All Grown Up (Eden High)

It’s not like I hadn’t been warned. Our little crew is pretty tight-knit, and we share almost everything. I say almost because my brothers are not so crass as to share the intimate details of their lives with me. But they did give me some pointers and heads up about the fuckery I can expect when dealing with ‘the’ female. That one being that’s destined to be yours and only yours for life.

Funnily enough, none was of more help for my situation than our latest add-on Todd. Apparently, he was in pretty much the same boat as me, the only difference being that my future father in law is not fucking psycho, well, not in the same sense as Colton Lyon.

We’d met him for the first time this past summer when we went to Georgia, but that’s all it took to recognize what he is. The fact that Jace jokes that he wants to be him when he grows up says a lot, too, not to mention the fact that he’s already well on his way there. The guy is pretty much how I see Jace at that age. Scary.

I guess Todd is a braver man than I since he, too, had left not long ago to go claim his girl. Maybe it’s the severity of the shit Mancini has us working on together, I don’t know, but somehow Todd had fit right in with the rest of us like he’d always been part of the team.

Or maybe it’s the guy himself; he just seems like one of us. Whatever the case, he was very forthcoming and instrumental in getting me to handle the separation deal better since Jace, and the others had their women with them, and the two of us were the odd men out, something that we’re both hoping to change in the fall. I can’t believe I’m looking forward to being married before I even graduate college. What the fuck has happened to my planned life of debauchery and mayhem? Her face flashed into my mind, and I smiled. Yeah, her, she’s what happened to derail me.

Alex

I’d debated whether or not I should go home first or just go straight to her house instead, but of course, she won that one as well. Now that I was here, I could hardly wait to see her, touch her. My heart was doing its wild dance in my chest again as soon as we pulled onto her driveway, and I damn near broke the door off getting out before the driver made it around to my side.

I left my overnight bag in the car and grabbed the one with her gifts, and headed for the door but didn’t ring the bell. I’d timed it so that I’d be here when she was just getting home from school; otherwise, she’d have wondered why I wasn’t answering her daily call.

I kept my eyes peeled for her nifty little sports car to pull up because I wanted to see the look of surprise on her face. Yes, because apparently, being in love turns grown men into twelve-year-old girls. At least that’s the warning that Jace, Shane, and even Track had given me. Todd just nods his head whenever the conversation comes up, but I’m pretty sure I won’t ever be as whipped as those guys.

In the last year or so, I’ve seen firsthand what they’ve become, and it’s just sad. Okay, secretly, I envy them, but they’ll never hear it from me. Every once in a while, I’d remind them of the plans we once had for our wild college days before wives and babies took over their lives, and all I get are a round of smirks from the lot of them.

I can honestly say that anyone not wanting their teenage daughters to have kids before graduating college should steer clear of this bunch; they make the shit look way too easy. Maybe it’s because there are so many of us to lend a helping hand, and it’s not just the women. On their ladies' nights, which consist of them pigging out on pizza and watching mind numbing drivel, it’s us guys who have kiddie duty.

Then there’s the battalion of baby nurses that Jace’s mom and dad had vetted back to their ancestors or some crap that pretty much takes care of the kids during school hours and disappears when we’re home, not to be seen until the next day. I feel for them, too, because Jace made them sign so much shit to be around his kids you’d think they were guarding Fort Knox.

I miss them. It has only been a few hours, but I realized that this was the first time we’d been apart for this long or this far apart since we were very young kids. I imagine our sons would take vacations together the way we did when we were young, when one of the parents, mostly Jace’s, would take all of us to whatever corner of the world they were jetting off to.