Fortunate Son by Jay Crownover

Bowe

THE LAST THING I was expecting to encounter after dragging myself home from a band practice that lasted way longer than it should have was a heartbroken, seemingly devastated Ryier Archer. The only time I crossed paths with any of the Archer family was on holidays or during summer vacations when my parents dragged me to Denver for a couple of months each year. Since that one fateful summer when I was sixteen, I spent less and less time with my childhood friends. I loved my life in Austin, and often resented being dragged into all the memories and relationships that made up my parents’ past. I was very much a live-for-the-moment type of girl, and I didn’t enjoy being pulled away from my friends and my interests at home. I’d skipped the last visit to Denver for Christmas and was fully planning on staying in Austin for the summer, even though my parents had heavily hinted that they wanted me to tag along this year. I was living on my own now and trying to make my own choices without feeling guilty or ungrateful for all they had done for me. It was a struggle I’d yet to master.

I had twin sisters, Yves and Zola, who were several years younger than I was. Neither one of them appreciated my new level of defiance, because it meant they couldn’t convince our parents to let them skip working and other activities this summer. If I wasn’t going, there would be no concessions. My mom and dad struggled to have more kids after I came along. It was something they were very open about. They were transparent with me when they decided to pursue giving me a sibling through in-vitro fertilization. It hadn’t been an easy process for anyone in our small family. It took more than one attempt before they were successful. As a result, my little sisters were often viewed as the miracles they were and frequently got their way. We all treated them like they were precious and special. They might be the only soft spot I had, and the only ones who would get me to go back on my resolve to avoid Denver at all costs. Or at least, they were the only soft spot I would ever admit to.

I would rather die that admit to the other tender, sensitive spot I harbored in my icy heart to anyone. Especially to myself. Unfortunately, that secret spot had blown wide open and was aching like crazy because the boy who claimed it was currently standing in front of me looking like a heartbroken zombie.

Even as young children, Ry Archer and I were always on opposite sides of any situation. We bickered endlessly and never saw eye-to-eye on anything. Fighting with Ry was as easy as breathing, and our endless conflicts, big and small, played a pretty big part in why I didn’t want to pull myself out of my own life just to play the recurring villain in his. We were old enough now; there was no need to be forced to endure the other’s company. There was no reason either of us had to suffer.

We didn’t have to be bombarded with memories of that night where one of our legendary fights over something small suddenly erupted into something else. To this day I had no clue how an argument led to clothes coming off and both of us looking at each other like the other person had all the answers in the world. Sure, Ry was hot, and smart, and popular. But he was also stubborn, abrupt, and overly opinionated. One might call it the heat of the moment, because it had been combustible, but all of that warmth and affection that hid under animosity turned to ash the second Ry decided he regretted letting things go too far, and he immediately pulled away. We had always had a weird intimacy between us that was closer than a friendship, but it wasn’t until he pushed me away on purpose and found someone who was my total opposite that I realized enemies might know each other better than friends ever did.

Now, I didn’t have to let his perceived perfection irk me. And my absolute lack of conformity and disregard of the rules no longer needed to bother him.

It was never easy between the two of us, but over the last few years, while he’d been dating Aston Wheeler, things had morphed into being unbearable inside my heart. There were several reasons for the discontent between the two of us, but I only let myself think about them when I was alone and feeling particularly melancholy and introspective. Mostly when I was making music or writing lyrics.

Ry was a good inspiration for sad songs.

None of that mattered at the moment, though, because Ry looked like he was on the verge of tears, or like he was about to collapse at my feet. I grabbed his stupidly attractive face and looked into his icy blue eyes. It might be the first time that Ry Archer allowed himself to show any kind of weakness or vulnerability to me. So, while a big part of me wanted to turn him back around and send him on his way, I knew I couldn’t kick him while he was down. Instead, I practically dragged him inside and situated him on my second-hand couch before he crashed and burned.

One minute he was looking at me with his broken heart in his eyes, the next, he was knocked out and oblivious to the world around him. I was stunned when I took a good look at his sleeping face and noticed he had dried tear tracks on his ridiculously chiseled cheeks. The Ry I knew was so emotionally repressed I wasn’t sure he even knew how to cry. The boy who was currently unmoving in my living room was not the same Ry Archer I knew how to handle.

