The table was spread with chicken korma, rice, naan bread, soft wraps, salads. We could choose to put our chicken on rice or in a burrito. Burritos reminded me of Grandma. She made burritos whenever we went to see her in Archwood. It was her signature dish.

The five of us didn't eat together every night. Most weeknights the household were doing their own thing. Homework. Practice. The gym. Whatever. But we reserved Friday nights as family night and stuck to it as best we could. 

"How was school?" Dad asked, piling his plate with a bit of everything. "The first week go well?"

"Good," Abby answered first. "AP calc isn't as hard as I thought it would be."

"That's because you're paying Eddie Poller to do the homework," I announced from the other side of the table.

"I am not!" She picked up her burrito the wrong way and half of her filling fell out. "Ugh fuck."

"Derrrrrr."

"Shut up Luc," Dad sighed.

"Flynn is a good tutor huh," Mom smiled with a brief nod.

"He is."

"Mom and Dad," Max interrupted from beside Abby. He set his food down and clenched his fists. His nerves were seeping straight into me and I hated it. "I have to tell you something."

"It's alright," Dad said. "Whoever he is, he's welcome here. We're happy if you're happy."

"What?" Max furrowed his brows. "Dad, I'm not gay!"

"Oh," he shrugged. "I just figured out of the three of you, there had to be one."

"It'd be Lucas," Abby said, flipping me off when I slid a finger across my throat. 

"Doesn't count," I whispered.

"Ignore your father," mom said. 

Dad threw his arms up in outrage. "I'm being supportive."

"What did you want to tell us, Max," Mom picked up her glass of wine.

Max took a deep breath. Abby and I kept quiet because we knew what it was. Max had made his decision between debate and football. 

"I dropped football today," he said with his gaze cast down at the plate in front of him. His food hadn't been touched. He was wound up, I could tell. I could feel it. His anxiousness was coursing through my veins and I wanted to tell him to snap the fuck out of it. "I joined debate and gave up football because I want to do law in college."

The room fell silent. Abby sat beside Max on the other side of the table, her expression was full of support as she smiled at our brother. 

Mom and Dad stared at each other. The sound of Francesca cleaning in the kitchen was audibly louder against the silence. The light rustle of the hedges outside could be heard under the open window and even the neighbors husky scratching against the fence was like nails against chalkboard.

"Are you fucking kidding me," Dad shouted. "How could you disapp—" his sentence dropped off as he laughed at our shock. "I'm kidding. It's fine. Max do whatever. Just make sure you love it."

"Drayton, do you have to fuck with them all the time," Mom snapped. "I spilled wine on my shirt from the damn shouting," she dabbed at her pale purple tank top with a napkin.

"Just take it off."

"I think the fuck not," I threw a cube of cucumber at his face.

Mom ignored him and looked at Max with pride. "It's hard to imagine you in debate but I'm proud of you for taking control of your future. You should do what you want."

"Why is it hard to imagine him in debate?" Abby asked. 

"He's so quiet and reserved."

"Have you seen this motherfucker when he gets worked up about something he's passionate about," I snorted, remembering multiple occasions that he'd figuratively dropped me with his words. "He chooses to be quiet. He can go off."

"Why would I need to speak in this house when I have all of you to talk for me," Max said.

"He'll be fine," Dad stood up with his plate. "That's what debate is for. To learn how to argue without punching someone in the head. Lucas would be terrible at it."

"It's true," I nodded.

Dad wandered in to the kitchen and I could hear him telling Francesca that the kitchen smelled like 'delicious fucking dessert'. "Fill my bowl up!" He playfully shouted. It was a miracle that the little old woman didn't have a heart attack. He was louder than me.

Mom rolled her eyes and scooped some plain rice on to her plate. "So don't forget to keep the nineteenth of September free. That's in almost a month I think. It's a Saturday."

"What for?" Abby asked, tapping her phone screen with concentration. "I'm not booked at the moment."

