“Stop kicking the door!” Jake yelled. “You’re gonna put a hole through it.”
“I’m going to keep kicking until you stop being a sissy-ass punk!”
“Dalton and I aren’t letting a Bieber fan in our rock band.”
“I’m not a Bieber fan.” More kicking.
“Then explain why you’ve been singing ‘Baby’ on repeat.”
“Because it’s catchy!” Kyle let out a growling wail, wronged on a molecular level.
I closed my eyes and muttered a curse under my breath. Bieber. They were fighting over Justin Bieber. I liked to think I was a pretty calm and steady mother, but Jake and Kyle were the reason I needed this coffee break in the first place. Those two were inseparable half the time and mortal enemies the rest. Their fights were constant and always about absolutely nothing. Yesterday they’d argued over whether their imaginary pool in their imaginary mansion had an imaginary diving board. Minutes later, they were on the floor choking each other out.
That’s what I got for thinking you couldn’t get pregnant while breastfeeding. Kyle arrived eleven months after Jake. Same year, even—Jake in January, Kyle in December. After I delivered Kyle, the nurse patted my shoulder and said, “Honey, you just gave birth to twins the hard way.”
But unlike real twins, who supposedly shared a psychic connection and maybe even the ability to be kind to one another, these two mainly shared insults. And since it wasimpossible to figure out who started what most of the time, they both got punished in the name of fairness.
The Bieber fight continued unchecked.
“Don’t listen to him, Dalton,” Kyle pleaded through the door to Jake’s best friend. “Jake’s a liar.”
“Hey, I don’t want any part of this argument,” Dalton replied, wisely staying neutral. He’d been around enough to know nothing good came from taking sides.
“You and me both, bud,” I mumbled, trying to focus on my magazine despite having read the same sentence four times. I knew I should probably step in, but selfishly, I didn’t feel like being their referee.
“Baby, baby, baby, oh,” Jake sang, twisting the knife. “Come on, Kyle, you know the lyrics. Pitch in.”
“I don’t duet with losers, you knockoff Hanson brother!”
“All right!” I slapped my magazine shut and got to my feet. Those were fighting words if I’d ever heard them, and I knew exactly where this was headed. By the time I reached the hallway, Kyle had launched his entire body against the bedroom door like a battering ram. From inside, I could hear the discordant twang of an electric guitar as Jake gave the fight its own soundtrack.
“Hey,” I barked, charging down the hall like a mall cop. “If you break that door, you’re paying for it.”
“It’s Jake’s fault! He locked me out!” Kyle shot back, his face a thundercloud of fury. “He and Dalton are in there forming a band without me.”
“Because we want to be cool, and you look like something that crawled out of a sewer.”
“I look like you!” Kyle screamed, teetering on the edge of a total meltdown, and I didn’t blame him. Jake was an expert button-pusher. You had to feel for Kyle. While Jake was excited to see the world, Kyle’s whole world… was him. Since he was a baby, he’d copied every extracurricular his big brother touched. Music. Skateboarding. Surfing. Whatever Jake liked, Kyle liked. When they were getting along, it was a beautiful thing. But when they weren’t… there went my coffee in the sun.
“A low budget version of me maybe,” Jake shot back.
“Enough! Jake, get out here. Right now.”
“He threw an entire suitcase at me, Mom.”
“What, am I supposed to throw ahalfa suitcase at you?” Kyle snapped. “Grow up.”
“That’s it. I’m done with both of you,” I said, my heart rate rising. “Jake. Door. Now!”
A moment of silence. Then: “Password?”
I closed my eyes and counted in my head to three. “The password is ‘I’m not asking again.’”
The lock turned, and the door creaked open just enough for Jake’s face to appear, a smirk already forming. “Jeez, Mom. So hostile. We’re creating art in here.”
I bit back a smile. God help me, this kid was the exact recipe Scott and I made without even trying. My calm clarity and his biting sarcasm, shaken together until we ended up with a smart-mouthed charmer who could talk his way out of a felony. But that wasn’t his only superpower. No, Jake was also musically gifted. All my kids had an ear for it, but his talent didn’t go unnoticed—and that attention had turned into a part-time teaching job for me with the school district: introducing music to kids just starting out.
I pushed the door open the rest of the way. “Rehearsal’s over. Dalton, I’m sorry, but you know the drill. If the boys can’t get along, then they can’t have friends over.”
