EPIC (Book 1 of the Soundcrush series)

Chapter 49: (Even) Rock Stars Have To Compromise

This chapter is dedicated to a new reader,  dragondaze  who, apparently is...psychic.  dragondaze, you pretty much anticipated this whole chapter with your comment, but I am glad we are on the same page! 

Trace

It's a long, five hour flight. Kat and I hardly speak for the rest of it, but it's alright because Matt never shuts up. The guy has enough energy to be a drummer, but I guess his crazy exuberance also made for a good frontman of a glam metal band back in the day. By the time we arrive at LAX, he has debriefed me on all my siblings, with Marianne sitting on his lap, making occasional interjections or correcting his exaggerations about them.

Street is their oldest kid—about to be twenty, goes to Berkley, studying environmental engineering. Matt says he's "way too smart to be a musician; he's a genius who will one day save the world." Marianne says he's a "smart kid with a humanitarian bent. More like me than Matt. Probably join the Peace Corps or something."

Bridge, who's name is actually Bridget, is one of their twin daughters—eighteen, a high school student at an exclusive Santa Monica private school. Musical like her old man, according to Matt, she's "almost as pretty as her mama, picks the fiddle like you wouldn't believe, but she's going through this damn rebellious phase." Marianne laughs and clarifies that Bridge's "passion is classical violin and her rebellion is wanting to attend Juliard."

Row, who's name is actually Rowan, is the younger twin by twelve minutes. She and Bridge are fraternal twins, so they don't look alike. "Poor girl looks like her daddy, but thank god she's got my winning personality," Matt grins. Marianne rolls her eyes and reports that "Row is constantly in trouble for trying to date thirty year olds, has been expelled twice from private high schools and singlehandedly keeps EMO alive with her garage band."

The del Marco's took a break from procreating for awhile after the twins. Their fourth and fifth children are much younger. Lane is only five years old—a little boy, and Alley is the baby born last winter, she's almost eighteen months now. "Alley is the best fucking kid we've made yet, we finally figured out this parenting shit, on the front end," Matt announces proudly, "But Lane doesn't look a damn thing like me and if he hadn't picked up a guitar practically at birth and acted like the worlds cutest head-banding, guitar playing prodigy, I would have demanded a paternity test." Marianne smacks him on the back of the head for that one, and Matt and yells, "Fuck, what was that for, you know I'm kidding?" Marianne shoots him a wifely death ray look and then he turns to me with wide eyes. "Awwww, shit...Trace, sorry man. That wasn't funny, really..."

I wave his foot-in-mouth away. "No worries, man. So Lane is a good-looking kid, then?" I joke.

Matt grins. "Funny. Of course he is, but he's blonde as a viking. Where the hell did that come from?" He looks at Marianne indignantly, and she rolls her eyes like they've had this conversation a million times. Both the del Marco's were dark-haired...well at least until Matt went grey.

"Trace was blonde as a kid," Kat says quietly with a twitch of a smile. "I...uhhmmmm, I found some old pictures around the house this week." She looks at Matt shyly, "I figured maybe eventually I'd meet you and maybe you would want to see..."

He smiles back. "Of course I do."

She fiddles with her phone and pulls up a picture of a  picture, rising to show it to the del Marco's. Matt chuckles and says, "Well, what do you know? Trace and Street looked a lot alike, at that age, except for the blonde hair." and Marianne says, "Always was a doll, huh?"

I rise and prevent Kat from sliding away. "Can I see?"

She flips the phone toward me. It's a picture of me, her, and Ashlynn on Easter at the neighborhood egg hunt, when Ash and I were about six and Kat was a toddler. Ashlynn is preening in her white patent leather shoes and hair ribbons. I'm eyeing Ashlynn's Easter basket. It must have been right after that I stole half of her candy from the plastic eggs and replaced them with rocks. Kat's got a big grin and sweet baby curls all over her head, and she's gnawing on a chocolate bunny. Her yellow Easter dress is a hot mess of grass stains and smeared chocolate.