The Ry I knew and loathed was the top student. The best boyfriend. The highly awarded athlete and super-reliable teammate. The beloved older brother. The steadfast cousin. The revered son and the unwaveringly loyal friend. He had no flaws and allowed for no mistakes. His stringent dedication to putting on a picture-perfect front was one of the main reasons we never got along. I had no time or patience for the pretense of perfection.

Even though it was frighteningly early in the morning, I pulled my cell out of my pocket and called Daire as I went in search of an extra blanket to toss over my unwanted guest. As much as I didn’t like Ry, I adored Daire. We were similar enough that she was one of the few friends in Denver I stayed in touch with no matter how chaotic or busy life got. We chatted a couple of times a week and kept each other in the loop. She also kept me up to date on what her brother was up to, even though I would rather pull my own teeth out than ask her about him. She never divulged just how much she knew about the secrets Ry and I shared, but she was intuitive and knew her older brother better than anyone. I was pretty sure even if Ry never said a word, Daire was smart enough to know there were reasons beyond our differences that attributed to Ry and me not getting along and not speaking for a length of time.

“You couldn’t call and give me a heads-up that your brother was going to show up on my doorstep? Do I even need to ask how he got my new address?” I asked the questions without saying hello as soon as Daire picked up my call. I’d only moved into the South Congress house a month or so ago. The rent was outrageous, but fortunately, my folks were helping me stay afloat until the two roommates I had lined up moved in. They were coming closer to the start of the next semester of school, so I was supposed to have the place to myself for most of the summer. Now I regretted giving Daire and Remy a virtual tour and my new address when they asked about it. I should’ve known Daire would pass that info onto her brother even if he didn’t outright ask for it. She was forever trying to get Ry and me to make up and go back to the way things were when we had an uneasy truce. I thought she would stop when he started dating her best friend, but her efforts to mend long-downed fences only increased as the years and the division went on.

The younger girl snorted, and I could hear her shifting around in bed as she snapped back, “If I told you, you wouldn’t have gone home and he would be left sitting in his truck all lost and forlorn after he drove through the night. Plus, I didn’t figure out where he was going until he was already near the border. He wasn’t exactly forthcoming with his plans. I had to guess. Is he okay?”

I cast a look over my shoulder where his huge body was taking up every inch of my couch. He looked pale, and his black hair had clearly been the victim of his agitated hands. His jeans had what looked like a grease stain on one thigh, and there was a hole in his faded t-shirt near the neck. All in all, it was the messiest, most disheveled version of Ry Archer I had ever seen.

“He’s here, but I don’t know that I’d call him okay. He looks like he’s been through the wringer.” I finally found a quilt my mom had made for me a couple of Christmases ago. It was made of a bunch of my dad’s old band t-shirts. All the different logos and designs from different tours and performances he’s put on through the years were there. It was totally nostalgic and personal. Even my dad had gotten choked up when he saw all the work and memories that had gone into the gift. I kept meaning to find somewhere in the new house to display it, but always seemed to get distracted by other things. Which was the story of my life. I had a hard time balancing my priorities, and everything, even the most important things, tended to lose out to my music and the songs in my head and heart.

I tiptoed back to the couch and carefully placed the soft material over the prone body of the boy I told myself I wanted nothing to do with now that I was finally out on my own.

Daire sighed heavily on the other end of the call, and I could almost visualize the cute and concerned face she was making. The girl looked like a literal angel with her almost white hair and super pale skin. However, looks were very fucking deceiving in her case because Ry’s little sister was a devil in disguise. She lived for mischief and fully lived up to her name. She wasn’t afraid of anything, and often let her curiosity lead her into trouble. She was fearless and fierce in ways I both feared and admired.

“Aston broke up with him. I think it’s the first time in Ry’s life he’s ever faced rejection. He’s going to see it as an epic failure. I’m not surprised he’s falling apart. He can’t stand to lose, and I know he’s going to figure out a way to make this all about him and whatever he’s lacking. He won’t take two seconds to think about the fact that Aston is probably going through something pretty major, or that this is just as hard for her. He’ll take all the blame and beat himself up over this forever.”

I sucked in a startled breath and made my way through the tiny house to my bedroom. I wasn’t planning on playing hostess any time soon, and the practice with my band had worn me out. I just wanted to crawl under my covers and sleep the whole dawning day away. “I can’t believe she dumped him. Those two are so much alike, I thought they would stay together forever. It took him forever to get Royce to agree to let him date his baby sister. Ry put the work in.”

