"Dammit," I moan. I look up to see Lachlan standing beside us, his hand stuck in a f.u.c.king vase.

"It hurts," he sobs.

Sighing, I sit up, moving Laney to the side so I can see his hand. "How did you even do this?"

"It hurts!" he screams. "It's going purple, Lucas! Fix it!"

It is going purple and my fear is back and I'm on my knees trying to pull his hand out. It won't budge, so I panic some more and start smashing it against the coffee table, but the vase is plastic and Lachlan's crying louder, and I'm shouting louder for him to stop crying and now his hand's turning blue and "How did this happen?" I yell. Smash, smash, smash on the table.

"Here," Laney says, hand on my shoulder. She pushes me away, and I fall back on my heels, watch her pour baby oil into the vase and all over Lachlan's arm and then pop. His hand releases and she scruffs his hair and tells him to wash his hands, but he's rubbing the oil all over his clothes instead.

I look up, breathe, ask, "Where did you get the oil?"

She doesn't have time to answer before the door opens, and Logan steps in. "What are you doing with my baby oil?"

"Logan!" Leo screams, marching in after him.

Logan walks across the living room toward the kitchen, Leo on his heels. "It's not my fault she's into me, man."

"Look at me when I'm talking to you!" Leo yells.

Logan spins, rolls his eyes.

"What now?" I ask.

Leo glares at Logan, speaks to me. "I caught Logan making out with my girlfriend."

"What?" Lane shrieks.

"So what? She's hot!" Logan says.

Leo punches him square in the face, and a moment later, Lachlan's tiny, oily fist gets me in the jaw.

"Enough! Everyone in the minivan! Now!" Lane shouts, and when Lane shouts, we all listen.

We pile into the minivan, one by one, and once we're all seated, she asks, "What do you boys want for dinner?"

Six voices shout out five different meals (the twins choose the same), and she notes them all down in her phone. Then she drives us to the grocery store and dumps a bunch of stuff in the cart while we all follow silently behind her because when Laney gets like this, we know she means business. She makes me pay for the groceries and then we head home. As soon as I'm done unpacking the bags, she says, "You need to go!"

"Go where?"

"You have the parent-teacher interview with Lachlan."

"s.h.i.t."

"s.h.i.t s.h.i.t s.h.i.t!" Lachlan shouts.

Lachlan's teacher-a woman in her mid-forties with bright red, frizzy hair-seems disappointed that it's me at the interview and not Dad. I tell her Dad's away on business, and she gets that look in her eyes-worry-as if she should be calling CPS to check in on us. I look over at Lachlan, make sure there are no bruises or scratches or general boy injuries, but he's clean. If it weren't for the stains on his shirt and if he didn't smell like he'd been bathing in baby oil, I'd have nothing to worry about.

I give her my most charming smile, compliment her hair, and she grins. Moves on. She says that Lachlan's doing well, but he loses focus. A lot. He also finds it necessary to interrupt the cla.s.s by standing up and singing inappropriate songs. "The other day, he told the kids in his cla.s.s to..." Her voice lowers when she adds, "eat his booty like groceries."

I stifle my laugh.

She sighs. "Maybe I should make another appointment with your father?"

"I'm sorry," I say, straightening my features. "Could he be like..."-I push my luck-"one of those kids who's exceptionally gifted and the cla.s.s work is just too easy for him?"

"No."

"It could be-"

"No."

"But he's-"

"No, Lucas. Lachlan's not exceptionally gifted. I think you should find him an activity to focus on. Maybe start something this summer."

"Like what? Baseball?"

"Baseball sounds great. It'll give him the opportunity to play with kids his age instead of all his older brothers. Also, I'd recommend that you boys watch your language around him. We've had several parents complain that Lachlan's the one teaching their kids swear words."

Lachlan stands, shoves his finger in his teacher's face. "That's bulls.h.i.t, lady!"

By the time I get home, Dad's here and they're all seated at the kitchen table, waiting, five different meals set out in front of them.

"Sit," she tells me, so I do. Dad's eyes meet mine, and he motions to Liam's damaged face. I jerk my head once. Not now. Laney picks up a bowl filled with a bunch of folded paper and says, "You will all select one piece of paper from this bowl. This bowl has each of your names in it. You will go in age order, starting with your Dad, and you will say one thing you love about the person on that paper. Understood?"

"Yes, ma'am," my brothers say.

"Good. Eat." She marches toward me, kisses my cheek. "I'll be in your apartment."

I spend two hours with my family at the kitchen table. We don't grab the names from the bowl, we don't talk about the things we love about each other. Instead, we spend that time talking about the things we love about Laney. And I carry their love, along with my own, as I climb the steps to my apartment, my heart full.

She's sitting on the couch watching TV when I open the door. "How did it go?" she asks, not looking up.

"It was... eye-opening." I move behind the couch, shift her hair off her shoulder and kiss her neck. "Meet me in the bedroom?"

When she gets into bed, the first and only thing I do is cuggles her.

She falls asleep almost instantly, not used to living off of such little sleep.

I spend the next eighteen minutes watching her sleep and after realizing what I'm doing, I try to convince myself that I'm not a creep. That it's completely normal to be doing what I'm doing because she is my girlfriend and I do love her. I want to shout it from the rooftops... but I'm not that creepy, and I'm also a little afraid of heights. And where did that expression come from anyway? In what world is the area small enough that a message from a rooftop could be heard? Was there no wind around to carry the dude's voice? f.u.c.k, I need sleep. And I also need to claim Lane (because it's the 1950s and women are property, apparently). So I do our generation's version of rooftops and dame claims; I make us Facebook official.

