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1
Darren
“You only turn twenty-one once.”
With those fateful words, my oldest brother, Quentin, convinced me to let him bring me out for my birthday.
It was far from what I’d planned. Not that I really had much planned at all. Birthdays weren’t really my thing, and I never had much of a compulsion to make a big deal out of them. But the day before when I was in the garages at the complex for the racing company my brother owned, Quentin came in looking excited.
“Big day tomorrow, huh, little brother?” he asked.
I looked up from the bike I was working on and gave him a strange look.
“Big day?” I asked. “The race isn’t for another week.”
He laughed and tossed a tool he was twirling around in his fingers back into the box at his feet. The metal made a jarring jangling sound that didn’t seem to affect him but made my ears ring. My brother walked up behind me and clapped me on the back.
“Not the race, Darren. Your birthday. You’re turning twenty-one!” he said.
“Oh,” I answered, turning back to the repair I was trying to get finished so I could get the bike out on the practice track for a few laps. “Yeah. That is tomorrow.”
Quentin stared at me like he couldn’t believe he was hearing what I was saying.
“That’s it?” he asked. “That’s your entire reaction to your twenty-first birthday?”
I glanced over my shoulder at him and shrugged.
“Should there be some other reaction?” I asked. “It’s just another birthday.”
“It’s not just another birthday. It’s a milestone,” he said. “Don’t you have any plans at all?”
“I’m having dinner with Mom and Dad. They said you, Vince, and Nick are supposed to come,” I told him.
“Dinner with your parents is not a twenty-first birthday,” he told me. “You’re coming to the bar with me.”
I let out a breath as I stood up and moved around to the other side of the bike.
“You know that’s not my scene,” I told him.
“Of course it’s not. You haven’t been old enough for it to be your scene, yet. But I’m going to take you out and celebrate with you in the way God intended.”
I couldn’t help but laugh slightly at that.
“Somehow I doubt that going out to a bar is in the greater divine plan,” I pointed out.
“Sure, it is. There’s a time to dance and a time to drink and all that,” Quentin said. I chuckled and shook my head. “Come on. As your eldest brother, it’s my job to escort you to this next part of your life. You only turn twenty-one once.”
And with those words, I let my brother convince me to take a leap away from my comfort zone and go out to celebrate my birthday. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
The next night Quentin wrapped his arm tightly around my shoulders and gave me a playful shake as he led me into his favorite bar. I’d heard about the bar many times before, of course. This was where the team came to celebrate after race victories or to blow off steam when things weren’t going the way they wanted them to.
This definitely wasn’t like me. Of the four brothers, I had always been the quietest. My mother liked to describe me as shy, but I didn’t think that was the first word I’d go to. It was more that I was an observer. My whole life I’d preferred to kind of sit back and watch what was going on around me. With three older brothers, there was bound to be a range of personalities and intensities and competing for the most attention wasn’t something I had interest in doing. I had no problem with them being the louder, more aggressive ones. The only time I really pushed for attention or competed to be at the top of the hierarchy was when I was racing. Quentin had taken over the racing company from my parents several years before and built it into an impressive, successful empire. But he was never one to race. That was me. As soon as I was old enough, I took to the track and hadn’t looked back since.
That was the approach I was taking that night. It wasn’t my regular idea of a good time, but I decided to go at it with an open mind and see how it went. Quentin brought me to a table at the side of the bar, and almost immediately, a waitress sidled up to us.
“Hey there, Molly,” Quentin said. “How are you doing tonight?”
“Doing fine, Quentin.” She eyed Darren. “I see we have another one.”
My brother took me by the back of the neck and gave me another shake.
“This is my baby brother, Darren,” he said.
“I’d know that anywhere. All you boys have the Freeman good looks. Why haven’t I met him before?” Molly asked.
