Love and Chaos: A Growing Pains Novel (5 page)

“Wow.
” Cassie slowed so she could take in the manicured rows of grapes behind the house and the flame of fall colors crisping the vegetation. “This is…”

“Yeah, it’s nice.” Peter stared at the cars
parked in the grass and brush off to the sides of the driveway close to the house. His hand found his stomach and started rubbing slowly.

“You okay?”

He nodded, his eyes finding something near the house. “Jace is here. Good. Two black sheep and two perfect soldiers. He usually takes a bunch of the disappointment from my parents, leaving me without as much.”

“Jace is the oldest one, right?
Why are your parents disappointed with him?” Cassie followed his gaze. Her stomach heaved uncomfortably and then filled with butterflies as she recognized a shiny black Harley right next to the porch.

Of
course
he was Peter’s unavailable brother. “I just can’t win.”

“What?” Peter glanced her way, his finger in the air,
about to tell her where to park.

“Let me guess, I should park next to the outrageously loud motorcycle.”

“Yeah. There’s a spot up there. Who owns the truck, I wonder…”

As Cassie crept up the long driveway,
past cars parked to the right and left, Peter said, “He’s engaged to this
horrible
woman. She’s just after him for his money. We all know it. And, last I heard, she cheated on him. My mother said they were trying to work it out.” Peter rolled his eyes. “Jace doesn’t like to give up on people. He tries to stick it out to make it work.”

Cassie grimaced, because she’d been cheated on a time or two in her life, and it was no fun. Not at all. “That’s commendable.”

“But he brought the Harley, which means he didn’t bring that wench of a fiancée. Good.”

“Yikes!”

“I’m sorry, sweetie, but that woman just brings out the bitch in me! The whole family hates her. And what’s more, she knows it. She doesn’t get along with anyone.
Why
he won’t just cut her loose is beyond me.”

Cassie put the car in park and checked her hair. Peter smoothed his pants, a small smear of swe
at from his palms darkening the fabric along his thigh. “Look at this. God, I hate this. I’m shaking.”

He shook out his hands and gave her a baleful look. “Time to strap on the straight man.”

“So, what’s your persona? What do they think of you?”

Peter sighed hugely
yet again, his eyebrows dipping with the emotion that welled up. “They think I’m a happy little hedro who needs to get a wife and pop out some babies, like my brothers. Demetri is being groomed to take over the family business—he’s the second oldest—and Nick is some regional manager over satellite stores that sell cell phones or something. Sounds dumb, but he makes a good income. Jace has a great job and stable life except for his fiancée, and still they badger him constantly. And I also have a great job—even though it’s in fashion—but they’ll rail on me for being single. Which is why I brought you. They are an anti-gay family. Civil rights are for women and people of a different race, only. And those only because they already happened, probably.”

Cassie patted him on the arm. “It’s okay. I’m going to wow and delight them.
They’ll think you are the straightest guy ever.”

Peter threw her a sardonic look. “I’m much too well-groomed for that. I’m going with metro.”

Cassie laughed, reaching into the backseat for her handbag. “Probably best.”

“There’s one other thing you should know about all of us getting together.
While technically we are all men, when together, we have the combined age of twelve.“

“Have you forgotten how Krista and I act together?”

“No, Cassie, you don’t understand—“

Peter was cut off as both doors of the car were ripped open. Cassie screamed in surprise as a blond head poked in her side, arm out in front holding a cell phone, selfie at the ready.

“SELFIE!” he yelled as a brown head poked in the other side, phone in the exact same position. “Selfie!”

The guy next to Peter shoved Peter’s shoulder, pushing Peter closer to Cassie. “Forced p
hoto bomb!”

Peter was then yanked back
amid laughter, not even putting up a fight, as the man’s finger clicked the camera icon for more pictures. He had a huge, open-mouthed smile. He backed out of the car as the guy on Cassie’s side said, “Welcome. I’m Nick.”

She clutched her handbag to her chest and stared at the grinning guy in his mid-twenties. Despite only being a couple years older than Peter, Nick looked older still, with a sunburnt face and stress line
s around his eyes. Still extremely handsome, though, even with some extra weight. Just like Peter.

Effing God damn it.
They were a family of
hot
unavailable men.

“Hey man, welcome. Look at you—”
The one Cassie supposed was Demetri helped Peter from the car with a wide smile. “You’re all…fresh looking. Or something. L.A.’s made you into a girl.”

Peter shrugged out of his brother’s embrace uncomforta
bly, his legs set wide apart. A giant chip weighed his shoulder down so hard he must’ve felt lopsided.

This
was his straight-guy routine? Cassie made a mental note to work on it.

“Have to look good out
in L.A.,” Peter deflected, gaze hitting the doorway.

A woman in her late fifties bustled out with a big smile. Colored blond with high cheekbones and gracefully aged, this woman must’ve been a belle in her youth. Light eyes similar to Jace, she reached Peter, grabbed his face, and made him bend down for a kiss.

Demetri jumped into the melee, phone out. “Photo bomb!”

Nick ran around the car and stuck his face into the pose with a huge, gaping smile. “Photo bomb!”

These people were insane.

“Uncle Peter,
Uncle Peter!” Two kids, one around five, one a smidge younger, ran down the steps grinning. A fashionable woman with a baby belly and long brown hair walked out after, a pleased smile on her beautiful face.

“He’s here!” she yelled into the house.

A different woman walked out of the house carrying a baby. A toddler hung on to her leg as they stopped on the porch. More figures moved toward the door inside the house, the shadows obscuring all but dim outlines.