Take that, Cooper Kennedy.

I pull her closer to me, a smile on my face, until I remember the day we had and the s.h.i.t Liam's going through. I scan my brain, try to think of ways to fix it, but I come up blank. And so I do the only thing I know to do; I contact the one person I look up to for guidance when it comes to dealing with my brothers: Cameron, our brother-in-law.

Chapter Thirty-One.

LUCAS.

Cameron sits in a recliner as if he's The G.o.dfather, chewing on a fake cigar with a smirk on his lips. We're in Lucy's cabin with Cam's friends "Big Logan" and Jake while Lucy and Lane are in the apartment.

As soon as I told Cameron what was going on with Liam and Linc, he promised to come home for the weekend and bring some reinforcements. They'd already planned out everything by the time I meet them on Friday night.

Jake says, his Australian accent thick, "We need to discuss possible roadblocks."

Logan nods. "Women."

Cam grunts and keeps his same tone when he says, "I'll take care of the wife." Then he points to me.

"Um..." I look between them. Crazy a.s.sholes. "Lane's working, so she won't be a problem. Also, you guys are f.u.c.king weird."

Jake chuckles.

Logan rubs his hands together. "Middle School Mayhem, motherf.u.c.kers!"

The plan is simple, really, and besides me walking the streets to pick up dog s.h.i.t in the middle of the night, my brother Logan p.i.s.sing into a different type of cup, and Cameron f.u.c.king with the chains on Benny Watson's bike during his little league baseball game, my brothers and I stay out of the actual mayhem. It's too obvious if people see us; six Preston punks plus our brother-in-law? Yeah, we're kind of hard to miss. But we all wanted to be here to see it go down, so we watch from behind the tinted windows of the minivan. "Here he comes!" Linc whispers, and we all scoot to one side of the van, press our noses to the windows.

"How far do you think he can get?" Logan asks Cam.

"Not far."

"This is bad," Liam says. "You guys, maybe we shouldn't do this."

"Shut up!" Linc snaps. "He called you a f.a.g and beat the c.r.a.p out of you. This is nothing compared."

"What's a f.a.g?" Lachlan asks.

Logan groans. "I told you we shouldn't have brought him."

Lachlan repeats the question.

Leo says, "It's a guy who likes other guys."

"Why is that bad?" Lachlan questions.

"It's not," I tell him. "Come here." I rear back so he can sit in front of me and see what's going on. Then I point to Benny Watson. "See that kid getting on the bike?"

He nods.

"He wasn't very nice to Liam. He hurt him."

"Inside or outside?"

"Both," I tell him. "And you remember Cam and Lucy's friends Jake and Big Logan?"

He nods again.

"They're here to help him understand why it's wrong to hurt people."

Benny starts to pedal, and it takes less than three seconds for the bike to lock up. The little punk flies over the handlebars and falls on all fours, and I almost feel sorry for him. But then I look over at Liam and the damage on his face and arms and that feeling fades real quick. My brothers stifle their laughs while they watch part two of Middle School Mayhem come to fruition. Big Logan and Jake rush toward him, perfect in their display of fake concern. Cam puts his phone on speaker, connected to Jake's phone so we can hear what they're saying. "You okay, mate?" Jake asks. He and Big Logan squat in front of Benny, a hand on each of his shoulders.

"That was rough, dude," Logan says, his voice dripping with worry.

Benny looks up at them, tears in his eyes, and I wonder what Liam was like when he was copping a f.u.c.king beating from this a.s.shole.

"Here." Jake slips a backpack off his shoulders and unzips it. "You look like you're about to pa.s.s out. You need to eat something." He pulls out the gourmet dog s.h.i.t/peanut b.u.t.ter sandwich I crafted and hands it over to Benny. "You'll feel better," Jake pushes.

Benny takes a bite, munches a few times before spitting it out and cursing. The minivan erupts with laughter while Jake shakes his head, his brow bunched. "What's wrong, little man?"

Benny's still splattering everywhere, his tongue out, trying to get the taste of s.h.i.t off his tongue. "What the h.e.l.l is that?"

Jake shrugs. "Peanut b.u.t.ter and vegemite. Sorry, man. Must be an acquired taste." He takes the Logan-p.i.s.s-filled drink bottle from the backpack. "You want to wash it down with something?"

Without a thought, Benny takes the bottle from him, tilts his head back, lifts the bottle, and squeezes. As soon as the liquid hits his tongue, his eyes squeeze shut, and he coughs and spurts everywhere.

Dying. We're f.u.c.king dying in the minivan, watching it all go down, and Benny tries to stand, but Jake keeps him in place. Benny's nothing but flailing arms and legs. "What the f.u.c.k?!" he shouts.

Big Logan says, "Ur-ine a lot of trouble here, kid."

Jake chuckles.

"Who the f.u.c.k are you?" Benny screams.

"We're delivering a message from Liam and Lincoln," Jake says. "You f.u.c.k with the Prestons, you f.u.c.k with their friends. You so much as look in their direction, you'll be eating more than dog s.h.i.t and p.i.s.s. You got it?"

I'd put money that Benny's p.i.s.sing his pants right now. "Y-y-yes, sir."

They smile brightly at him and help him to his feet. "Have a fantastic day!" Big Logan exaggerates. "a.s.shole."

Middle School Mayhem is great.

Later in the afternoon while I walk to my truck, Cam calls out, running up to me.

"What's up?" I ask.