I hated it, hated school in general, and I definitely didn’t want to follow in Franc’s small-ass footsteps. I knew from the time I was little that music was it for me, that I’d end up doing something with my passion whether it made money or not. I was just fortunate enough to find four other people who shared that same dream and do something fucking amazing with it.
But when Leo ghosted on us, I decided I had to do something other than wait around for her to get her head out of her ass. Don’t get me wrong, it was definitely not my preference but after two years I figured enough was enough, and I needed to fill my time with something. So, I started taking night classes and my family fucking flipped, thrilled Ifinally started to do something with my lifebecause apparently touring the U.S. and earning two platinum albums makes me a bum.
“I dropped out.”
Silence.
“Franc, you there?”
“Where are you right now?”
I roll my eyes. “Are you gonna help me or not?”
After a solid thirty seconds of swearing in Italian, Franc finally asks, “Who are you looking into?”
“Do you know anything about the guy funding the restoration at the Bissonnette plantation? Where he came from, what his story is?”
“I know he isn’t from New Orleans, but that’s about it. Why do you want me to run him?”
I’m not entirely sure how to answer that.
I got pretty pissed listening to Leo recount her run-in with the bastard, but that’s not enough to run a background check on the guy. I just can’t seem to shake this feeling that he’s not on the up and up.
I mean, who moves to a new city and all of the sudden decides to fund a project that’s going to cost upwards of a million dollars for no real reason? How can he even afford that? Why would he want to do it in the first place?
“I’m just curious, I guess.”
My brother scoffs, “It doesn’t have anything to do with a redheaded bitch who happens to know the groundskeepers at that very plantation, does it?”
Oh yeah, and my dickhead brother absolutely hates Leo. It’s about ninety percent of the reason we don’t talk anymore.
The shower cuts off, and I turn away from the door, lowering my voice as I do. “You gonna do this for me or not?”
“I’ll do it. Give me a few days, and I’ll get you what you need.”
Damn right he will.
Franc may not think he owes me, but he has thirty-six years of being a shitty big brother to make up for.
PETE
“That bother you?”
My eyes shift from the staircase to Mark as soon as Luck is out of sight, and I hold his stare while I take a drink of my beer, carefully thinking over my response.
He’s asking a very specific question, one that relates directly to what he ignored earlier, and I don’t feel like getting into this right now.
Lucky and I have been together since about a week before they were attacked. As in,togethertogether; in love, sharing his condo, and having outstanding sex for the better part of the last three years.
We told Mark and Norman almost as soon as we realized that thebest friendshipwe’ve had since we were little kids was a hellof a lot more—denial definitely wasn’t a river in Egypt when it came to the two of us—but that was more or less because they walked in on us and forced our hand.
For all the times we’ve seen each other bang any number of people, getting on our tour bus to find Luck and I in the master bedroom making out up against the wall, my hand down his pants, his down mine, brutally jerking each other off while we were halfway through changing for the show was a surprise to them.
Eh, maybe not asurprisenecessarily, but I don’t think Mark or Norm expected it, and momentarily awkward or not, it made it easier to talk about with them.
Lucky has always been way more open about his sexuality than most of us, save for maybe Leo. He knew he was bisexual before we hit puberty, and he was never shy about it, except with his mother and brother. Andshyisn’t really the word I’d use to describe his attitude over the way they reacted whenever he showed interest in a male.Pissed offis more like it, even when he’d come to my house upset and hurt over the way they treated him.
All of us knew going in that Lucky proudly batted for both teams, Leo included, and it never changed anything about our dynamic as a band, or a family. It was just normal, the way that shit should always be.
