Uncharted (Unexpected Book 3)

by Claudia Burgoa

  Climbing down from the truck, I bump into my father, who I didn’t know was in town.

  “Jacob, it’s good to see you, son,” Dad greets me. He’s about an inch shorter than my six-three, with brown hair and green eyes. My sister is his carbon copy. Well, no. My sister has finer facial features. “How are you today?”

  “You’re seriously letting your hair grow?” I pull a few of the strands and shake my head. My eyes bulge as I stare at his hideous hair.

  “Yes, and I added a few extensions to it, because my hair isn’t the same as it was twenty-something years ago.” Papi uses both hands to smooth his hair. “I have the nagging feeling that your father hates it.”

  Yes, Gabe, my other father, loathes it.

  Christian’s trying to recreate the look he had back in the ‘80s when his metal band was one of the most famous in the entire world. My father is missing the points that the Berlin Wall is long gone, socialism died, and his band’s glory days are over. The entire family hopes this is a phase he’ll overcome—soon.

  Gabe’s keeping his mouth shut because he promised to love Chris no matter what—that includes his mid-life crises.

  “Why are you here? Don’t you have classes?”

  “We did—do, but I have some free time and Matthew is sleeping.” He bobs his head, understanding why I couldn’t stay at home. I hate silence. “I have a few ideas swirling inside my head and wanted to play a few chords based on that. Can I use one of the practice rooms?”

  “My boy, this is your place too,” he says as we make our way to the studio. “I should get you a set of keys and give you the alarm codes. Whenever you want to come over, you’re more than welcome—as long as you don’t leave the doors open or do anything stupid.”

  I wonder if he’s saying this because of the time Matthew and I left the studio back home open one winter. The pipes broke, the snow made its way inside, and he had to replace the entire studio. Man, we were expensive.

  “Why are you here?” I ask him.

  “Other than owning the place?” I hold back the smarmy remark. “Porter has some new music and wants me to listen to it and see if we can produce a new album.”

  Porter’s my parents’ foster child. They picked him up from the street when he was fourteen. He lived with us for four years and left the house three years ago when he became independent. He’s my friend and my sister’s boyfriend—a snippet of information my parents aren’t aware of, and one we’re saving for a rainy day. According to Porter, their relationship’s too volatile and he doesn’t want my parents to intervene. AJ mentioned to me twice that Porter didn’t want to aggravate my parents with the news. Either story is stupid. Matthew and I decided to stay out of their issues. Plus, we hope they’ll break up soon. The idea of my little sister dating my friend makes me uncomfortable. I mean, the guy is like a cousin—disgusting.

  “Padre, we have new music—a lot of new songs.” I push my luck because we don’t have enough for an album. Though, I can persuade my sister to help us write whatever else we need to complete it as long as we can quit going to school. “We should forget this college degree and record a new album. The music might become obsolete by the time we can set foot back in the studio.”

  “I’ve heard that one before—music becoming obsolete.” He groans. “It’s a myth. I’m still waiting for the fucking Beatles to disappear from my husband’s favorite playlist. Don’t get me wrong, I like them, but anything played a million times for the past twenty years is bound to become tiresome.”

  That’s a fact of life. Gabe plays the Beatles every day. We children are used to them and can play any of their songs.

  “Get it over with and finish college.” My father uses that authoritative voice. “Then you can do whatever you want. If you’re concerned about the music being obsolete—which is a lame excuse—you can have someone else play that music and receive royalties from it. Easy money.”

  My brow lifts at the new development; our money problems might be solved. “How much?”

  “Don’t get excited.” He stops before pushing the glass door open. “It isn’t much at the beginning…unless you sell me the rights.”

  I cross my arms and wait for him to explain further.

  “I’ll buy each song you sell me for a certain amount.” He opens the door and we head inside. “Let’s say five thousand a song. But that will be it. You will never receive another penny for that song. Not even if it becomes a number one hit, a movie uses it as part of their soundtrack, or an advertising company uses it for commercials. Those royalties are mine.”

  I scratch my chin, thinking about the possibilities. Five thousand means not flipping burgers, preparing coffee, or doing another job that isn’t music-related.

  “What if I want to retain the rights?”

  “It’s a process,” he continues as we march toward the staircase. “I find the right artist for that song. The best match for the kind of lyrics and music you deliver. If it sells, I’ll pay you as we receive any revenue from it. Imagine the possibilities if the song goes to number one… Are you getting the idea?”

  I slump my shoulders because the second idea sounds tedious, boring, and a long way from having some independence from my parents. However, if we retain the rights, we could make money for years to come.

  “It’s a difficult choice.” Dad halts and looks at me. “Don’t just sell out of desperation. You two are planning on working while attending school, right?”

  I give him a slight nod.

  “I can employ you here.” He points at his office. “There are a few things I’m getting too old to do, like scouting for new talent. There are a few other tasks that won’t take much time, like playing as a session musician for other artists during their recording sessions, or updating the blog, among other shit. Talk with Matthew and let me know. There’s no rush, so think about it.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind, Padre.” I bow to him and head to one of the practice rooms.

  As I enter the music room I encounter Porter. Dark hair, brown eyes, and stubble.