Aston Wheeler was as much of a perfectionist as Ry. The girl was pretty close to being flawless, which was why I didn’t really care for her. Or rather, it was just one more reason I leaned toward being annoyingly jealous of her. I was too stubborn to admit that was really why I was standoffish and abrupt with her whenever all us kids got together. I much preferred spending time with her older brother. Royce was an artist. He was quirky and sensitive, but also a badass when it came to protecting his little sister who was often ill and frail when we were younger. He was a bit messy and irresponsible when it came to everything in his life, including romance, which made him easy for me to relate to. There was absolutely no reason rigid and unyielding Ry Archer should be the boy I had a problem forgetting. If the universe were fair, I would’ve fallen for Royce Wheeler all those years ago instead.

Daire sighed again. “She didn’t just break up with Ry; she also told him she’s going to college in California. She told him she wasn’t happy and hadn’t been in a long time. It’s totally out of character for her. They’ve been together for two years, and he had no idea she was planning on moving out of state after graduation. She didn’t tell him anything. I think he was blindsided by that as much as the breakup. She didn’t even tell me she was applying out of state. All of this was news to me as well. I want to shake her.”

I let out a low whistle as I worked on wrestling my boots off my feet. “I didn’t know she had it in her to be so secretive.” Aston seemed like such a sweet girl. I couldn’t imagine her keeping something so huge from not only her boyfriend, but also her bestie.

“She doesn’t. Which is why I’m sure there’s gotta be a reason behind her actions that neither Ry nor I know about. I’m worried about her, but my brother takes priority. He comes first, no matter what.” She made an amused sound that had me glaring into my empty room before she asked, “Want to explain to me why, out of everyone he knows, and all his friends who live way closer than you do, he ran to you? Why did he go looking for you, Bowe? He ran from the girl he supposedly loved more than anything right to you.”

I threw myself back on my bed and practically growled, “I’ll talk to you later, Daire. I’ll make sure your brother calls you once he wakes up and gets back to his regular self.”

I hung up the call on the sound of her knowing laughter.

I tossed my cell toward the empty side of the bed and lifted my hands to rub my tired eyes. I was going to smear dark eye makeup all over my face, but couldn’t muster up the energy to care or rouse myself to wash it all off before bed. Instead, I pulled my comforter around me and stayed sideways across the mattress as my eyes drifted closed.

I thought I was finally breaking free from all the complicated relationships that had haunted me throughout my teenage years. I loved my parents. My dad was my hero, and I wanted to be just like him when I grew up. He had a guitar in my hand and taught me how to play and write songs since the time I could understand what made music so magical. I always knew I wanted to pursue music instead of enrolling in college, much to my mother’s horror. Eventually, we had to come to a compromise after I failed my entire first semester. I only want to make her happy, which we both realized was a huge mistake.

It wasn’t that my brilliant mom was against me following in my father’s footsteps. It was more that she’d been with him through all the ups and downs that being a professional musician brought. She stayed with him when he had nothing and when almost everyone on the planet recognized his face. She knew how difficult it was to have a family and to keep a relationship together when one of the people involved gave half their heart to music and melodies. She reminded me repeatedly that while I was growing up, I had to share my dad with all the people who made it possible for him to do what he loved for a living. I knew she just wanted my life to be a little easier than that. She wanted me to have a secure future. She didn’t want me to sacrifice or go without the way she had to when my dad was on tour for long stretches of time. She often reminded me how often it was just me and her, and later on me, her, and the twins when my father was away. I hated it growing up, but I understood the sacrifice now that I was older.

Music meant everything to me, and I was willing to do whatever it would take, to sacrifice anything, to make my mark the way my father had. I wanted to make both my parents proud, but more than that, I wanted to chase after my dreams and accomplish great things because they mattered to me, not because I just happened to have a famous father.

I often butted heads with my more pragmatic and reasonable mother, but I never doubted for a second that she would love and support me regardless of the path I chose for myself. She was actually the more understanding parent when I started to put my foot down about being dragged to Denver whenever there was a reason for my family to get together with their longtime friends. She loved that she found a family that had helped she and my dad not only get together, but stay together whenever times got tough. My parents were inexplicably close to the friends they’d lived and worked with when they were my age. I understood they wanted the next generation to have the same kind of bonds and be the same kind of support system they had, but it wasn’t something that could be forced.

The twins and I had our own friends here in Austin, and while it was nice to know there was a whole group of people we could rely on in a pinch regardless of time and distance, they couldn’t be a part of the challenges and solutions that made up our everyday lives.