Cassie eased out of the car, han
dbag clutched tightly, as all the boys photo bombed the mom. The guys made a spectacle out of forced selfies, using a camera in Peter or each other’s faces as a huge joke they all found hilarious. And expected. Cassie’s grin was more on the terrified side, completely out of her element with all this family madness.

Although, the immaturity was strangely
endearing.

“You must be Cassie.”

It took a second for Cassie to recognize her name. She glanced to the porch where the woman holding the baby smiled at her. “Cassie, right?”

“Oh. Yes.” She smiled, easing the death grip on her bag slightly. “Peter’s,
uh, girlfriend.”

Two more figures stepped out of the door, one with a huge expanse of shoulder, a sleeve of tattoos, and a handsome but stern face, and an older man wearing a collared shirt and khakis, salt
and pepper hair, a trimmed mustache, and a straight back.

Marcus
had been dead wrong about redneck. Or else he had a different perception of that term than Cassie did. This man held himself with decorum and poise, his piercing eyes scanning the three boys and their mom before swiveling over to her. A look filled with intelligence assessed her with a certain affluence, a man probably in charge of employees and reigning over his family.

She gulped
—not for herself, but for Peter’s struggle. If this man was against the lifestyle Peter now lived, Cassie didn’t think it’d be an easy process to change his mind. He seemed kind of…fixed in his beliefs. He created and controlled his universe, and wouldn’t like someone coming in and messing with his sense of order.

No good.

“Yes. Cassie.” She nodded at the woman as she inched from the car.

“Peter, why don’t you properly introduce your friend,” his father said with a firm and authoritative voice.

Cassie was reminded of her own dad, pushy butthead that he was. She would have to make a conscious effort on this trip not to hate this man just for the similarity. Although it would be hard.

“Oh. Yeah. Of course.” Peter stalked over with a straight back, his eyes hard and bearing squared.

It took everything she had not to punch him in the stomach while laughing at the tough-guy farce.

“Dad,
Mom, everyone, this is Cassie McAdams. Cassie, that’s my brother Nick, and my other brother Demetri.”

The two boys sailed in, sticking their heads next to Cassie with huge grins, selfie ready. “
Let me take a selfie!” the brown-haired brother said in a valley-girl accent. The blond brother started to laugh, giving her a pat on the back to include her in the joke.

“Boys, give
Cassie a chance to settle in before you bombard her!” The mother bustled up with a welcoming smile.

“My mom, Becky.” Peter waved at his approaching mother.

“Oh my, look at you!” She turned to her husband with a downward turned mouth and widened eyes, the expression reserved for a pleasant surprise. “She is a vision, isn’t she? So pretty! And classy to boot.”

Becky turned back and looked Cassie over. “I knew Peter would find a girl just as beautiful and tasteful as he
is. Look! You two are so well put-together!”

“He always did put a lot of focus on clothes,” Peter’s dad said.

“He’s in the fashion industry, he
has
to look good.” Becky smiled at Cassie, stepping forward to hug her. “Welcome, my dear. So welcome. So glad to finally meet one of Peter’s girlfriends.”

“Becky, you’re not supposed to mention other girls in front of the girlfriend,” the woman with the older pair of kids gently scolded.

“That’s Jenn, Demetri’s wife. And Demetri is the fool running around photo bombing everyone,” Peter explained.

Jenn
nodded and smiled at the older of the photo bombers, a brown haired man with twenty extra pounds, slightly thinning hair, and the family inheritance of attractiveness. He was probably around thirty, his wife probably Cassie’s age of twenty-nine.

“Nick, your accoster.” Peter pointed at the blond haired man.

“Hi Cassie.” He waved and lounged against the car, phone still in hand.

“His wife, Rachel.”
Peter pointed at the dirty blond holding the baby, an adorable little thing with a pudgy face and hands reaching for her mother’s hair.

“My dad, Roger.” The older man
nodded in greeting.

“My brother, Jace.”

Cassie met the beautiful eyes of the man from the grocery store, her stomach doing flip flops. He barely nodded his head at her, his face completely impassive and unreadable.

She ripped her eyes away from his handsome—but untouchable—face and smiled at everyone. “Hi.”

“I meant to tell you that this place is a circus when we all get together,” Peter said in a low tone.

“Oh
, shush! Jason, come down here and help with the bags. Demetri and Nicholas, go move the boxes out of that back room and store them in the attic. Why you didn’t do it earlier is beyond me—now you have to rush!”

“
Waaaiiiittt for it…” Nick braced himself.

A smile crept up Demetri’s face as his hands drifted
out to the sides in a ready pose.

“You guys, seriously—“ Peter reasoned, looking back and forth between his brothers and putting his hands out.
He couldn’t hide the grin or delighted twinkle in his eyes, though. He thought this crazy welcome was just as much fun as his brother’s did. “She doesn’t have a big family. She’s not used to all this.”

Demetri rushed forward from one side. Nick rushed forward from the other. Jace jogged down off the porch and around the car, covering way more ground than
the easy lope belied. Nick and Demetri stuck their heads next to Cassie, goofy grins plastered on their faces, phones out in front. Jace pushed Peter forward behind them, getting in close as well, his thick arm coming around front with his phone.

“Photo bomb!” they all said at different times, their fingers repeatedly tapping the picture of the camera on the face of their phones.

“Boys, leave her alone!” Becky came in with a smile, shorter than all of them, pushing and shoving her sons out of the way. “Pack of animals. C’mon, get everything done. Dinner will only take an hour.”

“Yes, Miss Ma’am,” Demetri said with a silly salute. Smiling big, he jogged around the car, spared a pat for his wife’s butt
and a wink for his dad, and headed into the house.

“Welcome, lady.” Nick nodded with a smile and followed his brother in.

“Pop the trunk,” Jace said, standing next to Cassie, staring down at her with his completely focused eyes.