by Fields, MJ
Bella snorts. “I told you I’d give you my tribe anytime you want.”
“This is my moment,” I interrupt.
“Give Max the floor.” Mom smiles at me.
“Totally her favorite kid,” Kiki mumbles.
“Totally not getting the floor with these two around,” I sigh.
“Oh my God.” Kiki laughs. “You’re such a—”
“Had a few drinks,” I interrupt her, “hid in the back of a girl’s truck. She figured it out, took a turn way too fast, caught my ass on a rusty piece of metal. She took me to get a tetanus shot and a few stitches, and brought me back to campus safely. Then she—”
“Miller,” Kiki tells Mom when she white knuckles the edge of the counter.
“I assure you, my ass is fine. Miller,” I continue but leave out the almost accident, “agreed to rest her eyes for a few minutes before heading back to Bayside to spend some time with her family. We fell asleep. She woke up a bit annoyed that the sun was up, and I was still there, and she’d overslept. When she started her truck, it snapped, crackled, popped, and smoked a bit.”
“You’ve never had stitches,” Mom says, trying to remain calm.
“He’s also never done something stupid because of a girl,” Dad says, trying to change the course of this conversation.
“I’m not so sure about that,” Kiki mumbles.
“Never did one of them dirty, Kiki. They always knew where I stood. I get it now that they said they were cool with no strings because they were thinking I’d change my mind or something. Mila is the only one I ever asked on a date. I asked her to the Winter Ball my senior year.”
A collective sucking in of air surrounds me.
“Yeah, I stood her up when I was all in my head, and when I went back to school, she moved seats purposely to avoid me. I don’t blame her. She thought I drank and drove then blew her off.” I look at Dad, whose arms are crossed, and he’s scowling. “Her father was the driver when her parents were killed in a car accident. She was, like, fourteen. Guessing her sister was ten. He was drunk.”
“Oh my …” Mom covers her heart, and Dad steps closer. “Who raised them?”
“Their aunt. I haven’t met her. Not yet.” I look at Mom. “She was one of the girls in the feminist demonstration on move-in day where I grabbed that tee-shirt for you.”
“Max chalking up points from Momma C.” Bella holds out a fist.
I give it a bump. “Damn right.”
“Tell us more,” Mom says as she begins stirring the muffin mix again.
I’m not saying a thing about Saylor, not until I have scientific proof of what I know in my soul right now.
Saylor. Love her name. Lover her little Bayside ’tude. Love that she carries Mom’s and my smile, and Dad and my dimple. Her face is a perfect oval and insanely symmetrical, like Blue’s. Her hair, just like her mom’s, but a bit curlier. Her eyes the same shape as Milla’s—wide and big, full of wonder and a dash of natural sass.
“Gonna tap the brakes a bit for now, give her time to catch up, and then I’m going to …” Realizing I’m getting pissed because of the unknown, I clamp my mouth shut.
I look at Mom and see unshed tears in her eyes. “You good, Mom?”
Letting her spatula rest against the bowl, she grabs a towel and wipes her hands as she walks around the island. As soon as she rounds it, I open my arms and wait for her to wrap them around me before grabbing her in a tight hug.
“I knew you’d find your forever person, Max.” She sniffs and looks up at me. “She better deserve the man you are.”
“She may not know she does, or that I am that guy, but she will.”
She smiles as the first tear, a happy one, falls.
* * *
Lying in bed, on my stomach, bag of peas on my ass, at Mom’s insistence, needing a nap because I didn’t sleep for shit, I can’t stop my head from spinning. Right now, I’m looking through two-year-old posts from my classmates, hoping to see a tag for Miller so I can find her, because I shut down my old IG when I went pro so I couldn’t even see the message she sent, one that I never even looked at because I was wallowing in my own shit. Spent the remainder of my senior year compensating, while she spent hers probably scared as fuck. I remember Kiki looking when she came into my room four years ago, trying to jack my phone—Dad had taken hers as punishment—to call Tricks after she got kicked out of our old school because Truth thought it better to say they had been drinking and that was why Kiki was throwing up rather than to say she may be pregnant.
