the first one • j. hughes

27

Midway to opening the front door, I stopped. My nerves were officially wracked. I think I gulped like a cartoon character on the walk-up the driveway. So, instead of barging right in, I knock. To give myself the time to prepare mentally.

The door swings open moments later and reveals a frowning Penn. "You know you're allowed to just come in, right?"

"Yeah. I know." My voice comes out quiet.

"What's wrong? Did you fuck with your oil again? I told you—"

"There might be another civil war coming on," I blurt.

He ushers me in and practically slams the door behind him. "What did you do?"

Marty, his basset hound, looks up at me patiently. He might be waiting for the answer too. I'm busy feeling the sting of Penn assuming I did something. I wasn't the root cause of the first war between me and Holly and I'm definitely not the root cause of this one.

Penn seems to realize what he implied as his two golden retrievers, Anakin and Obi, realize I'm here and come sprinting into the entryway. They practically run circles around me in an attempt to get me to notice them. Again, I can only feel the sting of the implied accusation.

"Dee, that's not what I meant," he says.

I shrug and head for the living room. He's going to want to sit down for this. I want to sit down for this and I've been explaining it to myself over and over in my head for days. There are only so many times my brain can handle running into a wall. Luke's tried but he's not an advice guy. Neither am I. We always poll around and then have what we call "Council of the Minds" where we relay our info and decide whose advice to follow.

That's where the big brother comes in. I pretty much always go to him first. He's given me most of the best damn advice and help of my life. Boys, school, all of it. Patton is the loyalest person I know and that's what makes it so easy to loyally go to him.

"Okay." Penn sits down on the couch next to me and puts a hand on the top of my back. Right near the base of my neck. "What's going on?"

Taking a deep breath, I ramble off, "Your sister is talking shit about how she thinks that Jack and I would never survive as a couple and that our dating would be selfish because it will affect more than just us two when we break up."

"Telling me Holly is talking shit is the same thing as telling me the earth is round. Only dumbasses don't know that."

"Is she right?" I ask.

"The only thing she's right about is that it affects more than you two," he says which is sort of the part I'm worried most about. But he adds on, "You guys breaking up isn't written in the stars because Holls can be a bit of a bitch."

"Dude—"

"It's a fact. Holly's a bitch like you're a dumbass."

I roll my eyes. "And you're a pretentious dick."

"Exactly." He nods. "Glad we're on the same page."

My hand gently scratches Anakin's head since he decided the best place to sit his big ass down was right between my legs. Penn's right. Holly is a bitch. But she's also right about it affecting everyone. If I try to date Jack and it ends badly and we somehow end up hating each other, what is Luke supposed to do? Our other siblings? Our parents? Our friends?

Everything's so entwined with us. It's always our, our, our. It's all a tangled web. One that would be a mess to unravel. To the point where it's better to not even try. That's the issue. I can't disconnect myself from Jack. If anything bad happens, he's always going to be there. I'll always be there.

"Dee, do it," Penn says. "One of you would have to do some fucked up shit to ever hate each other. I don't think either of you has it in you to do something that bad to each other. I think you'd both destroy yourself before hurting the other that badly."

"I don't want—"

"Holy shit if you're about to put everyone else in front of what you want again, I'll smack you."

My nose scrunches up slightly. "Again?"

"You always do that shit," he says. "You really want the last chocolate ice cream but Luke would later that day. So you'd have vanilla. You really want to drive the boat but Quinn loves it so you're not even going to ask whatsoever. You—"

"Settle down, I get it."

"Don't put everyone else first. Put you first. Jack a close second. Luke can be third."

I laugh. "He always is."

"Yeah, right." Penn does his shy little smile when he's teasing anyone but me. "Jack's the third wheel there."

* * * * *

Luke and I are three hours into a Council of the Minds. We'd taken over the living room. Quinn was tired as fuck and went to bed before I even got back from Patton's. Jack and Z are still out of town. Living rooms are meant for Council meetings. We need all the space we can get. Luke's a pacer.

"Okay, so the oldest brothers say go for it," Luke states.

I nod. "They have the most weight to their vote."

"Did Zegs and Cole answer yet?" He asks.

"No."

His pacing halts. "Don't they know how important this is?"

"Turcs and Ki both said to go for it," I say.

"That makes a majority right?"

"It doesn't stop the fact that these are all the people that are fucked if Jack and I go down in flames."

The pacing kicks off again. "We went over this."

"I know it's just—" I cut myself off with a huff of a sigh. "It's just I like how things are."

"What would Jason tell you?"

"Low blow alert," I say.

"You're right. Sorry." Luke laughs. "I'm not sorry. You're only calling it a low blow 'cause you know how right I am."

There's never been a time where I didn't go with whatever the majority of the Council of the Minds meeting came out to be. It always ends up being the right call. This one's different.