down at my son sucking down his second sippy cup of chocolate milk.
Thanks, Mom. “It was where I needed to be, but it was never home. Not like Kroydon Hills—”
Leo snorts. “Maybe he’s taken too many pucks to the head.”
“Shut up,” Everly and Gracie hiss in perfect harmony.
Gotta love protective big sisters.
“My point is . . .” I narrow a weak glare on my middle brother before lifting my bottle higher. “It isn’t Kroydon Hills.”
“Oh shit,” Nix snickers.
“Language,” Gracie warns.
“Let me finish before you disown me,” I warn, and hesitant laughter ripples softly around the table. Like they’re worried they shouldn’t laugh. Worried I’m not ready to laugh again.
“My point is it doesn’t matter if it’s Lincoln Park, Kroydon Hills, or the Jersey shore.
It’s this. All of you.” I shrug and look at Mom and the tears filling her eyes.
“This is home. It’s the people, not the place.
It’s our family. It’s knowing that no matter what happens out there, the people in this room have my back.
Even when I say I don’t need it. So yeah .
. . I may not have been ready to come home until now, but you were always my home. ”
Mom wipes the tears from her cheek as she pulls Bodhi out of his high chair and kisses his head. “We’re so happy you’re home, honey.”
“Aww,” Leo coos, breaking the heavy moment. “Honey.”
Nixon sips his beer, shaking his head. “Fucking idiot.”
Pretty sure that’s directed at Leo, not me.
“Fucking favorite is more like it,” Leo bitches.
He’s not wrong. I am the favorite.
“Suck it, asshole,” I mutter quietly.
“Language,” Gracie snaps again, like her kids haven’t heard worse. Hell, I’m pretty sure they’ve said worse.
“Asshole . . .” Bodhi repeats, smiling like he knows it’s a bad word, and I can’t hold back my laughter.
“Fucking favorite is more like it,” Everly grins, looking at Bodhi, never one to shy away from shocking the table and manages to shift in time to miss the elbow Gracie throws her way. My sisters are feral. Guess some things never change.
“I never said favorite,” Mom argues as she holds Bodhi close and kisses the top of his head.
“You didn’t have to,” all five of us answer together.
Damn, I’ve missed this.
Dad chuckles into his beer. “It’s nice knowing we’ll have all of you together for more than a few days.” His gaze drops to my brothers and me. “Now, for the love of God . . .”
Uh-oh.
“Behave yourselves at the football game this weekend.”
“Of course we will, Daddy,” Everly says sweetly, batting her lashes like he was talking to her and Gracie instead of Nix, Leo, and me.
Maybe he should have been, considering this is the same woman who climbed onto the roof to sneak out of the house one New Year’s Eve and broke her arm. She was fifteen.
When Dad rolls his eyes to the ceiling, I’m pretty sure that’s what he’s thinking too.
“What?” Her smile is just barely on the right side of evil. “A girl can change.”
“Bullshit,” Leo coughs, and Evie tries to kick him under the table but hits me instead.
“Hey . . .” I pull back.
“Nah.” Nix looks at Leo and me. “You deserved that.”
“Fair,” Leo laughs, even though I’m the one with the bruised shin.
“And you—” Everly turns her attention back to me. “It took you long enough to come home.” She reaches over and takes Bodhi from Mom, blowing a raspberry on his neck and making him laugh. “This little guy deserves to be as messed up as our kids.”
“Mom—” Kerrigan rolls her eyes at my sister in that way only a teenager can.
I pity the first guy who shows up to take her out on a date.
Between Cross and all her uncles, the poor guy doesn’t stand a chance.
Some of us never do.
That thought brings me back to earlier tonight . . . to The Busy Bee.
To Serena.
The fear in her gorgeous turquoise eyes.
I’ve seen it before, but that was the first time she ever looked at me like I was the cause.
I shouldn’t have let her leave.
I should have driven her home.
Made sure she was okay.
I should have—
The table erupts in laughter, and I quickly join in, not wanting them to know I was lost in my own thoughts. It happens more than I want to admit. Kerrigan smiles at me. “Don’t worry, Uncle Henny. I’ve got your back.”
She’s fourteen going on forty, and she’s had my heart since the first time Everly brought her home.
She rests her head on my shoulder and links her pinky with mine the way she did when she was little. And for the first time in months, I relax.
I’m home.
“Istill don’t understand why you rented a house.” Mom puts the lid on the container of leftovers she insists I take with me. “There’s plenty of room here.”
She’s not wrong. Their house is massive. It had to be to fit all of us plus Uncle Tommy, who’s lived with us for as long as I can remember. But there was absolutely no way . . .