  “You smell like pot,” I say as the whiff burns my nostrils. “Dad’s going to kick you out of the studio. The rules apply to you too.”

  The most important rule: no musician can step inside the building under the influence of alcohol or drugs. It doesn’t matter how famous or rich they are. That rule applies to everyone.

  Porter ignores me. He plays a melody that sounds like my sister’s shit. Snappy and fast-paced. Not the loud, screeching guitar with heavy drums in the background he likes to play.

  “That’s AJ’s.” I step closer.

  “More like ours. We compose together sometimes.” I’ve finally gotten his attention. “Is he really here—your father?”

  I shrug, giving him the “you’re fucked” glare.

  “Fuck, do me a solid and stall him.” Porter lifts his bloodshot gaze and stares at me. “I have to go back to the hotel, take a shower and change. I hate when he gets touchy about my personal choices.”

  My parents won’t be happy with me when they find out I’m enabling him. Chris hates when Porter’s poor choices include alcohol and pot. He always says that those things destroy careers, families, lives. He’d know. My father is a recovering alcoholic.

  “Whatever. You know my sister wouldn’t like it either.” I bring up his Achilles heel.

  “I never do this shit when my girl’s around,” he snarls at me. “Now go and entertain him while I leave. See you later, dude.”

  Porter doesn’t wait for me to move. He grabs his guitar case and exits the room. That’s what drugs do to him—numb his brain. They slow his thinking process and he fucks up a lot.

  “Kendrick, are you high?” Chris barks at him.

  Busted.

  I shut the door and begin to compose a tune worthy of my little star. If I ever see her again, I can brag I wrote
a song or two for her. A quick recovery after coming on too strong. Man, I can’t believe that only after a few hours of meeting her she’s consuming my thoughts.

  “Dreadlocks!” AJ screeches as she connects to Skype. “What the hell are you thinking, Matthew James Colthurst-Decker?” she questions with a twinge of annoyance that results in us laughing at her.

  “’Sup, babe?” Matthew’s the one able to speak, as I’m laughing at both the annoyed sister and the ridiculous brother. “I think I look rad.”

  “I think your hair is longer than mine.” She tussles a long, brown lock. “What happened to it?”

  “I’m redefining my style,” he responds. “Setting myself apart from Jacob.”

  We look similar, but not identical. At least I don’t think so. There are a few features that set us apart, like my eyes being a shade lighter than Matthew’s. He has a dimple on the left cheek; I have a scar close to my left brow. His voice is deeper, and he’s right-handed.

  “We’re now eons apart, Matthew.” I pull one of the locks and he punches me on the arm. I retaliate by pushing him off the couch where we sit.

  As he’s about to punch me, our sister screams, “Matthew, stop!”

  “Are the two of you behaving?” Sometimes she takes herself too seriously and pretends to be the oldest one—the one who has to keep us on a leash. We both laugh at her and she smiles. “Much better. How are you?”

  “Good.” I give her a side shrug. “How’s Teijas treating you?”

  “Okay-ish. How was your first day of school?” We both give her that low frown, arm-crossed posture that means she better start talking. “My roommate sucks. They paired me with the worst human on the face of the Earth. She listens to her music too loud when I’m studying, complains about my musical taste, and leaves me outside our room when her boyfriend comes by...ugh. I need extra income to get out of here. Anything new on your front?”

  “What do you do with your music, AJ?” I haven’t discussed the conversation I had with Chris earlier this week with either one of my siblings. “The ones you compose.”

  “Nothing.” She sighs. “Porter uses most of it…” I give her a stern look. She’s got to be shitting me. “Because we compose together.”

  If I had access to the company records, I could check if Porter pays her any royalties for it. Knowing my sister, she gifts the shit to her boyfriend, not caring how much money he gets from each and every song he plays. Which could be a lot. His albums sell pretty well.

  “Papi might buy our songs,” I tempt her. “There’s your extra money, Princess. We can build our own empire. JAMs can become a reality. We can cash in our talents to solve our basic needs.”

  “Stop calling me Princess, Prince Charming,” she protests. “JAM? I forgot about that shitty name. Isn’t that the name of your investment company?”

  “Our company. And it’s JAM, Inc.” That’s Jacob, Ainsley, and Matthew. At fifteen, when Dad taught me how to invest, I thought it was cool. I even convinced my brother and sister to hand over their savings to make them rich. We’re not rich, but I haven’t lost money. “This one would be named JAM CD, LLC. Guaranteed to bring a great cash flow our way.”

  “Keep talking.” She gives me a narrowing, skeptical gaze. Matthew mimics both her gaze and her crossed-arm posture. Both wait for me to speak. “I might like this.”

  “There’s a few ways to make it happen—well, two.” I tell them both about the two options Chris presented, the one where he’d pay a lump sum and the one where we receive royalties for life.

  “Hmm, I only have Breezy with me,” AJ speaks about her guitar, “I can only do so much. If you can tweak each song I send you at the studio, I’ll say let’s do it. However, I’d rather go for option number two. Royalties for life. I have a job at a coffee shop for now. I have to wait until the summer to move out anyway.”

