Call You Mine

by Claudia Burgoa

  Vance takes Grace and Seth back to Portland, but not before Seth suggests a landing strip near The Lodge. He spends about an hour discussing the pros and cons. So much for wanting to leave right away.

  In the end, Henry decides to build a better helipad and a hangar that can fit two or three helicopters.

  My brothers have no idea what they’ve done, giving Seth the green light to come and go and use this as a base for The Organization. Will my brothers get pissed when they realize what we’ve been doing since we arrived in Baker’s Creek? I might never tell them.

  I plan on speaking to the five of them tomorrow. Not about The Organization but the tour and Grace moving to Baker’s Creek. As I’m heading up to my room, Mills intercepts me.

  “So, what happened?”

  “With what?”

  “You locked yourself away for three fucking days. I’m here if you need me,” he offers. “I’m not Grace or your bandmates, but I thought you trusted me.”

  I slump slightly because I can only keep so much shit from him. We go into my room, which is the only place in this house where I can have some privacy. I had the contractor soundproof it.

  “It’s too fucking complicated.” I sigh.

  “As complicated as when you get the fuck out of town whenever it pleases you?”

  I arch an eyebrow and press my lips together.

  “You think I don’t know when you leave town?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I know you have a cabin in the woods,” he states. “That you exchange cars and head to Portland, leaving some scrawny asshole to play the part of Beacon.”

  “Can we keep that between us?”

  “I have to because if I don’t, we are all screwed,” he chides me. “What the fuck are you thinking?”

  “Listen, it’s best if you don’t know. I promise it’s not for selfish reasons—unless you count the times I’ve gone to see Grace because I fucking miss her. Most of the times it’s to help a cause.”

  He shakes his head. “What kind of cause?”

  “It’s a good cause, I swear.”

  Maybe I should tell Mills what I do, but what if it puts him in danger? I wouldn’t forgive myself if something happens to him or Arden…or to my family.

  “Listen, I know you have your reasons not to be with Grace.” He rubs the back of his neck. “You should do something with that. Move on or be with her. I wish I could have someone that understands me the way she understands you—and loves you.”

  “I’m actually planning on making my move,” I confess and smile. “It’s time to see where this will take us.”

  He nods.

  “You okay?” I ask.

  “Living here makes me feel lonely. Does that make sense?”

  “It does,” I agree, because that’s how I’ve been feeling.

  “When I decided to have Arden, I thought how hard can it be to do it on my own?” He pauses. “It’s not hard, but it feels incomplete. Like someone is missing.”

  “Do you ever regret telling his mom to keep him?”

  He shakes his head and smiles. “He’s the best thing that’s happened to me. It’ll be fucking hard to tell him why his mom isn’t part of his life though.”

  It’s fucking hard to learn that your mom didn’t want you. She wanted to become Mrs. Mills Aldridge, and since Mills didn’t want to marry her, she almost got rid of our boy. Mills paid her to have him and took charge of him since day one.

  I pat his shoulder. “Your soul mate is somewhere. She’s not here yet because maybe you two aren’t ready to meet.”

  “Have I ever told you that you’re fucking corny?”

  “I’m a little of everything.”

  I wait until the next evening to talk to my brothers. Since I’m trying to work things out with them—they’re still worried and angry about my disappearance—I let them come to the game room on a weekday.

  They are only allowed to be in here Fridays or Saturdays. I don’t joke when I say I need my space.

  “Where are your bandmates?” Pierce asks, walking to the cue rack.

  “At Bar None, hopefully not hooking up,” I state.

  “Are you ready to talk about what happened to you?” Henry asks and points his cue toward Vance. “This brooding shit is something I expect from him. Not you. Drinking yourself stupid was irresponsible. Should I be concerned about alcohol or drug abuse?”

  “Can we stop the lecture?” I ask. “It’s something I don’t often do. I. Am. Clean. In fact, I need to stay drug and alcohol-free or I get fired.”