"Lydia is getting married. We're going to Colorado for the weekend."

I nodded. "Oh that's right."

"She's not even that much older than us," Abby mentioned, pulling her hair back into a bun. "I can't imagine getting married right now."

"She's twenty five," Mom laughed. "She's older than Dad and I were when we got married."

"I'd get married now," Max leaned back in his seat and put his hands behind his head.

"To Kyla?!" I asked.

"Yeah, who else?"

"Is that how serious it is?"

Max sighed with frustration. It wasn't my fault that I didn't get it. Sure he'd been with her for a couple of years or something like that. And she used to live here before she moved to the big apple with her parents. But he didn't see her that often. Once a month. How could he feel like she was the one he wanted to marry when he barely got to bone her.

I thought about Amalia. 

"Dad," I said as he wandered back in with a bowl of dessert for him and Mom. I could smell the crumble and fresh cream. The stewed apples and cinnamon. Francesca made an amazing apple pie.

"Get your own."

"Ugh no," I waved him off. "When you liked Mom, back in high school, what'd you do about it?"

Both of them stared at each other for a moment until laughter bubbled. Dad shook his head as he swallowed his mouthful of food. "Nothing I would be proud to tell you about, Son."

"Your father had issues expressing his true feelings," Mom teased.

He recoiled and stared at her in outrage. "Excuse me woman? Miss 'I don't want to date until I move to California—" he flailed his arms and put on a high pitch tone — "Miss 'I need a California man.' Miss 'California dreams.'"

"Oh shut up."

"You know your Mom was so set on holding out until college for the right man, that she had a thing with—" he paused for dramatic effect, his fist balling in front of his mouth as he fought back laughter — "Cooper!"

"Cooper?!" Abby wailed. "Pree's Cooper?!"

"We didn't have a thing!" Mom defended. Her cheeks were turning a darker red than her wine. "We never even kissed. We went to homecoming together, where I ended up making out with you against the side of the school!"

"Mhmm," Dad wiggled his brows as he nodded at her. "That was hot."

Max stood up with his phone in hand and claimed he felt things were going to become inappropriate, so he wanted to leave before he had to watch our parents become animalistic in front of him. Fair call. It happened from time to time. But I could hear his phone vibrating. He wanted to talk to Kyla.

"So then what happened?" Abby questioned, leaning her elbows on the table.

"A lot," Mom said. "But to give credit where it's due, your father put in a lot of effort before he confessed how he felt. He took me to California. He watched out for me when I'd been drinking. He paid attention to the things I liked and didn't like. We had a lot of fun."

"I love you," he told her.

Abby watched them with stars in her eyes. She loved our parents relationship. She wanted something just like it. A forever love. Dad had been example of something I didn't believe existed in most men. 

We weren't naïve. We knew he was something rare. Mom told us all the time she was blessed. She also said it wasn't hard. Men just needed to make the choice to think with their brains instead of their dicks. Dad boasted he could do both quite well.

The idea of being committed to one girl and fawning over her for the rest of her life or at least for the unforeseeable future, didn't appeal to me. I just didn't want it. But Amalia made me think it was possible. She made me consider commitment. 

"My advice," Dad said. "Don't fuck around if you like a girl. Just tell her. Or she'll end up at the homecoming with a Cooper."

"But it sounds like it ended well," Abby shrugged. "You two were making out, right?"

"It would have been fine if it wasn't for that thottimus maximums, Emily," Dad scoffed. "I wonder happened to her?"

"Ooh, I know," Mom stirred the last of her ice cream around her bowl. "I read on social media a while ago that she ended up having a child to the assistant coach, Lincoln, just out of high school. It didn't last though. He's in Denver at a school as the coach. She's living in Atlanta with two more children to a real estate agent and she's deep in the suburban Mom lifestyle. Mini van. Soccer games. Book clubs. Botox."

