His date jumped up. “Why would he go on a date with you?” Kaitlyn sneered.
“We were talking online for weeks,” I insisted, ignoring her. “You said you really liked me. You asked me for a topless photo.”
The restaurant patrons had their smartphones out. Harrogate, like many small towns, ran on gossip. This was going to be all over the Facebook group. I didn't care. I was a virgin at age twenty-four. I was about as low as you could go. The restaurant manager hurried over, phone in hand. The 911 dispatcher’s voice was tinny over the speaker phone.
There goes my life.Not only was I going to die a virgin, I was going to die a virginin jail.
2
Parker
“Iam so sorry,” I said to Kaitlyn after the police had led the short, curvy woman away. If she hadn’t been ruining my dinner and screaming at me, I might have even described her as cute.
“It's okay,” Kaitlyn said, kissing my cheek. “You'll just have to make it up to me another time. Rain check?”
I gave a noncommittal answer then walked her to her car.
The reality was that a part of me was glad the crazy girl had come and ended the date with Kaitlyn early. She was technically my employee, though not one of my direct reports. As the chief technology officer at Svensson PharmaTech, I was responsible for research and development of new chemical and medical products.
Kaitlyn worked in my department. She had seemed like the type of woman a man like me ought to marry. When she had asked if I wanted to grab dinner, I had agreed, but the date had been lackluster at best. Kaitlyn had only talked about her ritzy family and her sister's upcoming wedding.
Not that I could fault someone for having a weird family. My own was nothing remotely close toLeave It to Beaver, as I was immediately reminded when I let myself into the Svensson estate. My younger brothers raced to the front door to greet me.
The Svensson house was chaotic. The kids were usually wary enough of Hunter that mornings weren’t a complete disaster, but with two dozen kids and however many adults decided to be in town and not helping, we had a full house.
“Did you bring leftovers?” they demanded.
“Unless you want to lick them off my pants, then no,” I told them.
Davy, who was the youngest and came up to about my knee, stuck his tongue out and licked my pant leg.
“Stop that. It is revolting behavior,” my older brother Hunter barked out.
Why was I living in a house full of not all of my brothers but a good chunk of them? Great question and one I asked myself multiple times a day.
The younger ones were all my half brothers, products of a polygamist cult leader father and his many wives. The adult ones were my full brothers. Remy was the oldest and sported a bushy beard and scars, physical and psychological, from his time in the Marines. Hunter and my other older brothers had abandoned me in the cult when my father kicked them out. Remy had been the one who rescued me from that compound. He was still my favorite. The rest of my brothers could eat a bag of dicks.
Though Remington, Remy for short, was the oldest, Hunter liked to act as if he was. He was arrogant as a default and could be downright evil, especially now that Meghan Loring had tossed him to the curb and refused to get back together with him.
Then came Gunnar, who, with his shaggy hair and stoner attitude, was a reality TV producer.The Great Christmas Bake-Offwas popular, especially the most recent season. Now Gunnar was in the process of frittering all that profit away on ridiculous reality show ideas that would never pan out.
The next oldest were Archer and Mace, the twins. Leif Svensson’s genes were strong, and he also only took blond women as his wives. As a result, my brothers and I all looked eerily similar, but Mace and Archer were identical. Though they were twins, their personalities were polar opposites. Mace was the CEO of PharmaTech and straitlaced, deliberative, and irritatingly risk averse. Archer was covered in tattoos and slept until two in the afternoon.
Weston and Blade, owners of the ThinkX consulting firm, were Irish twins—only nine months apart—and were the closest in age to me of my full brothers. Blade never met a spreadsheet he didn’t love, and Weston was an arrogant jerk. They were also in the process of moving their company to Harrogate, which meant I had been seeing way too much of them recently.
Then there was me, the greatest Svensson you would ever meet. Standing across the room from me was the worst: Garrett. Classic middle child, he was younger than Mace and Archer and older than Weston and Blade. Chief financial officer of Svensson PharmaTech, he probably had all our phones tapped, deals cut with various government agencies, and multiple parallel plots for world domination. He was, in short, a prick.
Garrett glared at me over the sea of towheaded kids between us. He and Hunter paid my father to send our younger half brothers to Harrogate as opposed to dumping them in the desert. In a polygamist cult, you don't want a bunch of single males running around for obvious reasons. All in all, I had almost a hundred brothers. Many of my father’s nine wives had escaped the compound, though none cared enough about their children to take them with them when they escaped. Around two dozen of my kid brothers lived in Harrogate with us. The rest of them were in college or off in Manhattan, Boston, Seattle, or another big city.
“Why are you covered in salad?” Garrett asked, low voice echoing around the large foyer from the wide hallway that led to the terrace and huge backyard. He had recently procured himself a girlfriend. Penny was awesome and fun and warm. Archer was under the impression that she was going to make Garrett personable and pleasant to be around. I was under no such illusions.
“Some crazy woman did this,” I complained. “I’m filing a police report.”
“And now it's all over the Harrogate Facebook group and going viral on Reddit. I'm having to call in a multitude of favors to try and kill this story,” Garrett said, crossing into the dining room.
My little brothers crowded around me.
“Is she going to be your girlfriend?” Davy asked me. “Garrett’s girlfriend is nice.”