  I almost flinch as I say the last words. I hope they don’t look too closely into that statement. Musicians and celebrities do whatever the fuck they want, and they don’t get fired. They might lose their fans, contracts, or sponsorships.

  Pierce stares at me intently. He wants to say something, but he just shrugs it off and sets the balls on the pool table. Since The Organization began to look into his family’s firm, he’s been asking too many questions. He swears I’m part of the people who are investigating his mother. I work for them, but I haven’t done any work for that case.

  “We just want to understand you,” Hayes explains. “Personally, I feel like I have less than a year left to prove myself to all of you or I’ll lose you permanently.”

  Henry clears his throat. “I’m staying in this forsaken town with you.”

  “Well, Henry and Pierce are a different story.” He points at Mills, Vance, and me. “You three are closed up to us. I’m still wondering why you and Mills stayed in touch. You could reach out to him but not to us too.”

  “I read in the paper that his grandfather died and called him. You didn’t give a fuck,” Mills answers, but it’s more like a growl. “It was all over the news. No one reached out to him. Not even William—but I expected that from him.”

  Everyone nods in agreement.

  “It’s like with his injury,” I snarl as I point to Mills. “Everyone knew he was hurt. It’s the second time it happened, and you couldn’t reach out. You didn’t even care to accept him as your patient after the team’s doctor reached out to you.”

  Hayes scowls. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  Mills shakes his head. “Let it go, dude.”

  “His doctor tried to get an appointment with you,” I explain, puffing my chest and ignoring Mills. I’ve been wanting to punch him since Mills told me about this. “Your excuse was your long-ass waitlist. He’s your fucking brother.”

  He looks at Mills and shakes his head. “I had no idea. My assistant never mentioned it to me. I’m sorry about that. I wish I had followed your career closer. I can’t fix what happened before our father died.”

  Pierce glances at me and shakes his head. “No matter what I say or do, I can’t make you trust me. I’m not giving up on you, Beacon, but maybe you want to give in a little?”

  “We take responsibility for what we did wrong,” Henry says. “But it’s time for you to stop using it as an excuse to keep us at arm’s length.”

  Vance huffs. “Typical Henry, just trying to close a deal. This time it’s getting his younger brothers to trust him. Your wife needs to teach you to keep your family out of your goal board. We’re not some weird five-year plan.”

  “Year five, organize the annual Aldridge family summer trip,” Mills jokes. I high five him.

  I’m impressed that instead of trying to punch one of us or yell at us, Henry asks, “How else can I prove to you that I’m here for the long run?”

  I take this as the perfect moment to bring up the tour. “Well, the guys and I want to organize some gigs for this upcoming year. A small tour. Most of them will happen only on the West Coast. We might go to Vegas if we think the times line up with my curfew.”

  “We agreed you wouldn’t go on tour until this is over.” Henry is the first one to protest.

  He can’t trust me. According to him, I’m a loose canyon which is precisely what I want him to think. He doesn’t know I’m
methodical. I can be ten times more demanding than him. Unlike him, I’m not fastidious as fuck.

  “Which means you don’t think I’ll be back on time because you can’t trust the kid,” I taunt him.

  “You were drunk at your secret house for days. If Parrish learns about it, we’re fucked,” he growls.

  “I had that covered,” I growl. “You just think I’m a stupid kid. News flash, I’m not.”

  “Stop!” Pierce orders, pointing at him, then looking at me. “Why the sudden need to add some gigs?”

  “The guys proposed it. I personally think that if we work within those parameters, it can happen. Also, we can try to keep everything within an hour’s flight,” I explain. “As I told them when they suggested this idea, it’s up to you.”

  Pierce nods. He looks at Hayes, who shrugs.

  “Twenty dates,” Pierce offers. “Set twenty dates throughout the year and the rest here or in Happy Springs.”

  “Don’t encourage him.” Henry’s eyes narrow to crinkled slits.

