“Yup, it had nothing to do with me being the oldest. I always found going to the office with my dad somewhat comforting. Crazy, right? I mean Tyler and I have a few businesses together as well as our own personal projects. But Hamilton Enterprise is my baby other than Zoi.”
“Crazy? No,” Tucker answered. “Weird, maybe.”
Lucas smiled. “I used to watch my dad in meetings and marveled at how the people who worked for him would listen to what he had to say and his opinions and how commanding he was. I told myself that I wanted to be just like my dad when I grew up.”
“It’s good that you admire your dad so much,” Tucker told him.
“I do, he’s a good role model for me and my brothers. Where Christen is close to my mom and Tyler is in the middle. I’m closer to my dad.”
“That’s good,” Tucker said. “I like your parents; they remind me of mine in some ways.”
“They are good folks. But my brothers and I gave them a lot of shit growing up. The story I told you the other night didn’t even scratch the surface on some of the crap we pulled.” Lucas chuckled.
“Did you and Tyler ever do the twin thing growing up?”
“Twin thing?” Lucas asked a bit confused.
“You know, trick your parents or teachers into thinking you were Tyler, and he was you,” Tucker clarified.
Realization dawned on Lucas, and he smiled thinking of one instance where he and his twin tried to play a trick on their math and history teachers. “Yeah, we tried it, but it didn’t work out so well.”
“This Igottahear,” Tucker said leaning back and placing one of his arms on the back of the sofa getting a bit more comfortable.
“You have to promise not to laugh,” Lucas told him.
“I can’t promise that,” Tucker told him.
“Shit, well anyway, freshman year of high school, I was terrible at history and when I say terrible I mean it. I would study for hours andcome test day my mind would go fucking blank. But where I suck at history, I was fucking awesome when it came to math.”
“Let me guess, Tyler was brilliant at history and took a test for you,” Tucker said to him.
“Let me get to that part first,” Lucas told him.
Tucker chuckled. “Okay, then carry on.”
“So, I had this test coming up for history, and I studied, I mean really studied. When I realized I wasn’t going to get not even a passing grade, I begged and pleaded with Tyler to take the test for me. I mean we knewsome of the teachers couldn’t tell us apart, even though my eyes are a bit darker than his, and we have different mannerisms. Anyway, after he bribed me out of a hundred bucks, he agreed. We went to school as normal, and before he went to take my test, we switched shirts so that no one would figure out that it was Tyler and not me. It was sheer luck that he had math in the same class periodthat I had history. Tyler walked into class and sat in the back waiting for the teacher to start class. I knew he was nervous as hell, and I was too. When the teacher walked into the classroom to start the test, Tyler didn’t think he noticed that he was me. That was until the teacher announced he had a parent who wanted to help proctor the test and in walked Marilyn Hamilton.”
“Holy shit,”Tucker said chuckling.
“Yup,” Lucas chuckled.
“She knew?”
“Not only did she know, but she also heard me begging Tyler to take the test for me.”
“What did he do?” Lucas asked.
“He ran out of the classroom and opened the door to my class and yelled, 'smother alert.' That was all he needed to say and I got what he meant. I got my shit and met him at the door just as our mother rounded the corner. I swear to you I heard the theme song fromJawsthe closer she got to us.” Tucker burst out in laughter. “Smother grounded us for three fucking months.”
“You guys got caught even before you tried to cheat. Terrible, that’s just terrible,” Tucker teased.
“It was, wasn’t it,” Lucas said. “And that was the last time we tried to do that. I passed history with a 'C,' and that was all that mattered to me.”
“’Smother,’ that still gets me. I can’t believe you guys call your mother that,” he said.
“That wasChristen’sword whenever he gotmad at her, and it caught on,” Lucas said with a shoulder shrug.
“It’s nice how close you all are,” Tucker commented.
“We are, they have my back all the time,” Lucas said with a happy smile. “But you and Julian are pretty close as well.”
“We are,” he answered with a nod. “He calls me overprotective, but family should always be close.”
“I agree,” Lucas said. They smiled at each other and Tucker seemed as if he was going to say something but was interrupted by the sound of a little girl asking for her daddy’s attention. “Let me go get her.” Tucker nodded just as Lucas got up and went to get Zoi.
* * *