Plus, Ry was the epicenter of the relationships that connected everyone back in Colorado. He was the one we all circulated around and gravitated toward, whether we wanted to or not. He was either related by blood to half of them or the one who welcomed the new additions into the fold with open arms. There were a lot of us kids from the second generation running around. He was friendly and charming. He was levelheaded and calm. He was the one they turned to for advice and the one they looked up to as a role model. The fact he and I had always rubbed one another the wrong way always made me feel like an outcast. It made it harder to get close to the others who did nothing but sing his praises and fell for his practiced portrayal of perfection. I felt like I was the only person on the planet willing to call Ry out on his bullshit time and time again. I felt like I was the only one who could tell he was putting on a front, and that underneath that very pretty mask he wore, he was as much of a mess as the next conflicted and confused kid.

This was supposed to be the year I was finally free of him and all the warring emotions that invaded my entire being when I was forced to interact with him. I finally put my foot down and was going to keep the much-needed space between us so I could truly forget about him and our history together. There had to be other boys out there who could inspire songs about love and sorrow. I needed Ry off of my mind and out of my memories so I could focus on finding one.

I couldn’t believe he was sleeping on my couch right now.

I couldn’t believe his dream girl dumped him and had been hiding something as big as leaving the state from him.

I couldn’t believe she found the courage to tell him, to his face, he didn’t make her happy. It was so unlike her.

I couldn’t believe I was the one he turned to for comfort after all the harsh words and ugly accusations we had slung at each other the last time we were in the same room together. I was pretty sure we’d reached the mutual agreement to never speak again after that big blowout.

The only thing that wasn’t a surprise was that he still looked as good as ever. Even in his current, fucked-up state.

All those damn Archers were blessed with some outrageously superior genetics.

They were all tall, with striking good looks. Both Zowen and Ry took after their fathers with dark hair and inexplicably pale blue eyes. Both boys were in really good shape from playing sports. Ry played football, while Zowen preferred soccer. Ry was far more serious about his chosen sport than his cousin. Ry was still playing college ball, while Zowen had given up the game to focus on school when his grades started slipping. The Archer girls, Remy and Daire, looked more like their mothers who were fair and delicate. They were no less impressive than their siblings, even though they lacked the looming height and bulging muscles. Any one of them was a head-turner on their own. When the four of them were together, it was like they created their own magnetic force that made everyone around them unable to look away or focus on anything but them. The Archer effect was no joke.

Ry had always been astoundingly attractive. He’d also always known it.

It wasn’t that he was the conceited or egotistical type. More like, he’d always been the best at whatever it was he did, so of course, he would also be the best-looking guy wherever he went. I wanted to be irritated by his self-assurance, but he wasn’t wrong, so it was a challenge to call him out on his arrogance.

Honestly, today was the most real I’d ever seen him. All of that polish and shine he wore like armor had finally tarnished, but he still looked better than the average person. His hair was still thick and shiny, even when it was a ruffled mess. His body was still unbelievably ripped and gorgeously toned, even when he was dressed down and looked like he’d shoved his dinner in his face while driving eighty on the interstate. His face still looked like it’d been carved by a master sculptor, even when it was tearstained and slightly haggard. An unkempt Ry Archer was still the best-looking guy I’d ever seen in person. And I liked him better when his human side was showing.

I had to remind myself he was absolutely not my type. Not back when I ended up in bed with him, and not now. No matter how quickly he softened my hardened heart.

I never understood how a guy whose father owned and operated one of the biggest and most well-known tattoo shops in the US could be so clean-cut and proper. It wasn’t that Ry didn’t have any ink, but he definitely didn’t embrace the form of self-expression the way a lot of the older kids had who had grown up running around the different tattoo shops our parents either worked in or frequented. He could be covered in beautiful, colorful designs that made him stand out even when he was covered up in a football uniform. Instead, he only had one complicated, black and gray image that covered one of his muscular arms.

I thought it was simple and boring. My dad, who was covered in ink from all over the world, reminded me it was just as bad to judge someone for how normal they looked as it was to make assumptions based on how they decided to decorate their body. It wasn’t my place to question why Ry did or didn’t let his father put his famous and highly sought-after work all over him… but I did it anyway. Mostly because I felt like I needed to question everything Ry did.

The boy was beyond confusing.

So was the way I felt about him.

Because, while Aston Wheeler might be his first love and the one he picked as his perfect match… I was his first everything else… and he was my one and only.