  “If we want him to trust us, we have to trust him too,” Pierce explains.

  “It goes two ways, Henry,” Hayes agrees. “We need a few rules, though.”

  “I think it’ll be smart if we request those dates as your free days—in case you are late,” Pierce suggests. “That gives you ten days to do whatever the fuck you want.”

  “Isn’t it against the rules to use them for work?” I ask.

  “Let me worry about the details. I can bend the rules slightly.” He looks around the room. “You want to vote on it?”

  “I’m cool with it,” Mills says.

  “Same,” Vance agrees.

  “I trust you to do the right thing. So far, you’ve managed to stay in town,” Hayes says. “Honestly, I thought that you’d be flying out of here within the first week.”

  I did.

  “Give me some credit. I know how to be careful and not just do something stupid,” I say with a straight face.

  It’s not a lie. I wouldn’t do anything stupid. That’s different from I’ve been out and about. I just know how to cover my tracks.

  Henry looks at me. “Get Sophia, Blaire, and Leyla on board, and you got yourself a deal. I trust you, but if you fuck this up…”

  I cross my arms, smirk, and give him a challenging look. “You’re going to ground me?”

  “No, I’m going to make you fix it.”

  Fix it is the wrong word. I could save the people affected. The properties will be sold, and the Lodge demolished. However, I am ready to step in and manage to save the town and the livelihood of those fucked by our father. He doesn’t need to know that, though.

  “Don’t challenge him,” Mills warns Henry. “Or underestimate him. Maybe if you stop calling him kid and start giving him more credit, he wouldn’t have the need to leave the main house and come to this place every day because he can’t deal with your attitude.”

  “I’m trying to make sure he doesn’t fuck up anything,” Henry defends himself. “He almost died.”

  “I didn’t.” I snort. “You need to chill. When I’m on my death bed, you’ll know.”

  “Enough, Beacon,” Hayes orders with a low, commanding voice. “He’s not handling this well.”

  Pierce looks at me and says, “Look, we’re trying our best, but as the doc said yesterday, we can’t lose another brother. You scared us shitless by disappearing, and it wasn’t because we thought you were gone but because something could’ve happened to you, and there was no way to reach you in time. Henry is concerned. You have to remember that sometimes his emotional constipation only allows him to yell like a wounded animal. We’re a work in progress.”

  “You have fewer hang-ups than we do because your grandparents did a great job raising you,” Hayes says reassuringly.

  What he’s really saying is that Henry’s behavior has a lot to do with his fucked-up life and nothing with what I’m doing. Fine. I’ll give him a pass.

  Neither one says what we all know; their mothers’ bitterness made them the way they are. I understand. If my grandparents were alive, they’d chide me for being an asshole to my brothers. Maybe I should ask for a day and drive to Seattle. I should hang out with Grace’s family. They keep me grounded.

  Grace is my anchor, though.

  “By the way, the guys are buying a place, and Grace might be moving into town.”

  “Are you finally going to tell her how you feel?” Henry asks with a smug grin.

  “I always do. She just doesn’t believe me.”

  “Clearly, you don’t know how to do it well,” Hayes says mockingly. “Maybe compose a cheesy song.”

  I could list all the songs I’ve written for her. Instead, I change the subject. “Well, just so you know, she’ll be around for the remainder of the sentence.” I hope.

  Pierce’s eyes brighten. “Do you think she can give us a hand with the little ones?”

  “You still haven’t found a way to get us a nanny?” Mills groans.

  “No, I haven’t. We can’t pay anyone for their services. I’ll find a way. I promise.”

  “You should definitely ask Grace,” I encourage him. “I’m pretty sure she’ll be able to do it.”

  And with that, I’ve just made them think that getting Grace to help is their idea. They also agree to the concerts since I agree to have up to twenty dates outside the state. My brothers are so easy.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Grace

  I’m a geek.

