Rocking Kin (Lucy & Harris, #3) - Terri Anne Browning Page 0,11

gone into foster care after our parents had abandoned us, but hadn’t stayed there very long. I’d felt safer at the foster home, and there hadn’t been anyone who looked at Kassa the way those strangers had. Alicia St. Charles had shown up out of nowhere, wanting to adopt a little girl, but when she’d seen me with Kassa she’d taken us both. The court system had done cartwheels to get the paperwork taken care of in only a fraction of the time it normally would have taken for Kassa and me to become hers.

Almost overnight I’d gone from sleeping in a bunk bed in my foster family’s guest bedroom, to sleeping in a king-sized bed in my own room. I’d learned quick that Alicia St. Charles was a woman like few others. She was a powerful woman in the judicial system in Bristol, Virginia. She was a ballbreaker in the court room. At home, though, she was a loving mother to my sister and me. Alicia took care of us, loved us as if we had been born to her.

Our new peaceful family didn’t last long, however.

Less than a year after we’d become officially hers, Gray’s mother had died and his father had pushed Gray off onto his sister-in-law, Alicia. Alicia hadn’t even blinked when she became responsible for yet another kid—even the moody pre-teen her nephew had been. She welcomed her late sister’s son with open arms, treating him like her own son as much as she did me.

Gray was a year older than me, and he let that year gap be known really quick from the moment he moved in with us. Twelve to my eleven at the time, we’d butted heads from the moment Gray had taken up the room on the other side of my sister’s. He was always trying to outdo me at everything. If I made a team at school, he became captain. If I liked a girl, he kissed her first. If I wanted a new game or toy, he’d either played it already or broke it before I could touch it.

Alicia hadn’t understood why Gray and I couldn’t get along when we were growing up. At least once a week she had to break up a fight between the two of us. I knew it broke her heart, but I couldn’t help not liking her nephew.

Maybe I’d been jealous. Or maybe it was because Gray really was a douchebag at times. I didn’t know which it was, and hadn’t taken the time to examine my feelings. Through my eyes, I’d always thought Gray was a dick. He took what he wanted, when he wanted, and didn’t care about the consequences.

The only things we had ever agreed on was taking care of my sister and Tainted Knights. Those two things were really all that mattered, though, so it was enough to make me tolerate the guy.

Most of the time anyway.

I was on my second cup of coffee before I had the brain power to go back to my room and get rid of Hook-up Girl. It took nearly half an hour to get her out of the apartment. She was a clinger and I couldn’t stand clingy chicks. Nothing turned me off faster than a chick who used whiny, temper tantrums to get their way. By the time I was alone, it was after four in the afternoon. I needed a shower and something to eat before I headed over to First Bass later.

Tainted Knights’ contract with Harris Cutter was only for weekly shows on Thursday nights. The rest of the time was our own. Gray and I didn’t have to get an extra job because Alicia took care of our bills, so the money we made at First Bass was plenty for us. The other guys weren’t as lucky and had extra jobs that took up a big part of their down time.

I didn’t have to go to First Bass as often as I did, but I liked hanging out with Harris. He’d become a close friend. Maybe the only one I really had. I wasn’t tight with my bandmates. We played music together—killer music—but that was all. I didn’t hang out with Kale, Sin, or Cash unless we were partying after a show. Gray was their friend, not me.

I was getting out of the shower when my cell started going off. I picked it up as I wrapped a towel around my waist and looked down at the picture of