Page 101 of Hearts of Fairlake

Somehow, I wasn't surprised to turn around and find Ethan standing behind me, beer in hand and a grin on his face. It was still hard to make out the gray among his pale blond hair, but his smile was as full of mischief as ever. “Do you ever find it strange that you can get knocked up, serve in the military, and get student loans all before you're allowed to smoke and drink?"

"I wouldn't know," I said, taking the beer. "I didn't wait until I was twenty-one."

He snorted. “You didn't wait until you were sixteen. What do you mean?"

"Ah yes, I took a half-empty bottle of Tito's from Annie's house. She knew it was me but never told," I said with a wistful sigh. "I had my first kiss that night...and then puked on his pants."

"Just a kiss?" Ethan wondered, sounding doubtful.

"He wasn't too keen on anything else when he had to wash his pants."

"It is a rather...unique way to get a man out of his pants, but I can promise you, men are a lot easier than that."

"Like I don't know."

He grinned. “Where is Annie anyway?"

"She's got a double tonight," I said with a shrug. "And she's madder than hell that she can't be here. But I told her Amberwasn't going to be able to make it from California either, so it wasn't like it was going to be a full house."

"True, and only Grant is going to make it since Sylas is back in LA dealing with...deals," Ethan said, frowning. "Movie deals? I can't remember."

"It's been going on for a few years now, but I'm still amazed the great sleuth has all but put up his hat and doesn't know everyone's business," I said with a smirk.

Ethan rolled his eyes. “Oh, c'mon. Sylas decided to open his own production company and start funding movieshewanted to see because Hollywood sold itself out, or however he put it, that one time he had far too much bourbon, and Grant had to carry him out."

"God, that was great," I said with a grin, reaching up and tucking my hair behind my hearing aid. I'd been offered advanced surgery to fix my hearing, but after thinking it through, I'd turned it down. I’d lived with an outward reflection of my disability my whole life. I figured I might as well live the rest of it that way, fuck whatever anyone else thought. "That was the same night he grabbed Grant's ass in front ofeveryone. I thought Felix was going to piss himself laughing so hard at his brother's face."

"S'alright," a new voice popped up, and I winked as Bennett sidled up to the collection of picnic tables, a cooler behind him. "Devin once told Adam that Chase was hung like a horse, which was absolutely hilarious. Adam was uncomfortable, but I'm pretty sure Chase wanted to fade from the Earth at that moment."

I wrinkled my nose. “I never knew that story. Thanks for that, Bennett."

"Wait," Eileen interrupted, looking between us and settling on Bennett. "If you were there, why weren't you embarrassed too?"

"Because I'd already seen Chase naked...several times,"Bennett said with a laugh, bending down to grab a beer from his cooler. "And Devin wasn't exaggerating."

I groaned as Colin walked over and raised a brow. “What...are we talking about?"

"Uncle Chase's dick and the fact that Bennett has seen it," I said, pinching the bridge of my nose and sighing heavily. "All things I didn't need to hear."

Colin sighed. “Papa, c'mon. You know we hate those stories."

"Of course, you already knew," I said with a sigh. "Areanyof your kids normal?"

"Bri insists Brendon is normal," Bennett said with a shrug. "When I pointed out he was currently on an extreme sports tour around the world, sponsored by whatever energy booster company that was, she threatened to remove one of my hands. Which is a weird and specific threat, so I just walked away."

All their kids were a little on the weird side, but that made sense. Plus, we loved them anyway. Colin was trying his hand at being a writer while he worked out of Grant's bakery. Apparently, he was pretty good at historical fiction, which wasn't my thing, so I didn't ask. Amber had gone off to become a medical examiner, with a minor in entomology because apparently bugs were really important when it came to dead bodies...which I tried not to think about too hard. Then there was Brendon, the quiet little kid who’d grown up to be good at extreme sports and had a daring for adventure that made even Ethan wary.

"She still blames me for him," Ethan said as if reading my mind. "Like I somehow managed to hide my genetics inside her, waiting until she had a kid, and then it popped up. I tried to point out that that's insane, and all it takes is going through some of our family stories to know that just about every generation had some whacko that put themselves inharm's way all the time, but you know Bri, she's not listening to reason."

"Wouldn't that makeyouthe whacko of your generation?" Eileen asked with a raised brow.

"Uh, duh? I thought that was obvious," he said, sipping his beer. "I have to say, living the quiet life is pretty nice, though. Nowadays, I get to boss people around and lecture them because they really wanna learn what I have to say. Almost as lucrative as throwing myself into danger, but without the danger."

"And yet you couldn't resist the urge to call your business a guild and send other writing guilds into a frenzy and threaten you," Bri said dryly as she and Keith approached, a beaming Brendon behind them, wheeling two large coolers. One might have thought the stress of being a lawyer in Boston, then the dissolution of her marriage, getting replaced by her ex-husband's male best friend, three kids, and then a teenage parent son would have worn her down, but...no. Bri, in fact, still held an air of authority about her, and while the color had faded from her hair and there were wrinkles, she still managed to have skin that made me envious sometimes. "Because you're always going to look for trouble, even after you're dead."

"Well, then it’ll be someone else's problem rather than yours. I thought you'd be happy," he said with a smirk, shaking Keith's hand and grunting when Brendon picked him up and shook him around a little. "Lovely, thank you, Brendon. You always know how to greet people in a normal way. Love that about you."

Which took the topic of conversation out of my hands, and I drifted from it, looking around to find that Connor's book had been returned to him and he was quietly sitting in the shade under a tree, scribbling away. Honestly, he had a great eye for a seven-year-old, and I’d say he could grow upto be a phenomenal artist. The only problem was how sensitive he was. I didn't have a creative bone in my body, yet I knew how cruel the world could be to artists.

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