Different emotions come at me from both sides now, like a fist to the face. The left hits me with the possibility that Saylor may be someone else’s. The right, jealousy nails me that I am trying to sleep while she’s hanging with Saylor girl, who might be mine, and I may have missed two years of her life. Add a healthy dose of Catholic guilt, and I’m feeling like a beaten ball sac, because I get to sleep and Mila doesn’t. She’s got to be emotionally beat to shit right now on top of exhausted from our hospital date.
My phone rings, and I’m hoping like crazy it’s her, but I know it’s either Boone or Oakley.
I hit accept. “Hello.”
“Bro man, you sitting down?” Boone asks.
“Ish. What’s up?”
I hear a muffled conversation, like he has his hand over the mic. Then, clear as day, he says, “Never mind. Chat later,” and he hangs up, leaving me thinking, What the fuck?
Come Sail Away
Max
As soon as I crest the stairs, a herd of Steel comes flying at me. Bell and Tags’ kids, Luna, Archer, and Apollo; Kiki and Brand’s, Cooper; Amias and Ellis’s, Georgie and Teddie; Tricks and Sutton’s, Journey and Lennon; followed by Tris and Matteo’s twins, Nico and Nash.
“The perfect ten.” Uncle X laughs. Then he looks to where Justice and Brisa are sitting. “Any of you three gonna step in and make it the dirty dozen anytime soon?”
“We’re good,” Ranger, Brisa’s husband, says immediately and pulls her in closer.
“Queenie and I are working on some things,” Justice says as his little brother, Creed, hops on his lap. Justice’s face says it all when he winces at the force of impact on his junk. “Creed here is helping me out, huh, bud?”
“Always,” Creed says in his deep-ass, growly voice, a voice no two-year-old should have.
“How about you, Truth?” Uncle Zandor asks.
“Tobias is in law school, and I’m still touring with NYC Ballet. Not a lot of time for kids just yet.”
“Or a wedding,” Uncle Cyrus grumbles.
“Chill, Dad, we want things to be perfect.”
“Yeah, so did your mother and I, but life has a way of switching shit up. Huh, little man?” He winks at Creed, who lifts a shoulder as he wiggles around, making Justice his own personal recliner.
Then Creed runs his hand through his hair and huffs, “Shit happens.”
All the big littles—Cooper, Luna, Archer, and Georgie—gasp. Then the little littles mimic him.
I look at Uncle Cyrus, who’s trying not to laugh, and Aunt Tara, who hides her face in his neck, doing the same.
I hear Momma Joe clear her voice, and all eyes are on her.
“They may not say it, Creed, my boy, but I will. You hit five, and you’re talking like that in front of me, you’ll be blowing bubbles out of place poop happens.”
He looks at Momma Joe, confused, and then he laughs. “Can I when I’m this many?” He holds up three fingers.
“You can’t talk like that, Creed,” Luna whispers loudly.
Justice whispers in his ear, and Creed nods once. “You can’t tell me that.”
He looks back at Justice for guidance, and Justice whispers in his ear, “I’m gen two.”
The whole place cracks up, and the normally stoic Creed grins from the appraisal he gets.
When the noise level drops to a dull roar, all eyes behind me shift left, and I glance back.
Marcello Effisto smiles the best he can and asks, “Am I lat
e?”
Nico and Nash run to him, giving him the same as I just got, and although that hatchet he buried in my family’s backs, and the fact his forgiveness comes because his brother is married to Tris and we’re family, the fucker still rubs me the wrong way.
“Thanks for coming, Marcello.” His brother, Matteo, smiles.
“Torrance should be arriving soon but said not to wait for her.”
Cooper and Archer are still by my side. I look down at Cooper and see his arms are crossed over his chest. Then I look at Archer, who’s doing the same thing.
Archer looks up at me. “You’re the only one who don’t have kids. Your junk broken?”
“The heck, Archer? Maybe he’s gay,” Cooper legit scolds him, and I can’t help but find it amusing as fuck.
“Yeah?” Archer shrugs and keeps talking like I’m not standing right there. “Maybe nonbinary.”
