Page 63 of Wrong For Me

Rose

“Are you sure I can’t come with you on your trip, Rosie?”

I try hard to keep a measure of patience in my voice as my dad’s oldest brother drapes an arm around my shoulders. “No, Uncle Reed. You can’t come with me.”

I knew this was coming. When my Aunt Paige invited everyone to dinner tonight, she insisted it had nothing to do with the fact that I was leaving for the conference in Colorado the following morning. “It’s just a regular old family dinner,” she’d said. “We’ll cook out. You know how your Uncle Reed loves to get that stupid smoker grill going. Plus, we figured the kids should get some use out of the pool before the weather starts to get cool.”

Because it gets so cold in southern California in October. Sure.

But I’d let myself be talked into it anyhow, because it’s basically impossible to say no to Aunt Paige when she has an idea in her head. And so far, the evening has been just as she promised. My siblings and most of my cousins are gathered in Aunt Paige and Uncle Reed’s backyard. My aunt Haylee’s band is playing a show in New York, so the Hunt branch of the family—Uncle Lennon and their kids, Lyric and Cadence— are missing from this little get together. Even without them here, it’s still a pretty big crowd. Everyone is either spread out on blankets in the grass, eating Uncle Reed’s barbecue, or splashing around in the oversized pool.

But it was only a matter of time before they started. My mother just left the patio to grab another beer, and apparently that’s the opening they’ve been waiting for to get on my case.

“But I haven’t been to Colorado in ages!” Reed argues. “We could have so much fun together!”

“Yes, I’m sure it’d be so much fun for me.” I shake his arm from my shoulder. “Having a babysitter trailing me the entire time.”

He gasps in mock-outrage. “I’m not a babysitter. I’m yourfununcle!”

“Bullshit,” Uncle Cash cuts in. “If there’s a fun uncle, we all know it’s me.”

“Maybe don’t swear when there are children present,” Reed says, nodding towards Vega and Ash, who are sitting nearby playing checkers.

“See?” Cash asks me. “Would the fun uncle give a shit about language?”

“Knock it off,” Aunt Sam says, smacking the back of her husband’s head, and Reed and I laugh.

“No one is coming with me,” I tell both uncles. “It’s a six-day conference. I’ll be just fine.”

“I don’t like it,” Reed grumbles. “Aren’t you too young to be going off on your own?”

“I’m twenty-three!” I say, laughing. “The two of you had been on how many world tours by the time you were my age?”

“That’s different,” Uncle Cash says. “We wenttogether. You’re talking about going hundreds of miles away all by yourself.”

“I don’t like it,” Reed says again, even grumblier this time.

“Too bad, old man,” I tell him, leaning up to kiss his cheek. “I’m going.”

“You should at least take one of your cousins with you,” he argues. “What’s Will doing this week?”

I’m starting to get a little annoyed now. “Apparently I need to remind you, again, that I’m a yearolderthan Will.”

“Yeah, but he’s bigger,” Cash points out.

I roll my eyes. “What exactly do you think is going to be happening at this thing? It’s a science conference, for God’s sake. I’m going to be hanging out with dozens of boring nerds! It will be tweed jackets and pocket protectors as far as the eye can see.”

“Then you’ll fit right in, Rosie,” my brother Fox calls from the pool. I flip him off, earning a murmur of disproval from my Aunt Sam and a subtle high five behind her back from Uncle Cash.

“I just don’t like it,” Reed says, yet again.

“This family has codependency issues, you know that?” Will says, finally ambling over to rescue me, his girlfriend Eva at his side. “She’s going to be gone for six days.”

“Which is the longest any of you have ever been away on your own,” his dad argues.

“I wish you at least would have taken Daltrey up on the offer to use the jet,” Uncle Reed says.

Yes, that’s exactly what I want to do, show up to the conference in the record label’s private jet. Like I don’t have a hard enough time blending in at school as it is.