“This is going to suck,” Brian growled.

“And not in the good way,” Justin added with a smile.

They were waiting for Anna and her new husband, Saayed to arrive. It was only going to be a small family affair. Not all the kids could come. Gus and Devon both had work they couldn’t get away from. Jenny though had gotten time off and came earlier that morning with her husband, Rodger. It seemed while her family was in the dark about everything, Anna’s best friend knew everything. So much that she had scheduled time off to visit. She and Rodger were staying with Hunter and his family. Hunter had married a woman with two children, he said it was his readymade family. Hunter and his family were also coming because he wanted to spend more time with Jenny.

That was twenty people and one big damn dog. Justin had decided since it was such a nice summer day, they would have a cookout. Maurice and Matthew set up the tables and chairs in the yard. Matthew was supposed to bring Reece with him, but he brought Shorty. He said that Reece wanted to work before coming over, he would be a little later. Besides Reece, the only other people who hadn’t gotten there yet was Anna and Saayed.

Justin knew he would have to bite his tongue a lot. He thought she was way too young to be married. She had such big dreams she wanted to do before marrying. He just hoped her new husband was supportive of those goals.

For the moment, he was alone in the kitchen, everyone was doing their own thing. Brian wanted to get some work in before the party, Justin also suspected he was making a voodoo doll with their new son-in-law’s name.

He heard the front door open and close. “Dad? Pop?”

“In the kitchen,” he called to her.

Quiet measured steps sounded on the hardwood floor. Justin washed the hamburger meat off his hands and turned around. Anna looked…well she looked like Anna. Her red hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail, she wasn’t wearing any makeup. She had black short shorts and just wearing a bikini top. She was their little water bug, she would be in the water day in and out. Justin’s eyes shifted over to the interloper. Saayed was a tall man with black hair that looked a little shaggy, his facial hair was also a bit unkempt. He was wearing baggy khakis and a red polo shirt. So far, Justin was unimpressed. Brian on the other hand might kick the man out. He looked like he just crawled out of stupor.

“Hello, Mr. Taylor-Kinney,” Saayed said politely, holding out his hand.

“Call me, Justin. We’re family after all.” He was proud of himself for not gritting his teeth.

Since Anna was their only daughter, he had some old school ideas of how her wedding would go. Like he would be there. He didn’t want any of his children settle down so young. He wanted them to live before being tied to another person. But still, he would have liked to walk her down the aisle. When she was seven, her and Emmett had planned her whole wedding. Maybe there wouldn’t be the horses with horns glued to their heads, his daughter had been insistent to have unicorns in her dream wedding. Now he wished she would have just told him.

“Thank you, Justin.” Saayed then turned and looked at Anna. “Can I shower, shave and change now?”

“Nope, not until Pop sees you. I want to see him have a heart attack,” she said, smirking.

“You did this?” Justin asked incredulously.

“Yep, I was hoping his hair would be longer, but I thought you wouldn’t met him until Thanksgiving.”

“Please, let me shave and cut my hair. I’ve had the same haircut and been clean shaven for ten years, I need to feel like myself again. This has been the longest two months in my life. I can’t even go see my parents, they would die.”

Justin glared at his precious little girl. “Are you telling me you forbad this man to shave or cut his hair to fuck with your father?”

She huffed. “When you say it like that you make it sound childish.”

The thought to himself ‘This is why nineteen-year-olds shouldn’t get married.’

Justin heard footsteps on the stairs, Brian’s footsteps. He knew what was coming, and wasn’t disappointed.

“You’ve got to be kidding me?” Brian said, getting a good look at their new son-in-law.

“Pop, I’d like you to meet my husband, Saayed,” Anna said, her face lit up.

Brian sneered at the man. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-eight.”

“She’s only nineteen,” Brian said, his eyes glaring at the man.

“Yes, I am a bit older. How much older are you over your husband?”

Justin bit his lip to keep from laughing. Even though he thought she was much too young to be married, he kind of liked the man. Justin suspected he would fit in their family perfectly.

“I don’t like you,” Brian said bluntly.

“I’m a pretty likable person,” Saayed said with a devilish grin.

Anna apparently couldn’t hold the laughter in any longer. She started laughing and couldn’t stop. She leaned against the kitchen wall shaking with laughter, her face blood red.

“What’s going on here?” Brian asked.

“I…just…can’t,” she said barely getting a word out between guffaws.

“It’s like this, we met fell in love on sight. She’s a beautiful woman, it was easy to love her. Unfortunately, she’s insane. But I found that out after the ink was dry on the marriage certificate. Anyway, I was getting out of the Marines, got accepted to ATF special agent training. I start in two weeks. It’s been my life goal, I stayed in the Marines as long as I did to put myself through school. It took eight years of classes here and there, but I finally graduated. I’m going to be in Georgia for fifteen weeks.”

“And you’re going to go there looking like you’re homeless?” Brian asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Dammit, Anna, can I please shower and shave now?”

“Fine, you’re no fun. If I knew you were this much of a wet blanket I wouldn’t have married you,” she huffed out.

“Yeah, sure,” he said grinning at her.