“It’s called gender queer,” Cooper corrects him.
Shocked but keeping it together, I explain, “Those two things mean pretty much the same thing, but I gotta ask: where the hell are you hearing this stuff? The tattoo shop, or the production studio?”
“School,” they both say at the same time.
“They teach that shit at school now?”
They both nod.
“In third grade?” I ask.
They both nod again.
“That’s messed up, man.”
“No more messed up than my doctor asking me if I was a boy or a girl,” Archer huffs.
“No shit?” I ask.
He shakes his head, and I see a smirk lifting the corner of his lips.
“Spill it, Arch.”
His lips tighten, and he shakes his head.
“He pushed down his jeans and said, you’re the doctor, what do you think?” Cooper rolls his eyes.
“Yeah?” I chuckle.
Archer shoves his hands in his board short pockets. “Mom was ticked. Said I needed to be more sensitive.”
“You think you need to be that?”
“I think I piss standing up. I also think girls are gross and just wanna kiss you. I wanna play baseball and let Pops teach me to surf so I can be as good as you one day. I’m like you; I don’t wanna think about kissing girls or boys. But I do think, one day, I’ll be a dad and have a pretty woman like Mom. Right now, I just wanna draw and surf.”
“But my mom says some kids’ parents are mean and say bad things about boys who wanna kiss boys, and girls who wanna kiss girls, so they have to teach them that it doesn’t affect them, and that, if they have nothing nice to say, just don’t say anything at all,” Cooper explains.
Holy shit, I think, am I ready for all this?
“That’s called tolerance,” Archer corrects Cooper now. “Dad says it’s the way of the world and we should just keep on doing good things and not worry about all that.”
Cooper leans in and whispers, “We do.”
“Yeah, but I am getting so sick of telling Sissy Tollerton that, just because I won’t kiss her under the slide or push her on the swings, it doesn’t mean I’m gay or stuff like that. Just means I don’t want to kiss her.”
“Gonna have to agree with your dad, Archer.”
* * *
As per the norm, dinner was loud and plentiful, everyone laughed and talked over everyone else. After dessert and playing all day in the pool, the ocean, snatching up that vitamin D, all the kids, both gen two and gen three, came down to watch a movie in the theatre room. The littles are now all sprawled out and crashed hard on the floor in sleeping bags, watching a movie.
Watching them all sprawled out and sleeping, my gut knots up, and all I can think about is that smile.
I pull my phone out of my pocket, snap a pic of the kids all passed out, filter it to make it unfocused, and post it on IG.
#familymatters #foreversteel #jerseyshore
Within two seconds, there are eight comments, all the same #foreversteel.
I look up and see my first friends, my forever friends, my sisters, my cousins, my fucking crew, all snuggled up with their forever person and smiling.
Another notification pops up, and I swear to Christ above, hand to God and all that, that my heart does something it’s never done. It skips a beat thinking this was going to be a sign, that Blue has been doing what I did all morning and stalked social media because she was just as fucked up about me as I was about her.
It’s a heart all right, but it’s Marcello Effisto’s doing.
I look up and see him standing at the bar. He winks.
Pissed, my eyes immediately go to Tris, and she notices. She closes her eyes and shakes her head in a move that’s so slow, so small that it could be missed, but I caught it, as was her intention.
“So”—My leans forward—“you gonna spill it about the girl?”
“Which one?” slips from my lips. Luckily, they don’t know I’m talking about Mila and Saylor.
“What happened to you trippin’ over Miller?” My asks.
“Miller from Seashore?” Marcello pipes in.
“Yeah. Why?” I ask.
His smile, malicious; his demeanor, aloof; his words … could cause wars. “Frumpy, chubby, meek, an unremarkable lay. I’d give it a one star.”
“You slept with my Miller?” My voice shakes, and Amias stops me from getting up by way of his arm.
“Don’t be daft, Max. I was playing your game. You took liberties and painted me a villain. It was only natural I did the same.”
“When?” I snap.
He rolls his eyes. “As I just explained, it wasn’t all that remarkable. A one and done.”