  It impresses me to hear that from AJ. She’s impatient and likes immediate gratification most of the time—like me.

  “Dude, let’s sell some songs right now,” Matthew finally says. “I refuse to work at some burger joint. I might end up hating the best match made in heaven—burgers and shakes.”

  AJ twists her mouth, bites her lip, and fixes her hair. “Can I think about it?”

  “Yeah, let me know when you’re ready.” I swallow my comments. Pushing her to agree will only tip the balance toward saying no to us. “As soon as you confirm, I’ll inform Papi. For now we’ll work for him doing office shit—Matthew and I. Decide soon, so I can start a company and split the profits between the three. We’ll sell a few songs to have money and some cash flow. Then we wait for the royalties.”

  That’s my plan. I’ll start the company without telling her and will wait for her to send me the first batch. Though we are triplets, I am the big brother. I look after them. Making the big decisions is part of caring for the other two; plus it entitles me to tease them at will and make their lives miserable like a good big brother.

  “Any girl on the horizon for either one of you?” AJ yawns. With the hundreds of miles and two times zones of separation between us, she wants to know as much as she can and asks the most ridiculous questions. Like we do about her too. But the same separation implies that she has to stay awake late to listen to us. While it is eleven for us, it’s one in the morning for her.

  “Need to go to bed, AJ?”

  I want my sister to give me some girly insight in case I bump into Twinkle, but then I would have to tell her how I made an ass of myself.

  “There are no other girls; we just turned eighteen. And don’t put ideas in his head, because ‘the one’ is light-years away.” Matthew spouts his piece-of-shit speech to AJ. “Our parents didn’t meet until they were older.”

  “I met Porter when I was twelve.”

  “AJ, we don’t discuss your relationship with him,” Matthew reminds her. “That’s not… I’ll shut up.”

  She let out a heavy breath. “Whatever, I’m going to bed. I’ll talk to Port about my music. Not sure how he’ll feel about it. Right now it’s time for me to hit the pillow.”

  “Is he paying you any royalties?” She shakes her head. “Don’t be stupid, Ainsley Janine. I’ll give you time, love you, Princess.”

  We say our goodbyes before I start drilling her on why she is working for him—for free. Or start a fight over what she’s doing. I don’t care that they’re dating, but the guy is making loads of money, and she deserves to receive part of that money.

  “Love you too, JC.” She sounds dejected and sad. “Love you, Matthew. Miss you both.”

  “Love you and miss you,” Matthew adds before ending the call.

  “We don’t have much material finished that is worth selling,” Matthew says after we hang up the phone. “Are you sure we can do this?”

  “We’ll team up with AJ. She’ll come around soon. My plan is to split the earnings among the three of us.” I head to my room and pick up a notebook to start a plan. “This first round might not be worth much, but in the long run it’ll become a small company, and when she doesn’t have time to write, she’ll still get royalties from what either one of us create.”

  MJ stares at my notes, the name of the company, the list of things I have to accomplish to found it, and a reminder to find the power of attorney that AJ gave me before heading to college.

  “We have about eight finished—good—songs,” I remind him. “We can sell three of them that I’m not particularly in love with but are okay. We’ll have to go through the ones AJ sends when she’s convinced about our venture. Hopefully they’re good enough and we can sell a couple more. Whatever else she has can be set as the royalty option. The money from the other five will help us for the first few months while we get our shit together. Then there’s the job Chris offered.”

  “Job?”

  I explain Chris’ offer of training us to scout talent, plus the of
fice work and other tasks Dad might have. A couple of days ago, I thought it’d be easier to flip burgers than be under Dad’s supervision during my free time. Now I’m sold on being part of the recording company.

  “I’m in.” MJ heads to his room to pick up his guitar. “It’s a temporary thing while we finish college. After, we won’t have to worry about the record company.”

  “Agreed.” We shake hands with him after spitting in our palms. “I’ll never work for him again.”

  “You hate me,” Matthew groans, resting his head on top of his crossed arms. “Are you sure about taking this class? It’s nine in the morning.”

  “Afraid so,” I reply.

  I’m not thrilled either. Sitting on a small, hard chair for two hours while some dude explains all the shit he claims to know about Economics reminds me of being grounded. The moments when my parents had caught me teasing my sister or talking to them disrespectfully. Usually they’d sit me on the staircase for five minutes while I ‘thought about my behavior’.

  This isn’t much different from the staircase. The large classroom setting has nine different levels. Each level with a large table and ten chairs—our desks. The fluorescent lights and white walls are as welcoming as a hospital waiting room. Cold, sterile, and boring.

  “One year,” I remind him. “We follow the plan and next year we’ll be free.”

  “This sucks,” he mumbles. “College is worse than home. At home, I could take my classes in pajamas and at whatever time was convenient for me. Why do we have to do this?”

  “Parents’ rules.” I sigh heavily, cursing them. “We have to graduate, even if we plan to be hobos for the rest of our lives.”

  “They don’t make sense.” Matthew lifts his head, his dreadlocks covering most of his face. “We are fucking awesome musicians. Father taught us to play the piano before we could ride a bike. A degree won’t raise us to stardom. It’s stopping us.”