“Use one of the upstairs bathrooms, you’ll be less likely to have someone jimmy the lock and walk in on you,” Justin said.

“Really?” Saayed asked.

“Ten kids. Ten kids that are impatient. I’ve seen one jimmy the lock, pull another out of the shower by his hair and lock him back out stark naked in the hallway,” Justin said, smiling at the memory.

“Hey, he was in there forever. Like we all didn’t know what he was doing in the shower for an hour. I had a party to get ready for,” Anna said, scowling.

“You did that?” Saayed asked, looking at his bride like he never saw her before.

“Devon should have finished up when I told him to, it’s not my fault he didn’t listen.”

After that, they had to put a bolt on the inside of the bathrooms to insure privacy. His kids were just too damn comfortable with each other, and didn’t care if they had to throw a naked sibling out of a bathroom.

“Right, I’m going to go make myself presentable now that her jokes over,” Saayed said.

“Come on, I’ll show you where to go,” Anna said, grabbing his arm. As they walked to the stairs, Justin saw they had deposited a bag before playing their little game. This day was going to be hell.

Justin took the burgers out to the grill. With so many people there were different things everyone wanted. He even had a veggie burgers for Jenny, who had recently gone vegetarian.

“Is the food done yet?” Caleb asked, running up to the grill.

“You just watched me put the burgers and hotdogs on.” Caleb stared blankly at him. “No, they are not done.”

“Fine,” Caleb rolled his eyes before going back to the pool.

“ALEX!” Avery yelled.

Justin looked up to see Alex coming around the side of the house. He lifted Avery up over his shoulder, spinning him around. Sean joined them, saying something that Justin couldn’t hear. Alex was always invited, he was part of the family. In fact, he thought Alex and Anna were going to get married. But after his senior year, they just sort of drifted apart. Justin hoped there would be no hard feelings. He watched Caleb and Sean run back in the house, and Avery get back in the pool with Maurice.

“Hey, Mr. TK,” Alex said as he joined him.

“Hey, Alex. I’m glad you’re here. Reece should be here soon with his new best friend.”

“That dog is such a big baby. We were watching a movie last night, Harley jumped up on the couch and laid across Reece. Well…at least he tried. I swear that dog was glaring at me. You would think Reece had him for years instead of a week.”

“Sometimes animals and people just click,” Hunter said as he sat at the table by the grill, while Alex wondered off to the pool.

“Is that how you felt with Lola?” Justin asked, not even bothering to hide his grin.

“Shut it. I hate that bitch and she feels the same.”

Hunter had a long feud going on with his daughters’ toy poodle. It was hours of entertainment if you were at their house. He even got his own dog, The Judge, or Jud for short, an American bulldog, who quite possibly may be the sweetest dog alive…and the laziest.

“Did you hear Jenny’s news?” Hunter asked after a while.

“No what?” Justin asked. He had only seen very little of her today, she seemed to be extra close to Rodger the tool.

No one liked him, the only person people hated worse was Lindsay’s husband…but it was a close call. They didn’t have any proof but they suspected he was verbally abusive to Jenny. The instances they had seen was toeing the line of abuse. He would say she needed to lay off the food, much like Michael told her. He would give her exercise equipment, never anything romantic. One thing that bothered him a lot was he would go out to dinner but not take Jenny, he said she didn’t need the temptation. They knew that Mel had been trying to get her to leave him, but she said that he was the only one that could ever love her. Thankfully, when they heard about that, Anna was already an ocean away. If she hadn’t been, they’d be visiting her in a military prison because she would have killed him.

“Gus and I are going to be uncles.”

“She’s pregnant?” Justin was shocked, he thought she didn’t want any children.

“Yeah, wasn’t planned. I give Roddy boy a few months at most before he runs. And when he does, I’m going to take him for every penny he has…which isn’t much.”

They had all gone to Jenny’s wedding, except for Lindsay and her husband. Everyone had wanted to be there for her, even if they couldn’t stand him. Michael had really fucked up her idea what a good relationship was.

 “Damn,” Justin said. He hated it for Jenny, she would try her best to hold on to a man that was awful. “How far along is she?”

Justin wondered because for lunch she had barely eaten anything. Maybe she was still having morning sickness.

“Six months,” Hunter said as he started munching on some chips.

“Six months, what?” Alex asked, reappearing.

“Jenny’s six months pregnant. Don’t tell anyone else, she’s making the announcement when everyone arrives,” Hunter replied.

Justin had looked up to check on Avery in the pool, he was being watched by Maurice but he caught a look on Alex’s face before it was quickly gone. Was that jealousy? Anger? Hurt? Maybe it was all three. That was odd, Alex and Jenny had never been close, he had dated Anna but Jenny was a few years older than him. Very strange.

“HARLEY!”

Everyone looked up to see Reece running behind his dog, towards the pool. Justin’s eyes shot to the pool and his heart stopped. Avery flailing his arms and legs in the deep end, Maurice nowhere in sight. Justin started running towards the pool but noticed he wasn’t the only one now. The dog though beat them all to it, leaping in to Avery. Avery wrapped his arms around Harley’s neck. Justin, Alex and Hunter had all jumped in at the same time. They had been the only ones outside. Most everyone else was in the entertainment room or hiding somewhere else to get out of work.