“You’ve been sober for a year now, Marc. Think back,” I say, trying to remain calm.
“Max,” Tris says, and I look at her. “Chill ’kay?”
At the same time, Marc’s sister, Torrance, whispers in warning, “Marc, kids.”
He looks at her. “All sleeping.”
He looks back at me smugly. “Senior year, Winter Warehouse party. You two were exchanging glances, and I owed you for months of cockblocking. I gave her a key to a hotel room I’d booked across the road. She came willing and wanting.” He stands up from his seat. “It’s been fun.”
He looks at Matteo. “We’ll talk soon.”
Matteo nods. “We will.”
“Goodnight, everyone,” he says before turning and walking toward the door, while Torrance walks over and hugs Matteo then Tris.
“Let’s walk.” My stands up, reaches out his hand, and pulls me up.
Once outside on the patio, My asks, “You wanna be in your feels, do it with me.”
“Fucking asshole needs—”
“He’s my sister’s brother-in-law and ex-boyfriend. You know she’s struggling, but she’s doing real good, considering.” Amias shrugs. “You weren’t around much the past couple years, but it’s a fine line she walks.”
My cousin, Tris, Amias’s sister, is bipolar.
“He’s also the one who fucked our family’s business with his little social media slash stock market stunt,” I remind him of what the asshole did, as if he needed a reminder.
Totally deflecting.
“Look around, Max, not much has changed for us. No one’s worse for the wear, and our parents did real good by their employees. They’re still sitting on the board and consulting. They make bank and spend a hell of a lot more time with their kids and grandkids. We’re not hurting. Straight-up, you’re the only one who’s being stubborn. You’ve yet to buy in to the Jags. You could be making bank and driving a Maserati.”
Tris and her husband, Matteo, knew that the MLB team that Amias was playing for, the Jersey Jags, were hurting financially, and they, along with Bella and Kiki, pooled their resources and bought it up. The others pulled their trust funds and bought in, too. It was obviously expected that I take advantage of the opportunity, as well. Truth be told, I don’t want to touch my trust fund until I have to. And the money I’ve made and am still making off social media platfor
ms is growing steady in a bank account and gaining interest.
“You still with me, man?” Amias asks.
“Then I’m gonna be straight with you and tell you that things with him and I may get worse, and you’re gonna have to trust me that I’m doing what I have to do.”
“So what he fucked Miller in high school?” He shrugs. “We fucked half the same damn school.”
I don’t want to fight with him, I really fucking don’t, but I’m not even close to being ready to let anyone in on what’s going on. “I’ll do my best.”
“Max.” He runs his hand through his hair.
“I’ll do my best,” I repeat.
“Daddy,” Teddie yawns as Ellis walks out the door, holding her on her hip. “I wanna go sleep in my big girl bed.”
“Sorry for interrupting.” Ellis smiles.
“It’s all good.” I pull my phone that’s vibrating in my pocket out, look at the screen, and see Boone’s name. “Gotta take this, anyway.”
“You’ll be around for Labor Day weekend in two weeks, right?” Amias asks.
I nod. “Haven’t missed one yet.”
I walk over to give Ellis and Teddie a peck on the check. “Sweet dreams, Teddie girl. You, too, Momma Ellis.”
“You told him?” Ellis asks Amias, almost accusatory.
“No, Doc.” He holds his arms out for Teddie, and she falls into them. “We were waiting, yeah?”
“So, you—”
“It’s early,” Ellis whispers.
“Still a blessing.” With a hand gesture, I pretend to lock my lips.
“It’s not early.” Teddie pouts. “It’s bedtime.”
My kisses his daughter’s head. “We’ll get you to your bed tonight. Daddy promises.”
Ellis frowns. “She’s getting sick of travel already.”
Amias smiles at his wife. “I’m thinking it’s more that our little Teddie doesn’t like to get out of bed.” He looks at me. “Kid’s a sleeper.”
“And you act like that’s a put out.” Ellis shakes her head at him then looks at me.
“He loves holding her while she sleeps.”
“I don’t like missing moments.” He pauses and shakes his head. “Gotta make up for them.”
