I rolled my eyes. Typical. Unless I gave them about ten reminders, my parents missed everything I did. Except making children. They flocked to grandkids like flies to a shitpile. “Well, you missed a good one. I quit the band.”
Dad snapped his gaze to me; he jerked the wheel along with his head, almost colliding us with a taxi. Maybe I should have driven. “Why the hell would you quit the band?” He gaped at me like I’d just told him I was having a sex change.
Frowning, I indicated the road. Last thing I needed was to damage my face because Dad rear-ended somebody. Especially now, since I had nothing to fall back on. This gorgeous mug was about to be my sole source of income. “I found something better. The TV show? Remember? That’s why we’re here.”
Dad closed his eyes and I almost socked him in the arm. Pay attention, old dude! “Griffin…TV shows are a dime a dozen around here, you know that. And most of them never even get picked up, and if they do, they only last a season at best. You know that too. When you said you were filming one, I just assumed you were doing it for fun, in your downtime. I didn’t realize you’d quit…” He groaned, like he couldn’t believe he’d raised such an imbecilic child.
My hands clenched into fists. Why was my family always the first to condemn me? “This one is getting picked up, that’s already a done deal. And it’s going to be huge, so you can quit freaking out.” I looked around the car; Anna was in the middle part of the minivan with Gibson and Onnika on either side of her. She still looked dull around the edges, like she was in mourning. “Everyone can quit freaking out…and have a little faith in me.” Facing front, I crossed my arms over my chest. This was supposed to be different.
Anna sighed, then rested her hand on my shoulder. “We do, Griff. We do.” It was the first words she’d spoken since we’d left Seattle. Smiling, I met eyes with her in the rearview mirror. It looked strained, but she was smiling too. Seeing a positive emotion on her almost made me crumple with relief. Thank God, she was recovering. I’m not sure what I would have done if she’d never bounced back.
Then Dad said something I wished he hadn’t. “What’s with your hair?” I still had the short cut and brown dye job that I’d gotten when I’d filmed the pilot, although my blond roots were starting to show through. I’d need a quick fix before we started filming again.
I was about to answer him when Anna’s grip on my shoulder tightened. I slowly turned to meet her heated gaze. “He didn’t see your hair when you filmed the ‘commercial’?” Before I could explain, she answered her own question. “No…of course he didn’t see it. Because you didn’t really stay with your family while you were here. You lied to keep me away…so I wouldn’t find out that what you were filming wasn’t really a commercial.”
Shaking her head, she leaned back in the seat and turned to stare out the window. Fuck. And just when I’d been getting somewhere with her. Dad looked over at me with a frown. “You were in town and didn’t say hello? Marsha is not gonna like that.” Great.
When we got to Dad’s house, I immediately understood what he meant by “busy.” Mom was babysitting the twins for Chelsey, and about a billion of my relatives were visiting; both Mom and Dad came from super-huge families. Somebody was always stopping by. The house was chaos incarnate. Liam was there too, practicing lines for an audition.
Liam blinked in surprise when he saw me. “Wow, you actually did do it. You quit the band. Are you an idiot or just plain stupid?”
I was about to comment, but Anna beat me to it. “Griffin’s not an idiot. He made a career change, that’s all. He’s got a plan…and it’s going to work out fine.”
She said that last part like she was convincing herself as well as my brother, but I was too impressed that she’d actually defended my decision to really care.
I pulled my gaze away from Anna as Dad started pointing to a room down the hall—my old bedroom. “The four of you are going to have to share a room.” He shrugged, like nothing could be done about it. Anna sighed but followed me as I walked down the hallway to our new, albeit temporary, home.
When we got to my old bedroom, which was still awesomely decorated in KISS and Poison posters, I turned to Anna. “Thanks for that.”
“For what?” she murmured, laying Onnika on the ground.
“For having my back with Liam. For saying I wasn’t an idiot for doing this.”
Anna gave me a small smile then started checking Onnika’s diaper. “I’m still not sold on this, Griffin, and I’m still really pissed that you agreed to this behind my back, that you lied multiple times, and that you ever spouted the words ‘end of discussion’ like some controlling dickwad asshole…but I didn’t like what he was saying.” Peeking up at me, her tiny grin slightly widened. “You may be an idiot, but you’re my idiot.”
Grabbing her hand, I yanked her to her feet. She squeaked as she let go of the elastic on Onnika’s diaper, making Onnika smile. Her deep green eyes were a smaller version of her mother’s; even though Onnie’s dark hair wasn’t very long, they were near twins already.
Wrapping my arms around Anna’s waist, I pulled her tight to my body. “Come with me tomorrow.”
Relaxing, she linked her arms around my neck. “To the set?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Come with me and check it out. Then maybe you’ll get excited about this.”