Badly Behaved

On my baby’s birthday.

We have no cake, but we do have espresso flavored fudge our staff made for us and a couple vases of M&M’s courtesy of Beretta.

We aren’t having a five-course catered meal, but we did rent out the cafe down the street and made clear anyone who can make it to ten a.m. can join us, on us.

We sure as fuck won’t be sleeping tonight.

Jameson shakes her head, her lips parting with a low laugh.

Yeah, she knows what I’m thinking.

Together, we turn and face the others and the room erupts in loud cheers, slams of freshly downed shot glasses and a single popped bottle of champagne that can only have come from where Monti sits beside Cali.

Beretta jerks forward and steals my bride by wrapping his arms around her legs and tearing her from the stage, so I hop down, clapping hands and half hugging Arsen. Just as quickly, we trade places, and then we’re stepping in front of Sienna.

She smiles wide, shakily swiping at the tears in her eyes and Jameson leans in, hugs her while whispering something in her ear that has Sienna chuckling.

With a quick wink, Jameson slides away, Monti and Cali rushing her with over-the-top giggles and glitter bombs.

I turn back to my sister, bending down on one knee and gently place my hand over the one she has no feeling in and hold it tightly as I kiss her cheek. “We did it.”

She looks around the club, her eyes holding on the giant fluorescent blue and pink sign that reads. Sienna’s Spot.

It’s her design with our black light influence, her signature drink recipes and her passion project.

We’ve partnered with Lindo Lifts here in the East Bay, and with our cover charge comes a ride to and from the club. We have no parking lot, and the nearest garage is four miles down the road.

Her vision was to provide people with comfort and care and allow them to have a good time and get home safely, for their safety and the safety of others.

So, once she knew what she wanted to do with her future, we finally cashed the check for what the insurance paid out for the house that ‘accidentally’ caught fire and created what she imagined.

It’s been open for three months and has blown our fucking minds.

We have three more under construction as we speak, including one set to open in our hometown one week from now.

It will be the first time we set foot back in that city since the day after graduation when we packed up all our shit and left.

We’re near San Francisco now, twenty minutes from the main city and on flat land in the closest thing to country the area has to offer.

We have three homes on our property, one for us, one for the boys, and one for Sienna—only after she insisted, we would have gladly had her in ours forever, but she wanted her own space. Our house is still where everyone gathers, where we eat most nights and four out of seven, the place we all fall asleep.

“No, Ransom.” Sienna brings her blue eyes back to mine. “You did it.”

“Technically...” Beretta pokes his head between ours. “I did it since, you know, I restored the building,” he teases.

Arsen is at our side moments later, and both share the same calm expression.

If someone would have told me five years ago that we, let alone I, would be where we are now, we would have laughed or thrown a punch assuming they were mocking us. We were never supposed to make it.

We were three punk kids with little to no direction.

Now we’re three grown men with some college courses under our belts. Arsen and I didn’t make it past the first year, but we did apply for a business license after, and with Jameson’s help, we passed the tests needed. B and Sienna have certificates from trade school, Beretta in carpentry and Sienna in design.

Jameson took a year off and with the help of an accountant, she and Monti invested most of their dad’s money, keeping only the direct checks made out to each of them. She used hers to buy the land we call home and then did what she never thought he had the opportunity to but was groomed her whole life for.

She enrolled at Berkeley, entered as a sophomore thanks to all the whiz kid classes she took in high school. She graduated last year with a degree in finance.

Between the five of us, we’ve got this whole business shit on point.

We’re rolling into life now.

We made it.

For the first time in my life, I’m enough.

I’m more than enough.

And Jameson Filano is the reason.

Jameson

I wash my hands, quickly leaning closer to the mirror once more to make sure I didn’t smear my eye makeup and prepare to step back from the bathroom.