Page 23 of Sing For Me

“Good,” Violet says. “Hey, did Rose tell you Fox has a girlfriend?”

“Don’t gossip, Vi,” her twin brother Ash scolds.

Violet rolls her eyes. Unlike the older children in their family, Violet and Ash take after their mother, right down to the green eyes and the tightly curled brown hair. “Like everyone isn’t already talking about it.”

“Fox is eighteen,” I point out. “Kid had to find a girl who could stand him sometime.”

Violet’s eyes spark with glee—what thirteen-year-old doesn’t like to hear teasing about an older sibling?

I take a sip of my soda. “What else is new? Tell me all the Ransome family gossip.”

My siblings and cousins immediately break into chatter, all of them talking over each other. It’s always like this with my family—loud and crowded and more than a little overwhelming. The familiarity brings me more comfort than I would have imagined.

As famous as our family is, with so many kids even the media occasionally has trouble keeping us all straight. Our parents do their best to keep the family out of the press, of course, but when you own the most successful record label in the country—on top of being members of one of the most popular rock bands of the last twenty-five years—the public tends to take note of your personal life.

My dad, Cash, and his brothers, Reed, Lennon, and Daltrey, were all named after famous rock legends. My grandfather, a musician himself, had his four boys playing music from the first moment they could hold an instrument. The way my dad tells it, there was never really a time in their lives when the band Ransom didn’t exist—they started playing together as kids in the garage and never stopped.

After years of touring and making music, they decided to start up their own label—Six Man Band Records. Ransom still writes and records, even touring on occasion, but the new family business gives them the ability to be more settled.

Wanting their kids to grow up the way they had—inseparable—my dad and his brothers bought houses in the same neighborhood, within blocks of each other. When they went out on tour, they packed all the kids up and took us with them. My childhood norm was sleeping on narrow bunks next to my cousins on the tour bus, our parents wrangling us into our home school lessons while we rumbled down the highway to their next show.

“Silas?” a voice calls from the front of the house.

“Back here!” he calls and our cousin Presley appears in the doorway.

“Hey, kids,” she says, then startles when she sees me. “Will! What are you doing here?”

I shift on the counter, a little niggle of guilt swimming in my belly. Has it really been that long since I’ve been home that they’re all so surprised to see me?

Before I can answer, Presley turns to her little sister. “Vega, Mom said to tell you that you have fifteen minutes.”

Vega makes a face. “We’re in the middle of a game.”

Presley shrugs, unconcerned, and jumps up to join me and Silas on the counter. “How’s life at the tattoo parlor?” she asks me, swinging her red Chuck Taylors.

All four of my Uncle Reed’s girls look nearly identical, with their dark curls and sharp blue eyes. Unlike her much prissier sisters, Presley doesn’t have a girlish bone in her body, much to her mother’s bafflement, and spends most of her time with the male cousins around her age, particularly my brother. Today Pres is dressed in her typical outfit of ripped-knee jeans and a t-shirt, hair tucked into an old faded ball cap with the Six Man Band Records logo scrawled across the front. She cuts a sharp contrast to little Vega, who’s decked out in a pink leopard print sundress and a pair of sparkling platform sandals.

“The shop’s fine,” I tell her, then change the subject quickly so my mind doesn’t wander in the direction of my most recent client. “What’s new at your house?”

She shrugs. “Same old. My sisters are annoying and my parents are always on my case.”

At the table, Vega snorts in disbelief. “Are you kidding me? Ever since you started playing drums, Dad has been like, obsessed with you.”

“You’re playing drums?” I blurt out before I can remind myself that I don’t take an interest in the musical pursuits of my family members.

Presley sends Silas a furtive glance that I can’t quite read. “Uh, yeah,” he says, answering for her, voice guarded. “We’ve been playing together a lot. I guess we’re kind of forming a band? We, uh, actually have a gig booked in a few weeks.”

I hate the expression on my brother’s face. He looks wary, like he’s afraid of how I might react to this news. Over at the table, all of the Littles have gone quiet, watching us. Watching me.

I try to push down the bile rising in my throat, the surge of fear I feel at the idea of these kids going down that path. They’re too young for this shit. There’s no way they can possibly know what the industry is like, what it does to people.

“What kind of gig?” I ask, hoping my voice sounds steadier than I feel.

“Just a birthday party,” Silas says quickly, appealingly. “A kid Lyric knows. She’s, uh, singing for us.”

I blanch at that. “Lyric?” Our cousin is onlyfifteen. And has a history of serious health problems. No way should she be performing. “Does Uncle Lennon know about this?”

“Of course,” Presley says, shooting Si another worried glance.