He pulled Avery off Harley and handed him to Reece who was now leaning over the pool. He saw in his peripheral vision that Hunter and Alex were working together to get Harley out.

Avery was taking deep gulps of breath in between great giant tears running down his face. It didn’t click until that moment, Avery hadn’t made a sound during the whole ordeal. Justin hoisted himself out of the pool and pulled Avery back into his arms. His son wrapped his arms around his neck, finally making the first sounds. Loud sobs.

“Go get your father,” he told Reece. He couldn’t deal with Maurice, but Brian could. He had promised to watch him. Even then Justin had kept checking on him. It was less than a few minutes the last time he looked. It all happened so fast, and he hadn’t heard anything troubling. He heard the splashing but after so many years, he just put it off on the boys playing. He had almost let his child drown while in was in the same vicinity as him. He would have if it wasn’t for Harley.

“Give him to me,” he heard Brian say.

Looking up he saw Brian standing beside where he was sitting on the concrete holding his sobbing child. He realized he was shaking and crying too.

“I’m going to take him upstairs and get him cleaned up and calmed down. You are in no position to do that. Go upstairs and take care of yourself.”

“But he almost drowned,” he said, not wanting to release Avery.

“But he didn’t. You are making this worse. He’s upset from what just happened to him adding that you are freaking out isn’t helping him.”

Justin wanted to rage and yell at him, but he was right. It wasn’t even their first near drowning. That had been Devon when he was seven in Hawaii. They agreed then no more taking the kids on vacation when they were outnumbered, after that they always took others. Mostly, Ted, Blake, Emmett and Drew. At the time, it was Brian that was freaking out, it made Devon even more scared to try swimming again.

Reluctantly, he handed his son off. Though it was harder than he planned because Avery wouldn’t let go of his neck. Finally, he did and Brian carried him inside the house.

The perfect welcome home/belated wedding reception just turned to hell. He told Hunter to take care of the grill before he went inside. As he stepped through the door he saw Maurice, crying in the corner. Brian must have told him when he came through what had happened. Maurice wasn’t his emotional one, that was shared between most of the others but he had never seen Maurice break down. Even as a little boy he was quite in control of his emotions.

Maurice looked up when Justin walked in the door, dripping from his wet clothes.

“I’m sorry, I just went to the bathroom. I told him to stay in the shallow end. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know, I just went to the bathroom.” Avery was his little boy, but so was Maurice. He was pissed, no doubt. But mistakes happen, they were lucky this time. It needed to be known, there couldn’t be a next.

“You could have told us you needed to use the restroom. Hunter or Alex would have taken over. He’s not that great of a swimmer, he needed someone in the pool with him at all times. What you did, was careless and irresponsible.”

Maurice nodded his head, tears running down his face. Maurice and Avery were biological half-brothers.

Maurice was their geek. They had adopted him when he was only two. He wouldn’t go to sleep for Brian, but Brian never knew the trick. Maurice had trouble falling asleep, so Justin would pick him up out of his crib and take him downstairs. He would turn on Star Trek TNG old returns and cuddle on the couch with Maurice. He had no idea he was creating a monster. Magic, science and space, those where his favorite subjects. He was going to school to be an astronomer, he had a lot of schooling in front of him. The PhD in physics would take a while.

They had gotten Maurice just a few weeks after Devon and Kenyon’s adoption. They were only supposed to foster him. But his mother suddenly gave up parental rights, they were asked if they wanted to adopt him. Everyone thought they were crazy so soon after adopting Devon and Kenyon.

“Is he okay?” Maurice asked, his voice cracking.

“He will be, it traumatized him, hell, it traumatized me.”

“Do you hate me?”

“I’m mad at you for not telling me you were going to the restroom. But I don’t hate you, I never could. Thankfully, this is a lesson that can be learned from that didn’t end badly as it could. We’re still celebrating. He’ll calm down, I’ll calm down. It just can’t happen again okay?” Maurice nodded. “Alright, you go get cleaned up too, you look a little rough. I think Avery would really enjoy if his big brother did magic at the party.”

“You think?”

“Of course, he loves you.”

Avery loved them all. He had fit into the family perfectly. Every other child they had gone through a tough transition. They thought it would be worse because Avery was six when they got him and his mother had just died. It turned out she wasn’t the kindest mother, he was clingy and wanted to please. Thankfully, they had experience with that kind of behavior. He’s still clingy but at least he doesn’t cry when his siblings say they can’t play with him at that moment.

Justin continued up to his room, passing Avery’s room. The house was big but not big enough for everyone to have their own rooms. Gus and Devon shared when they were home. Reece and Maurice in one. Matthew and Kenyon had shared but Matthew moved into Anna’s room after she joined the Navy. Caleb and Sean shared. And lastly was Avery’s room, which was a converted from a den.

As he past the room he heard little giggles from inside. It seemed Brian had calmed him down and was now making him laugh. He was relieved, it had taken Devon hours to calm down. When he got into his room he was hit by a feeling of foreboding. Something bad was coming, he could feel it. He just didn’t know what it was.