Page 8 of Shine For Me

Something about that statement annoys me, but I bite back the emotion. Any time I’ve tried to bring up the clear fucked-up-ness of June’s family, she brushes me off. Instead I go around to her side of the car to take the gift boxes from her so she can climb out.

“This is your Uncle Reed’s house?” she asks, staring up at the brick facade. “It’s beautiful.”

My Uncle Reed’s house is ridiculously large but it’s nothing on the mansion June’s grandfather owns. It probably looks like a shack to her, eight bedrooms and all.

“Everyone is out back,” I say, leading her around the side of the house. We hear the party before we see it, the music playing and guests talking, splashes and shouts of people in the pool. I open the gate and pause, taking it all in.

The patio and lawn are filled with people standing around and sitting, talking while they eat and drink beer or soda from glass bottles. For once my Uncle Reed was persuaded not to grill, and a full catering set-up is over where Reed usually keeps his smoker. There are some people in the pool, more people over on the basketball court, little kids playing on the old swing set. Balloons and crepe paper are tied to every surface, which means Aunt Paige was in charge of decorations.

A familiar emotion slams into me as I look around the masses of people. So much has changed in the last two years. And even though I insisted from the beginning of this career change that I was always going to make my family my priority, it’s impossible not to feel like I’ve missed a lot of it. Filming five movies in two years is a pretty insane schedule to keep. I’ve had so many weeks of sixteen-hour shoots here in LA plus all the months of filming on location. And that doesn’t even account for all the travel that’s required to promote those films once they’re released.

It’s not that I’m unhappy in my job. I fully realize that I’m living an experience very few people ever will. When I signed with my agent a few years ago, I never in my wildest dreams would have imagined it would work out this way.

But sometimes it feels like I blinked and my entire world changed. It’s like I looked around one day with no idea how I’d ended up in this insane reality. Meanwhile, my family’s lives kept moving right along, too. Half the time I show up at some event and I expect to see my little sister and brother still walking around like awkward, gangly fifteen-year-olds.

But they’re not. They’re graduating from high school. How is that even possible? I remember the day they were born, two red-faced, squalling twins who basically screamed bloody murder for the first three months of their lives and then never shut up once they learned how to talk.

And now they’re going to college.

“You okay?” June murmurs next to me, and I realize I’ve been standing at the gate for several moments too long. I give myself a little shake and smile down at her, trying to banish the weird, slightly panicky feeling that always seems to accompany any reminder of these changes lately.

“Yeah. Let’s go say hi.”

Once we reach the patio, it’s June’s turn to falter. “I wasn’t expecting this many people.” She looks around with wide-eyes. “Are these people from your dad’s label?”

I glance around at the mingling guests. There are some familiar faces from the label, as well as a few of their musician friends, but I wouldn’t say they make up the bulk of the crowd.

“Honestly, this is mostly just my family,” I say, shrugging. “There’s a shit ton of us.”

She looks nervous again, so I reach down and take her hand without thinking much about it. I’m used to touching June, for photoshoots and paparazzi, not to mention the fact that we’ve shot love scenes together—which are completely awkward and not the least bit exciting or sexy.

“Let’s go say hi.”

We only get a few feet into the yard before people start calling out welcomes. I spot a few heads of white blonde hair in the crowd and head in that direction, knowing it will be my siblings. Sure enough, Rose and River are sitting cross-legged on the lawn, a baby crawling unsteadily between them.

There’s that surreal twinge again. It was weird enough when my big brother had one kid. Now baby Poppy is three and her little brother Harrison is nearly a year old. Somewhere in this crowd of people, my cousin Will is no doubt carrying his newborn son, Theo. Aunt Paige is convinced our cousin Alex is pregnant—something about how shiny her hair is—but if she is, she and her husband Wyatt are keeping it quiet. I hear my cousin Everly squealing somewhere nearby and think about the fact that she has a shiny engagement ring on her finger.

So many changes. And in just a few days I’ll be leaving town to go shoot on location with June for the next two months. The twins will be preparing for their freshman year of college by the time I get back. Baby Harrison could be walking.

“Movie star!” my brother calls out, holding out a fist to bump with mine, and I shake myself from my thoughts—and the dull ache they set off in my chest—to go over and greet them.

I bump fists with River then bend down to kiss Rose on the top of her head. Harrison looks up at me with his wide, gummy smile and I grab him from the ground, tossing him up into the air to make him squeal with laughter.

“He just ate,” River says drily. “Don’t blame the kid if you end up with pureed sweet potatoes all over your six-hundred-dollar shirt.”

I ignore the jab. As much as I’d like to point out that my entire outfit is from the fashion line Everly, Alex and I co-own—and most definitely didn’t cost anywhere near six hundred bucks—I know it won’t get me anywhere. He’ll just pick something else to tease me about.

Having a big brother is endless amounts of fun. Especially when he still acts like a teenage douchebag half the time. How the little asshole managed to own a successful business and father two children, I’ll never understand.

“You love me far too much to get me messy, don’t you?” I murmur into Harrison’s ear. He smacks my face with his chubby little hands, laughing.

“Hi, June,” Rose says brightly. “It’s so nice to see you again.”

“You too.” June sounds kind of vague and I look over to see her watching me with a weird expression on her face.

“You don’t like babies?”

“Um, I don’t know? I don’t think I’ve ever been around any.”