Dom explained going home and needing advice, and how relaxing it had been to be with his family. “I know it sounds weird, but my mom and I are close. Always have been.” Especially after his senior year of high school.
“You’re lucky. My parents are assholes.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“I know, but I keep going on about how awesome my parents are.”
“I don’t care.” Something rustled on Trey’s end of the line. “Tell me more. What do your parents do?”
Dom sat in one of the lounge chairs tucked beneath the yard’s towering oak tree. “My mom is a copywriter for a local news station, and my dad’s a history professor at Temple.”
“Damn. And they have five kids?”
“Yeah. Taisha’s the oldest. She’s working on her master’s degree in counseling, and her husband owns two auto repair shops. They live out in Pittsburgh. My brother Percell is a lance corporal in the marines, and he’s overseas right now. My first little sister Roxy is going to college in the fall in Florida, and my parents hate it but they let her pick her school.”
“What’s she studying?”
“Engineering.”
Trey let out a slow whistle. “Smart kid.”
“She is now that she applies herself.”
“What about the last one? You have another sister, right?”
Dom loved that he’d remembered. “Yeah, Starr. She still has two years of high school.”
“She into any clubs at school? Sports?”
“No. Starr loves to read, though. She has a photographic memory and remembers anything she reads. Even ingredients on food labels.”
“Wow, that’s handy. You’ve got, like, a perfect family.”
“Not really. We fight just like anyone else. I mean, my dad silently hates that I’m pursuing music instead of going to college. He even let me use my college fund to live off of for four years. I promised if I didn’t have something real going by then, I’d come home and get a job.”
Trey didn’t speak right away. “How long ago was that?”
His stomach somersaulted. “Deadline’s almost up.”
“Shit, that’s why you’re playing at Unbound isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” Dom glared at a fallen tree branch. “We’re kind of in the same boat, aren’t we? We both want to win to prove something to our fathers.”
“I guess so. But you’re running out of time.”
“Doesn’t matter. Your dream is just as important to you as mine is to me.”
“Why couldn’t we have been in the same band?”
“You could always defect.”
Trey made a snorting noise. “Danielle would murder me in my sleep. After she cut off my balls. Thanks, no.”
Dom wasn’t selfish enough to quit, either. Lincoln was his best friend and another brother, and Benji needed this as badly as the rest of them. He wouldn’t leave his friends any more than Trey would leave his.
“So we’re stuck on opposite sides,” Trey said.