“It’s not a big deal.” I add the leftover Boston cream pie I’d picked up from The Busy Bee earlier. “Bodhi and I need to figure out our new norm, and it’ll be easier if we’re in our own space while we do it.”
Not that I think we’ll be alone often. We’re two houses down from Gracie and three from Evie. Leo is around the corner, Nix is maybe ten minutes away, and Mom and Dad are about fifteen minutes, if you hit the one and only traffic light in town.
Safe to say we’re a little codependent. Even when I was living in Chicago, I spoke to all my siblings and their spouses on an almost daily basis. Our group chat’s unhinged. Definitely not safe for work.
“I know you need your space.” Her smile softens. “But I can’t help that I worry.” She cups my face in her hand and blinks back a tear. “I’m worried about you. How are you really doing, Hendrix?”
“I’m okay, Mom.” My answer comes out on autopilot. “Please don’t cry.”
No one tells you when you lose your spouse, you end up comforting everyone around you. No one tells you a lot of things.
“Who’s going to watch Bodhi when your season starts? Have you interviewed any nannies?”
Why do moms have this sixth sense about the things you’re ignoring? The ones you know you need to handle even if you’d rather be waterboarded. “Gracie said she’s got him for me until I find a nanny. I’ll get on it next week.”
She nods, squaring her shoulders and lifting her face. “Will you be at your father’s game this weekend?”
It might be a question, but there’s only one acceptable answer, especially now before hockey season starts, even if I have a legitimate excuse for skipping the games.
Dad’s basically the GOAT.
He was the greatest quarterback to ever play the game before he retired and eventually became head coach of the Philadelphia Kings. Games are as much a family affair now as they were when I was young, with Dad and another uncle coaching, as well as a few cousins and friends playing.
As if summoned by Mom’s words, Dad steps back into the kitchen, wraps an arm around her shoulders, and drops a kiss on the top of her head. “What your mother is trying to say is we’re glad to have you home, Hendrix. Call if you need anything.”
“I will,” I promise.
It’s not like I’m avoiding them. Just protecting my mental health.
There’s a reason my siblings and I all moved out as soon as we could. At one time or another, we’ve all caught them doing things that are burned into our fucking retinas.
Things that should have sent us all to therapy.
It’s all good they’re still madly in love. You’d be hard-pressed to find two people in a healthier relationship than them. But seriously, no one should have to know their parents are having more sex than they are.
It’s just wrong.
Not that I’m gonna say any of that to them.
“I’ll see you at the game.” I kiss Mom’s cheek and run my hand down a sleeping Bodhi’s back, then take him from her. And as I step outside, a soft giggle echoes behind me, followed by what I think is an ass slap, and damn, I just dry heaved.
Fuck me . . . This is exactly why I’m not staying with them.
I’ve been out of the house for a solid decade.
No way in hell would I move back in now.
My sisters said they’d help with Bodhi until I find a nanny, which, after spending the night with their feral fucking kids, needs to be moved to the top of my to-do list before Bodhi’s already terrible twos get even fucking worse.
I get him buckled into his car seat and pull out my phone. Thoughts of Serena have plagued me for a long damn time. But seeing her tonight made them all too real.
Hendrix
Hey, princess. Are you okay?
Serena
The message might as well be blinking up at me in brightly lit neon lights as I stare at my phone. His name hasn’t been on it in three years. Not from him reaching out to me, at least. I tried to call him after Brittany died but chickened out and texted instead.
It went unanswered.
I trace his name with the tip of my finger, then flip the phone over.
No. I will not open his text.
Absolutely not.
No matter how strong the draw to look is, and the bitch is hella strong.
“Hey.” Liv looks up from her computer as we fly somewhere over the middle of the country on our way to Las Vegas. “You sure you’re okay?” Her eyes trace a line from my hand to my overturned phone and back. “Do you want to talk about it?”
I lean my head back against the soft leather chair and look out the window at the starless sky. “No.”
“No, you’re not okay, or no you don’t want to talk about it?”
My chest rises with the deep breath it takes to fill my lungs, just to make sure I can. “Either . . .” Exhaling, I look at her. “Both.”
“Will you let me know when you’re ready?” Liv and I are good at this. We know when to push each other, and we know when to back off. And right now, pushing would be the worst possible thing.
I stare at the phone again, growing weaker by the second.
Fuck. This.
“Can you take this for now?” I slide it her way and almost laugh at the comically confused expression on her face.
“You going to tell me why?”
I shake my head and go back to staring at the beautiful black sky.
“You’re aware I know your passcode, right?”
“I’m aware . . .” I don’t bother saying anything else.
I don’t need to.
Instead, I tug my cashmere throw tighter around my arms and say a silent prayer that I won’t dream tonight.
I’m not sure my heart can handle it.