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Nevaeh
Daddy put the last of my boxes down in the middle of the bedroom that was going to be mine for the foreseeable future, his blue-gray eyes glancing around the average-sized room in the three-bedroom house.
The queen-sized bed was already made up with my favorite comforter and pillows. My laptop sat open on the desk by the window, all the books I needed for the semester course load stacked neatly on the edge. Mom was already putting away my toiletries in the connecting bathroom.
Both of my parents had come with me, making sure I was settled in and didn’t need anything. But it was mostly to reassure themselves their sixteen-year-old daughter would be safe and happy three thousand miles away from them. They didn’t need to worry, though. Not only was I a reasonably responsible teenager, leaps and bounds away from how immature my younger sister Arella was, but I had Barrick and Braxton to watch over me.
If Uncle Nik could relax and let them take care of Mia, then I knew my parents could handle me being away with those two close by.
“Are you sure you don’t need anything else?” Daddy asked as his gaze landed on me. “You have everything for all those classes you’re taking?”
“I’m set, Daddy,” I said with a grin. Not only had he gone with me to buy all my books, but he’d handed me one of his many limitless credit cards, telling me if I needed—or wanted—anything, not to hesitate to use it. It didn’t matter that I had two other cards in my purse. He needed me to take it, and there was nothing I wouldn’t do to make him happy.
“If you decide you don’t like it here, or if things get to be too much for you, I don’t care how far into the semester it is, you come home.” He wrapped his arms around my shoulders, cradling me against him like I was still a little girl. I closed my eyes, soaking it all in. I was going to miss him and Mom, but I needed this time away from them and my siblings.
“Okay,” I agreed, because he needed me to.
“Don’t do anything reckless. No parties. No boys. No drinking and no drugs,” he warned.
“Of course, Daddy.”
Mom walked out of the bathroom, dusting off her hands like she’d just spent an hour cleaning in there rather than just ten minutes organizing toiletries. Everything in the house was spotless, and I didn’t think for a second it was Mia’s doing. I loved her like crazy, but she didn’t do a lot of cleaning. No, it was the cousins who seemed a little OCD about keeping everything neat and tidy, but that could just as easily be their military background at work.
“Looks like you’re all set,” she said with a smile. “What do you say we grab some dinner,
and then Daddy and I will get out of your hair?”
I lifted my brows at them. “First, you’re not in my hair. I love you both and miss you already. Second, you’re just looking for an excuse not to leave me. After dinner, you’ll talk me into going for ice cream or cheesecake or something equally delicious and fattening. And before you know it, your flight time will be canceled and you will have to wait until morning for a new time for PopPop’s jet to get in the air.”
Mom looked up at Daddy with sad eyes. “I really don’t like that she knows us so well, babe. She’s too damn smart for her own good.”
“And that is why we’re dropping her off at college when she’s only just turned sixteen,” he grumbled unhappily. “But she’s right. We need to go, or I won’t want to leave her at all. And we have four other babies at home.”
“They’re at Shane and Harper’s,” Mom argued. “They’ll be fine a few extra days without us. Our firstborn needs us more, Dray.”
“No, I definitely do not need you more than Arella, Heavenleigh, Bliss, or Damien,” I assured her.
“Maybe we should rethink the whole distance thing,” Daddy told Mom over my head. “I mean, how far was Stanford from our house again? Surely it was a better match for her brain than this school. Or Cal Tech, that would have been perfect. We could even have bought a house close to campus, and she could have stayed home instead of in a dorm.”
Rolling my eyes at the same argument they’d tried to pull for the past two weeks, I took each of them by the elbow and steered them to the door. Out to the living room where Aunt Emmie was sitting on the couch with Mia.
“We all agreed this school was a great fit for me. It’s smaller, and some of the smartest minds have attended,” I reminded them, not for the first time that day.
“Uh oh.” I heard Aunt Emmie whisper to Mia. “This is the worst part of all. Be prepared for the waterworks.”
On cue, Daddy’s eyes flooded with tears. “I’m just worried about you all the way out here all alone. I don’t like you being on your own. You’re just a baby and—”
“I’m not alone,” I told him patiently, my heart aching because I couldn’t stand to see my dad sad. “I have Mia. Plus, there are Barrick and Braxton, whom you and the uncles vetted personally, if I remember correctly.” His jaw clenched when I reminded him that he and Uncle Nik handpicked Charles Barrick to be Mia’s secret security detail. He didn’t like thinking of the week he’d spent in the proverbial doghouse with Mom over the whole thing.
“Where are those two anyway?” Mom asked, frowning in Mia’s direction. “I want to thank them again for letting Nevaeh stay here before we go.”
“They went to do a security consult for a local business,” my cousin told her. “I’m not sure when they will be back, but it shouldn’t be too much longer. Why don’t I order some dinner, and they can pick it up on their way home? Then once we’ve eaten and you’ve thanked them—yet again—you can get to the airport without missing your takeoff.”
While Mia handled my parents like an expert, setting their minds at ease and letting them stay a little longer, I walked over to the couch and took a seat beside Aunt Emmie, who put her arm around my shoulders and gave me a squeeze. “It will be okay,” she promised in a whisper only I could hear. “I’ll take care of them.”
I knew she would help them, but I appreciated her reassurance. My parents weren’t weak or unable to take care of themselves. My mom was one of the strongest women I knew, and even though Daddy seemed like a bowl of squishy Jell-O with me and our family, to the outside world, he was viewed with awe for his no-fucks-given attitude and his reputation for tossing paparazzi out windows. He was Drake Fucking Stevenson after all. Revered guitarist for Demon’s Wings and one of the biggest badass rockers the world had ever seen.
But he was also an emotional father who was dropping his baby girl off at college for the first time and would spend the next few days mourning my not being in the same house with him and Mom. There were going to be tears and maybe even a few emotional breakdowns in his future, and that was making my heart throb. “Thanks, Aunt Em.”