  I like to research and know everything there is about a subject or a product before I try it. I’m one of those people who reads the instruction manual right after I open the box. Unlike Beacon, who will open the box and touch everything before he even asks, “What the fuck is this for?”

  My tablet’s memory reached its limit a couple of days ago. I had no idea it was possible until I filled it with books about flirting, sexology, and finding love.

  The book I’m currently reading mentions that learning the language of love is as easy as learning how to speak. Language comes effortlessly for some. It does for me. I speak four languages—five if I count music. Still, love isn’t something that’s happened to me, unless it slapped me in the face and I didn’t notice.

  Does having a crush on Beacon when I was sixteen count?

  Stop lying to yourself. It wasn’t just a crush.

  I keep thinking about the kisses he gave me the last time I saw him.

  Do I regret not going all the way with him?

  A little. I can still feel his hands running along my back, burning every inch of my body. The touch of his lips grazing my skin. I haven’t been able to get him out of my head. The next time I might beg him to take me.

  Why did he stop us?

  I shake my head, fighting the memories of the most exquisite kisses I’ve ever had in my entire life. My focus should be on these books, not that I can pay much attention to them. It’s hard. They make no sense to me. It’s either the brain fog or the ridiculous analogies.

  Saying that learning to flirt and fall in love is like a child learning how to talk sounds a bit weird. They need to reword everything.

  Maybe I’m taking things too literally.

  If I could fall in love as easily as I can speak other languages, my life would be different.

  I spoke and understood Japanese and English by the age of three. Since I can remember, Dad spoke to me in Japanese while Mom and the rest of the family talked to me in English. My paternal grandmother is second generation Japanese-American.

  I also know French, Spanish, and music. The latter is a universal language.

  Should I have started flirting with guys at twelve like most of my peers? No, I was a freshman in high school, and everyone thought I was weird. Thankfully, I was in the same grade as Beacon, Lang, San, Mane, and Fish. They made that stage of my life a lot easier.

  Is Beacon right? Should we start dating and everything else will come easily?

  Then what can I get from all th
e books, magazines, and articles I’ve been reading, not that I can follow them. I can’t see myself wearing a provocative outfit to allure my “desirable objective”—that’s how one of the books I’m reading refers to the person we’re trying to charm.

  It’s winter. I need thick jackets, baggy sweaters, and leggings to keep me warm. And most of all, I’ll never give up my knee-high socks and combat boots, unless I’m undercover or at a concert. I dress to express myself and feel comfortable, not to attract the opposite sex, as described in the book, How to Flirt your Way into the World of Love.

  That’s a long title fitting for a book filled with nonsense. At least, it’s nonsense to me.

  If this was a class, I’d fail. My first F. Unbelievable. I just don’t understand how else to do this. Beacon said flirting is like music. I don’t see any similarities. There’s no rhythm or rhyme to the nonsense I’m reading.

  This is a lost cause. I turn off my tablet and move my attention to my computer. I have to check on the house I rented in Baker’s Creek. It’s close to the Aldridge mansion and far enough from Tucker’s place. I adore my cousin, but he can get too overprotective. Cue on the too overprotective. He’s just like Dad. I feel for Mae, his daughter. She will have trouble getting places when she is older because her dear dad will say, “You’re too young.”

  In just a couple of days, I’ll become a temporary citizen of Baker’s Creek. The moving company should be here on Friday morning to take my bed and some of my furniture. Once they leave, I’ll drive to Oregon.

  I stare at the cardboard boxes leaning against the wall. I still have to pack. Maybe I should do it while taking a break from doing more research.

  That sounds better than wondering if I should practice kissing with someone other than Beacon.

  Mmm…Beacon, I sigh.

  Who knew he gives the best kisses in the world? Toe-curling-brand-your-heart. The last kiss he gave me before I left Baker’s Creek still plays in my head. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to find someone who kisses that good.

  Where did he learn how to kiss like that?

  What was I thinking when I said he should help me?