Page 15 of Shine For Me

Fox

“Where’s the movie star?” my brother asks as he sidles up next to me at the bar.

I give River my best cover-of-a-magazine smile. “I’m standing right here, buddy.”

He laughs in my face. “Good one. Seriously, though. Where’s the actress? Do you really think it’s a good idea to leave her alone with CeCe and Vega on the premises?”

“She’s not alone. She’s talking with Rose and the other girls.” I jab an elbow to his ribs. “And her name is June, notthe actress.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Awfully protective of that one, aren’t you?”

I don’t take the bait. My brother loves nothing more than giving me a hard time. If he wasn’t insinuating I have a thing for June, he’d be teasing me about the upcoming movie or my latest photo shoot or the fact that my agent makes me get bi-monthly spray tans.

He kind of has a point with that one. I can’t believe I’ve somehow turned into a person who has a grooming schedule. Like, a real schedule that’s shared on no more than three team members’ phones so they can all keep track of the last time I had my hair trimmed or my teeth whitened.

The movie business is weird.

A loud shriek has our attention turning to a group on the lawn. Violet is standing there cracking up, holding onto Everly’s little sister Vega’s arm for support while our cousin Cecelia—the youngest in the family—tells a very animated story. The three of them look so happy standing there in their sundresses, their laughter carrying over the rest of the party noises.

“Can’t believe they graduated,” I say, my voice a little gruff. “Weren’t they just terrorizing all the stadium staff on Dad’s last tour?”

“Remember when they used to sneak out of their cots on the tour bus?” he asks. “You’d wake up in the morning and all five of them would be asleep on one of the couches together.”

“God, those tours seem like forever ago.” I’d spent a good chunk of my early years on tour buses while our dads played shows across the country. I thought it was the best possible childhood—to be crammed in with my siblings and cousins all the time, always having someone to play with, always having a new city to explore.

Our parents wanted more stability for us, though, so the band started to focus on their record label and cut back on touring around the time the Littles became toddlers. At least, stability was their excuse. They probably just couldn’t handle chasing those little monsters around through the back hallways at the venues anymore. It didn’t matter how many people you had watching them or what barriers you put in place—the Littles found a way to escape. Cecelia and Cade managed to get all the way up to the sound booth one time before anyone knew they were missing.

“You doing okay?” River asks me, and I turn to see him watching me, his expression a little too knowing for my comfort.

“It’s just weird.” I take a sip of my beer. “Them being all grown up. You having two kids. The girls being married.”

“Sure, I guess it’s a little surreal sometimes,” my brother says thoughtfully. “But it’s not a bad weird. I mean, that’s life, Fox. We’re supposed to grow up and change and start lives, you know?”

“I know. I’m not saying I don’t want these things to happen. Fuck, I’m happy for all of you, you know that.”

He’s still watching me in that too close way. “Then what’s the problem?”

“Who said there was a problem?”

“Your face,” he shoots back. “You can’t hide shit, man. You wear all your emotions in your expression, always have.”

“Maybe that’s why I’m so amazing on camera.”

He rolls his eyes, but doesn’t take the bait to tease me. “I’m serious. You’ve been looking pensive as hell lately. I want to know what’s up.”

“Nothing is up. I just…” I take another long sip of my beer, trying to get these thoughts into order. “It feels like I’m missing so much. I’ve only slept in my own bed like twelve nights in the last six months. It’s like I went to shoot a movie and came home and the Littles were all grown up and you had a full-fledged family and everyone has moved on.”

He’s quiet for a minute. “You didn’t leave home to shoot a movie,” he finally says. “You left home to shootfivemovies. And you’ve hardly taken a single break in between.”

“It’s hard to take a break when people are actually interested in you. You have to strike while the iron is hot or—”

He holds up a hand. “I get it. And I’ve been supportive of this career change since the day you told me about the agent’s interest.”

That’s true. My older brother might tease the hell out of me about being a stuck-up, full-of-myself pretty-boy actor, but it doesn’t mean anything. It’s just the way we are with each other. I’d be more worried if he wasn’t giving me shit, honestly.

And every time I’ve needed to have a serious conversation about my career or the decisions I was making, no one has been more supportive than River.

“You’ve gotten off to this amazing start, and I can see why you wouldn’t want to lose momentum,” he says. “And it all happened so fast—I don’t think any of us would have expected things to explode like this when you first started talking to an agent.”