Page 24 of Flirting with Trouble

“Hey, Wells! Wait for me!” She jumps out of the car and runs over, her brown hair bouncing around her shoulders. She looks cute in a yellow plaid tube top and white linen pants. That is, until she shoves her phone in my face and demands, “What is this?” Her big brown eyes are as accusatory as her tone. “How did you end up there?”

“Get your phone out of my face and maybe I can see what you’re talking about.”

She pulls it back a few inches, bringing the picture on the screen into focus. It was taken at the party Friday night. I’m with Victory, Boone, Trish, Johnny, and Jillian, standing by the firepit. Before I can say a word, Bellamy says, “I’ll tell you what this is.” She points to each person as she speaks. “Rock star, actress, rock star, mega designer, entertainment mogul, and you. Do you know who’s not there? Me. What the hell, brother dearest? You couldn’t invite me?”

Bellamy is as petite as she is fierce, and she is determined to make herself a household name. I have no doubt she’ll get there. She doesn’t need a stage to shine, and despite her vehemence, she’s the sweetest of my siblings.

“Sorry, Bell, but you weren’t in the city.”

“I could have been,” she says as we head up the walkway. “What were you doing at that party, anyway? I thought you were looking for property.”

“I was, but I got invited, so I went.”

She sighs. “I need to hang out with you next time you go to the city.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why not? You might get invited to another party, and I want to be there. Do you know what pictures like that would do for my following?”

“You have almost two million followers.”

She rolls her eyes. “I can never have enough. Besides, a party like that could help me get on InstaLove.”

InstaLove is a reality dating show like The Bachelor. “This again? You’re too smart for that reality-show crap.”

As we step inside, Keira runs out of the kitchen into the hall, and her smile fades. “It’s not the baby. It’s just Wells and Bellamy.” A dead ringer for Rachel Bilson, with light brown hair cascading over the shoulders of her red sundress, Keira is a spitfire. She has never sugarcoated anything other than the pastries in her coffee shop, the Sweet Barista.

“Where is the love in this family?” Bellamy complains.

“Hey, Kei, you look cute. Got a date?”

“She looks cute?” Bellamy says incredulously. “What about me?”

“You always look cute. It’s your job,” I say as we head into the kitchen.

“Hey,” Keira snaps. “What are you implying?”

Fitz, the sandy-haired golden boy of the family and the brother I’m closest to, glances over his shoulder as he sets plates around the table, which is loaded with platters of toast, steaming eggs, bacon, sausage, cut-up fruit, and an array of fresh pastries that I’m sure Keira brought with her. “Dude, think before you answer that.”

Always the mediator, Fitz doesn’t like to ruffle feathers. I, on the other hand, have done my best to make up for his failure in that area.

“That’s never been Wells’s strong suit,” my father jokes, his baritone voice ringing out. At six three, with thick dark hair that’s silver at his temples, he has a commanding presence, but his teasing smile softens his hard edges.

“Alexander.” My mother shakes her head, but she’s smiling, too, as she draws me into a hug. “Don’t listen to him, honey.” She still wears her dirty-blond hair in the same smart style she has since I was a kid, cut just below her ears with a fringe of bangs that gives her a youthful appearance, and she looks classically elegant in cream slacks and a silk top.

“I rarely do,” I tease.

My father slings an arm over my shoulder, giving me a side hug. “That’s my boy, always looking to stir up trouble.”

We hear the front door open, signaling the arrival of Grant and Jules, one of Bellamy’s besties. Bellamy squeals and runs into the hall with Keira on her heels, the two of them arguing over who gets to hold the baby first.

Grant comes into the kitchen looking exhausted. His usual almost imperceptible limp from his prosthetic leg is more pronounced, and his collar-length hair is still damp from a shower. He’s changed a lot over the last few years, but this new-daddy-tired version of him takes nothing away from the tough warrior I know him to be.

Grant is made of pure grit. He often went head-to-head with our father when we were growing up, but I always knew he’d lay down his life for any of us. After his tours with the Special Forces, he worked at Darkbird, a civilian organization that carried out top-secret military missions. He lost his leg during one of those missions, and when he returned to the island, he did not want to be here. He pushed everyone away, but he was no match for Jules, a cancer survivor who spreads joy everywhere she goes. She was determined to help him through his losses, and she brought our brother back from the brink of hell, which was nothing short of a miracle.

Grant drops the baby bag on the counter and pushes a hand through his hair. “Where were they at three this morning when Stevie refused to go back to sleep?”

“Don’t let him fool you into thinking it’s Stevie’s cries keeping him up at night,” Jules says as she breezes into the kitchen wearing a loose-fitting nursing top and shorts, the ponytail on top of her head spilling like a fountain over the rest of her golden-brown hair. “He’s been sleeping with one eye open since we brought Stevie home from the hospital.”