"Ick," Dad screwed up his face. "Those poor children."

"Who's Emily?" I questioned.

"A snake," Mom and Dad answered in unison.

After dinner and dessert, we all dispersed for the evening. Max was hiding out in his bedroom. Abby announced she had a shoot coming up so she needed to spend as much time out in the gym as she could. 

We had the pool house set up with what we needed to exercise from home. Bench press. Weights. Treadmills. Rowing machines. It was all top of the line.

I changed into a pair of shorts and a fitted tank top before I wandered out through the kitchen French doors and stood on the back deck. 

The pool water rippled from the breeze. The lights under the surface looked as though they were moving and the warm summer air did little to cool me. 

The deck furniture groaned as I fell into the soft cushioned, wicker love seat and ran a hand through my hair. Max had riled me up earlier with his nerves over confessing he'd dropped football and now I could feel the same anxious thumping in my head and chest as I twisted my cellphone around.

Telling a girl I liked her should have been simple. I'd never had an issue propositioning sex or a few nudes. Rejection over that never bothered me either. So what if a girl told me to fuck off if I asked for a picture of her ass. But there were real feelings on the line here, that rejection was way harder to swallow and there was a reason I didn't bother with it. I exhaled a deep breath and laughed into the night air, staring up at the clear sky.

My palms felt damp so I rubbed them over my shorts a couple of times before snatching up my phone and searching Amalia's contact. "Don't be a dumb fuck," I muttered, hovering over her name. "Just press it pussy."

Without deliberating another moment longer, I hit call and listened to it ring while my leg bounced up and down. Her soft, sweet voice answered on the fourth ring and I shot up out of my seat. "Hey Lucas," she said and I felt all sorts of twisted.

"Hey. How's your night going?"

"It's not bad. I've jus— ugh. Hold on," she muttered before her voice became a little more distant. "Cállate, estoy en el teléfono!"

Fuck me. I paced the length of the deck, hoping the blood didn't rush south. Bit late though. Her Spanish tongue made me wild.

"Sorry," she laughed and it sounded like she was shutting a door. "My little sister saw your caller ID. She can't quite wrap her head around the fact that we're friends."

"Aw that's cute," I absentmindedly pulled at the flower petals in the pots beside the barbecue. "Should I follow her back on Instagram?"

"I think she would die," she said with amusement. "Besides, I don't even think you're following me on Instagram."

"You're kidding right?" I scoffed. "No lie, I had a drool over the bikini pics. You vacationed in Florida over the summer, right?"

"Ahhh," I could hear her smile. "I think I recall seeing some spam love hearts not long ago."

"Yep, all me."

She giggled. "So what do I owe the late night phone call to?"

Just tell her. Or she'll end up at the homecoming with a Cooper.

"I think you're beautiful," I swallowed and could hear my heart pounding louder than the engine in Dad's motorcycle. "And— I— I— fuck sakes — I really like you. You don't have to like me back. It's cool. We met five days ago. But I'm just telling you. Because— well because— I have a bad habit of saying what's on my mind. And you happen to be on my mind. A lot. So. . . Yeah, that's about it."

"Wow," she exhaled a breath and I contemplated hanging up before she could tell me she thinks that I'm a fucking loser. "I'm sort of relieved. Because I like you too. But you don't seem like a one at a time sort of person?"

"Full disclosure," I winced, staring at the kitchen window where Mom and Dad were chatting over a drink at the island. I was hidden in the dark, they couldn't see me. But I could see them. And I could see love. "I'm not most of the time. But I could be."

She was quiet for a moment and I feared that I'd been too honest. There was no point in hiding shit though. Being in the spotlight due to Mom and Dad, I'd learned that most things came to the surface. People paid special attention and being photographed with three different girls in one week - a current record - was self explanatory and impossible to keep buried.

"We should hang out?" She finally said. "What are you doing at the moment?"

"Coming to get you."