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I’m the first to wake up the following morning, seeing it’s just a bit after seven. I slide my slippers on and go to make myself a coffee before everyone wakes up. Seeing Benji on the couch again, I roll my eyes, going over to him. His skin looks so pale, and when I get closer to him, I know something is wrong. I bend down and shake him, but his body feels stiff and cold to the touch. “Benji!” I shout his name while the back of my neck feels like it’s on fire. Even the follicles on my head are hot and tingly. “Benji!” I yell again, my voice more frantic as I try to nudge his shoulder. “Oh my God. Oh my God.” I put my hand to my mouth at the same time I hear footsteps on the stairs. My fear turns to panic as I run out of the room and meet Luna at the bottom of the stairs. “Go upstairs,” I urge her, and she just whines.
“I’m hungry.” I don’t wait to answer her before I pick her up and run up the stairs. On the way to my bedroom, I see Rain come out of hers. “Don’t go downstairs!” I shriek. “Come in my bedroom, now.” I don’t wait for her to come to me. Instead, I walk to her and grab her hand by the wrist and drag her with us into my room. The tears are now freely running down my face. I put Luna down on her feet, closing the bedroom door behind me and standing in front of it. “Go get me my phone.” I point at my bedside table, the girls looking at me with fear. “Rain,” I say to her, “please go and get me my phone right now.”
She runs to my bedside table, bringing the phone back to me, and I dial my father-in-law, Eddie, who answers after one ring. “Hello.”
“Eddie,” I say his name as the sob rips through me, “you need to come over here. Benji—” My knees give out on me as I sink to the floor, knowing my life will never again be the same from this day forward.
CHAPTER TWO
christopher
“Why are there so many people here?” I look over at my brother, Dylan, who is sitting on one of the daybeds in the middle of the beach. “And why the fuck is it so loud?” Kids running and adults laughing and talking combine with the DJ who is set up, and it is noise overload.
“You can blame Zoey and Gabriella for that.” He mentions my cousin Zoey and our sister, Gabriella, as he looks out at everyone around us. “They mocked Uncle Matthew yesterday, saying his vacations were becoming boring with a capital B. I thought his head would explode. His eyes started to twitch.” He laughs, remembering the conversation from yesterday. It’s our annual summer vacation, where we are finally all off and together. Since most of the guys play hockey and are in the league, their only free time is after playoffs. So we started doing the family vacation, but Matty’s wife’s family has also joined us this year, so it’s close to over two hundred people. We bitch and complain about this family vacation all year round, but once we’re here, everyone remembers why we come. It’s the best time of the year, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.
“I’m hungry,” I state, looking around and finally seeing my cousin Stone walking to the beach with his girlfriend, Ryleigh, beside him. The two of them met at Gabriella and Romeo’s house party, Ryleigh being Romeo’s sister.
“Look at those two.” I point at them, and Dylan laughs as Ryleigh squints at the noise. “She looks like she’s going to barf.” He gets up. “I’m going to look for my wife.”
“You think of barfing and automatically think of your wife,” I joke. He flips me the bird as I also get up off the daybed.
I shake my head as I make my way through the throngs of people. I spot my grandfather, Cooper, sitting with my uncles Matthew and Max. “Hey,” I greet, walking over to him and kissing him on his cheek.
“Are you staying out of trouble?” he asks, leaning back to look at me with a smile. He’s at the top of most of the boards, even after retiring so long ago. He’s the one you’re always competing to beat his records. My brother, Dylan, has beat a couple of them, but he still holds most of them and happily points it out every single time.
“Me?” I point at my chest. “I’m never trouble.”
“Please,” my uncle Matthew says, “didn’t you leave with the server?”
I scoff at him, putting my hand in the middle of my chest as if he hurt my feelings. “Uncle Matthew, you think I would sleep with a server who will be around for a whole week? That would be a rookie mistake. She’d follow me all week and cockblock me for everyone else.” I wink at him.
“I don’t know if I should be proud of what he just said or smack him upside the head,” my uncle Max ponders while my grandfather laughs.
“Well, either way, I win.” I look over to see Stone coming to grab some food. “I’m going to get some food.” I look over at the buffet. “Talk later.”
I walk a couple of steps to catch up with Stone. “You look tired as shit,” he says to me once he’s standing behind me at the buffet line, holding two plates in his hand.
“Yeah, I woke up being kicked in the balls by Payton, who thought it was a good idea.” I mention my nephew, who snuck into my room through the back door that I didn’t lock. I will never make that mistake again.
I load up my plate and start having lunch with my father and mother, and then thirty of us end up at the table. I get up when Dylan calls me to go with him in the water with his son, Maddox.
We’re walking on the hot sand when we spot Stone and Ryleigh in the water hugging. “I hope they aren’t banging in the water,” Maddox states, making me laugh. Stone looks over at us, and then he and Ryleigh walk out of the water.
“I have to put my phone down,” I tell my brother, who nods and continues into the water. I’m halfway to the chairs when I spot Stone, “Did you guys bang in the ocean?” I tease them. “No one wanted to send the kids in.”
Stone just gawks at me when the phone in my hand rings. “Why the fuck is Coach calling me?” I press the green button and put it to my ear, hoping like fuck I’ll hear him with all the background noise. “Hey, Coach.” I smile, putting one finger in the other ear.
“Christopher.” His voice cracks, and I see my uncles Matthew and Max rushing to get to me. I feel like the ground is spinning when I hear his next words. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but it’s Benji.” The bile rises from my stomach. “He’s gone.” The phone drops from my hand into the sand.
My hand goes to my mouth as the blood drains from my body. “Benji’s dead.”
Stone looks at me, his face going as white as mine feels. “What do you mean?” he asks, reaching down for the phone. “Hello,” he says into the phone, “it’s Stone Richards.”
I hear the commotion around me, but all I can hear is the echo of my heart beating in my ears. I feel like the beach spins all around me. “I got him,” someone says, and I feel arms around me as I’m being carried off the beach. I look over and see some of the women with tears streaming down their faces. I don’t even know how I make it to my room, but I’m sitting in a chair while my sisters Gabriella and Abigail run around my room packing stuff.
“I think he’s in shock,” my father says beside me. I look over at Uncle Matthew, who types on his phone while Max talks on his. Stone stands in the back next to his father and the rest of my uncles, waiting in the wings for me to ask them to do something.
“What can we do to help?” Casey, Sofia’s grandfather, asks when he comes into my room.
