Page 11 of #Moonstruck

“She’s hot.” He made that statement as if it excused any dog behavior on his part.

“I’m serious. Leave her alone. I found her future husband.” When I said that, Parker’s face turned pale. The thought of commitment freaked him out even more than it did me, and that was really saying something.

He held up both his hands like he was surrendering. “Okay. I’ll stay away from Angie. For now.”

I threw my pillow at him, which he easily sidestepped while laughing. My aim was pretty bad.

Which was probably a family trait, given the current urine-splattered state of our bathroom.

“If you’re done hurling things at me, I’m going out for a few hours.”

Given that he was near my room, that meant he was sneaking out. “Through the back door?”

The always upbeat, always happy Parker actually frowned. “Fitz is stressing, and I don’t want to deal with him right now. See you later.”

I heard the back door close quietly as he left. I should have reminded him not to park anywhere stupid, as he typically did.

Well, I had officially ransacked my own room and come up short. Parker said he hadn’t seen it. Maybe Cole had.

I went across the hall and knocked on the door of his room. No response. I opened the door and stepped into the darkened bedroom. “Cole?”

He was already asleep, snoring softly. He worked the early-morning shift (starting at 3:00 a.m.) at the bakery around the corner. Which meant that he usually went to bed early. On nights we had gigs, he would leave straight from the show and go to work. Doing my best not to disturb him, I looked around for my phone.

There was one recharging on his nightstand, but it was Cole’s phone. I picked it up and used the flashlight app to search his room.

I noticed a picture tacked to his bulletin board of Cole and me when we were seven years old and had both lost our front teeth. We’d shared a room when we were younger, and even though we were way too old for that now, I missed him being close by. Everybody had called us the twins, despite the fact that we were born nine months apart and had different mothers and were different races.

But even then, people could tell we were brother and sister because of my father’s stupid genes that seemed to dominate every one of our DNA strands. We all had his musical talent, dark caramel-colored (as my mom had liked to say) hair, and high cheekbones. And even Cole, who was half-black, had our dad’s pale-green eyes. I’d read once that green eyes were one of the rarest eye colors. Something like only 2 percent of the entire world had them. (Given my father’s favorite pastime of creating offspring, that 2 percent was probably related to him in some way.) It somehow seemed fitting that my father’s DNA took over everything and dictated how things would be for us, even at a molecular level.

I hated that I had to be reminded of him every time I looked in a mirror or into the faces of the people I loved best, or every time I sang or played. That I had talent because of him.

After I closed Cole’s door, I went to find out if my oldest brother had seen my phone. He sat at the kitchen table, which was papered with bills and a single calculator. Fitz had his hands fisted in his hair, his head bowed, his shoulders caved in.

“Is everything okay?” I asked.

He jumped as if I’d startled him. “Maisy. Hey.”

Usually Fitz was the most mellow person in the world. He took whatever obstacles came his way and didn’t worry about getting past them. It made him the perfect guardian when our mom had to leave. Things didn’t worry him.

But now? His feathers looked seriously ruffled. “What are you doing?” I asked.

He let out a world-weary sigh. “I might as well tell you. I can’t protect you from this much longer. I think we’re going to have to sell the house.”

“What?” I couldn’t keep the panic out of my voice. This was not just a house. This was our home. The only home I’d ever known. Fitz couldn’t sell it. “Why?”

“Because Century Pacific has raised their rates again, and the money is almost gone. I don’t know how we’re going to make next month’s payment.” He handed me a piece of paper. It was a bank statement.

Showing an almost zero balance.

I sank down into the chair next to him, dumbfounded, and stared at the statement. I’d known for a long time that things were not great, that we had to tighten our belts, but I had no idea we were at “sell the house” bad.

Especially because Fitz had always been so responsible. He’d created a strict budget for us, and we’d stuck to it. We didn’t go on vacations; we didn’t have big Christmases or birthdays. We bought only necessities.

We all had day jobs—at our mother’s insistence. Although she had encouraged our musical aspirations and put us in lessons when we were kids, she told us we had to have something to fall back on just in case. Fitz had gone into carpentry, Parker did graphic design, Cole baked, and I cut hair. I really hated cutting hair, which is why I never made much money doing it, but I contributed to the household finances.

It still wasn’t enough.

“I can’t believe the entire inheritance is gone.” It felt surreal.

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