at the ground as he dug the toe of his work boot into the gravel. “Brady King, the lead guitarist—he’s my dad’s oldest spawn.”
It seemed like a peculiar choice of words to describe a brother. Mia inferred from it, and from Wyatt’s sudden interest in the ground, that his incredibly successful rock star sibling wasn’t his favorite topic of conversation.
“How many siblings do you have, exactly?” She knew about Cody—and now Brady—but she got the sense there were even more.
Wyatt rubbed his temple as if he was doing a complex equation in his head. “Nine?”
“You don’t sound sure about that.”
“It’s complicated. My dad’s had three wives and my mom had a son before she married him, so I’ve got five half-brothers, two half-sisters, and an adopted brother, plus Tanner, who’s my only full-blood sibling. And don’t even ask me about my cousins, because I can’t count that high.”
“Wow,” Mia said. “Your family’s huge.” Both her parents had been only children, and neither had any other kids after their divorce. Her family was minuscule compared to Wyatt’s expansive clan.
He snorted into his beer. “Yeah, it’s not so much a family as a nest of rattlesnakes.”
“You aren’t close with any of them?”
“I get on with a few of them great. Others, not so much. But that’s families for you.” He eyed her over the top of his beer as he took another swig. “What about you? You have any siblings?”
“Just a sister.”
“You close?”
Mia smiled. “We are, yeah. Our parents weren’t around much, so we had to rely on each other.”
Wyatt nodded. “That’s me and Tanner. We’ve always been close. You older or younger than your sister?”
“Older.”
“So you took care of her, I’ll bet.”
“I guess I did, yeah. I mean, we had nannies to feed us and get us to and from school, but sometimes it felt like I was more of a mother to her than our mother was.”
Wyatt picked at the label on his beer bottle. “Tanner’s older, so he always looked out for me. Or tried to, anyway.” He flashed his trademark smirk, but it felt half-hearted. “I was too much of a hellion. He could never keep up with me.”
Before Mia could ask him anything else, Wyatt’s bandmates beckoned him to the stage. The sound guy had finished final checks and they were ready to start their set.
“I gotta do this thing,” Wyatt said, gesturing at the stage with his beer bottle.
“Yeah, of course. Break a leg or whatever.” Did you say that to musicians? Or was it only actors? Maybe she should have just wished him luck.
“Thanks.” Wyatt inclined his head. “Enjoy the show.”
Mia grabbed their beer bucket and rejoined Andie, who steered her over to a spot next to the fence at the side of the patio. There was a ledge all along it for setting drinks on, and Mia set the bucket down before opening a fresh beer.
She hadn’t been sure what to expect from Wyatt’s band, but they seemed to play mostly radio-friendly hits from the last several decades. Mia didn’t know enough about music to judge how technically adept they were, but Wyatt had a great voice and they managed an enjoyable approximation of the original songs.
“They’re really good,” she told Andie when they launched into a Fleetwood Mac cover. The speakers were dialed down enough to allow conversation over the music, and most people seemed to be talking more than listening to the band.
Andie looked up from her phone, which she’d been checking intermittently through the last three songs. “Yeah, they’re not bad, right?”
“You said they all met in high school?”
Andie nodded, slipping her phone into her pocket. “They used to cut class to go practice in Matt’s garage when his parents were at work.”
“Couldn’t people hear them? I would have thought they’d be found out playing in a garage in the middle of a school day.”
“Oh yeah, they got caught all the time.” Andie laughed as she took a swig of beer. “I think getting caught was half the fun.” Her gaze caught on something on the other side of the patio, and her eyes widened. “Holy shit, he actually showed.”
“Who?” Mia craned her neck, trying to see who Andie was talking about.
“My brother.”
Mia’s stomach did another one of those annoying flips as she caught sight of Josh, who supposedly never went anywhere.
Chapter Ten
As if the stomach flip hadn’t been enough, Mia’s heart stuttered when Josh’s gaze met hers—which was how she knew exactly how far gone she was.
Dammit. The last thing