This is who I am: the Calloway who parties too hard, fights too much, and doesn’t give a shit what anyone thinks.
At least, that’s what I tell myself.
The truth is messier. The truth is, every time I see my father’s face, I choke on my own inadequacy.
My brother Paxton is the poster Calloway child, graduated summa cum laude from Verona University and already being groomed to take over the family empire.
But me?
I’m the one who came out wrong. The one who’s been getting arrested since I was fourteen, who’s been in more fights than I can count, and splashed acrossThe Rosebrook Ragmore times than my father can stomach.
“Wild Child or Family Embarrassment?” #CallowayThrowaway.
My father’s solution is always the same: pour money on it, make it go away, then look at me like I’m something he stepped in.
So yeah. I party. I fight. I fuck. Because at least when I’m doing those things, I feel something other than the hollow ache of being a disappointment to everyone who’s supposed to love me.
The only people at home who ever made me feel like I was worth a damn are Juliette and Beverly.
Jules, because she looks at me like I hung the moon. My father would scream at me until he was purple in the face, sometimes backhanding me if I embarrassed him enough, and she’d curl up on the end of my bed, and tell me made-up stories, just to give me an escape.
And Beverly… She’s something else entirely.
The woman raised me, and to this day, she’s the closest thing to a mother I’ve ever had. At least, privately.
In public, the Calloways are an unshakable force.
A cheer erupts near the bonfire, and I look over to see Art arriving.
He’s late, later than me even, but nobody gives him shit for it. Instead, they part for him like he’s royalty, hands reaching out to clap his shoulder, voices calling his name with the kind of easy affection that makes my chest ache if I think about it for long enough.
“Art! About time, man.”
“Yo, Art, tell everyone the story about the VU admissions office the other day.”
“Saved you a beer, my guy.”
He moves through the crowd like he was born to it, that easy grin on his face, his auburn hair catching the firelight. Girls gravitate toward him. Not throwing themselves at him the way they do with me when they want one night, but drifting closer, laughing louder, hoping he’ll notice.
And he does notice. He notices everyone. That’s the thing about Art, he makes people feel seen. Important. Like they matter.
It’s his superpower.
Where I’m a wildfire, burning everything I touch, Art is the sun. He’s warm and steady, the kind of person people want to orbit.
The people’s prince.
Franklin Penngrove might be an asshole of a father, but he raised Art to be a politician’s dream.
Art never meets a stranger. Never forgets a name. Never makes anyone feel like they’re less than.
Including me.
Especiallyme.
“Lance.” He spots me across the fire and his face lights up, his grin widening. “You fucker, I thought you were gonna let me show up first and look good.”
A few people snicker, but I pretend I don’t hear them. He reaches me and throws an arm around my shoulders, pulling me in.
