“Yes?” Bryce asked with a laugh.
“Bryce, is everything okay?”
“Does something need to be wrong for me to call?”
“No.” Though he rarely called. We texted, we emailed, but we didn’t call. Calling was hard because we lived in different time zones, often on different continents, and as a cop, Bryce’s schedule was almost as hectic and complex as mine.
“Aunt Roni wants to know if you’ll be home for dinner.”
I couldn’t blame them for asking.
“I’ll be there.”
“Good, everyone’s excited to see you.”
“I’m looking forward to it,” I exaggerated. I wanted to see my siblings, but wasn’t looking forward to seeing them all together at a family dinner. Except for Ethan, he was on the road.
As the only Winchester who lived out of state—hell, I live out of the country most of the time—I was an outsider among my close-knit siblings. I’d spend the night observing them while they talked, taking mental notes while they shared stories, and smiling while they laughed at inside jokes.
“Hey Austin, maybe try not to sound like a fucking robot when you get here.”
I leaned back in my chair and pinched the bridge of my nose.
“Copy that.”
“And don’t cancel.”
I deserved that, having cancelled more often than I’d attended.
“I won’t,” I promised before ending the call.
I wasn’t as close to Veronica, Aunt Roni, as my five younger siblings were. Roni was my father’s third wife’s older sister, and was only blood-related to Dalton, Ethan and Eva. Unlike me with my metal heart, the lack of blood relations hadn’t stopped Bryce and Cassie from loving her.
I barely knew her. I was a typical self-centered fifteen-year-old when Dad married Donna, and other than being happy he’d found love a third time, I didn’t expect the marriage to last, so I wasn’t interested in getting close to her or her family.
A mistake I’d made by getting close to Bryce and Cassie’s mom. It wrecked me when she got sick after Cassie was born. She didn’t live long enough to see her daughter’s first birthday. Losing two mothers so young did a number on me, so I refused to get close to Donna.
My instincts were right; Donna died when Ethan and Eva were two. My dad had horrible luck with wives; all three had died young. If I hadn’t known him, I might’ve thought he was a male black widow, but he loved his wives and mourned each one deeply.
I was seventeen and ready to graduate from high school when Veronica stepped in to help my dad with his five young children. In typical teen fashion, I didn’t think I needed her.
People thought I was heartless because I channeled the grief of losing three mothers into earning my way into the U.S. Naval Academy. With a ten percent acceptance rate, I had to bust my ass to stand out.
It wasn’t enough to get good grades; I had to excel. It wasn’t enough to play sports; I had to star. It wasn’t enough to volunteer; I had to make a difference.
My uncle John, a Parker County cop, helped me find volunteer opportunities that stood out from the typical choices like working in a soup kitchen, spending time with lonely seniors, or tutoring younger students.
With my uncle’s help, I created a program to tutor kids in the Fort Worth juvenile detention system. They still used my program, with a few adjustments they’d made over the years.
The program not only secured the congressional nomination I needed, but it helped me earn three additional letters of recommendation. The letters from the Fort Worth mayor, the FWJDC superintendent, and from John, a former Marine turned local cop, improved my chances.
Small town guys from Laurel Springs, TX, didn’t have many opportunities to build an application that’d impress a panel of Navy veterans, but I’d found the right support and knocked their stripes off.
I left for the academy in Annapolis, MD, three weeks after giving my high school valedictorian speech.
Bryce was twelve. Ethan and Eva were four.
Because I wasn’t home much during my junior and senior years, I barely knew my youngest siblings. I watched them grow up in emailed pictures and talked to them via the occasional video chat and the less frequent shared holiday meal.
