(If you re-read the first few chapters, you'll know that Marv is their driver.)
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"What's that?"
Silas looked down to where Zaiden's right pointer finger was poking into his chest, only to have Zaiden's hand fly up and hit him upside in the nose. Zaiden chuckled as Silas deadpanned his face at him.
Callan came down the stairs, fixing his cufflinks, "children, please."
"Ah, there he is. The birthday boy. How does it feel to be at fossil age?" Zach smirked. Callan scoffed, coming to the bottom of the stairs where they all stood, minus Zayne and Brynn. He brought his hands up to fix Zach's collar, only for Zach to take a step back.
"Be nice, Zach," Brayden chastised, "we don't know if his heart could take as much ridicule as it used to."
Callan hmphed, fixing his blazer, leaving the six of them in silence until they heard footsteps at the top of the staircases from Zayne and Brynn making their way down. They got to the bottom, Brynn waking a step away from Zayne and lightly dusting the bottom of the dress as a way of keeping herself occupied.
After a while though, she was still dusting because it was silent. Why weren't they conversing?
She looked up to be met with all seven of them staring at her with some blank and some dumbfounded faces. She felt hot, "what?"
They weren't saying anything. Brynn looked back down to see if there was anything on her dress, "what's wrong?" They were making her anxious. She'd go and put on something else if-
Zayne blinked and fixed the front of his suit which already looked fine, "well." The rest of them looked up at him a little out of it. "The limo's waiting out front."
That brought Brynn out of her thinking, there was a limo? Cool.
Brayden cleared his throat, "uh yeah." Bringing his left hand to Brynn's middle back, he pushed gently, "come on, you." Brynn went along with him, doing her best to ignore the rest of her brothers' watching her as they walked to the front door.
She hadn't actually went through the front door for a while now. Usually, she only left the house when she was being driven somewhere by her brothers which meant she went through the garage, so this was something exciting for her already. And the dinner hadn't even properly started yet.
Brayden opened the front door, revealing a black, outstretched limo at the bottom of the porch steps. Brynn's mouth gaped a little as she and Brayden made their way down the concrete steps. The man leaned down to her right. "I love your dress, sweetheart. You look beautiful."
Brynn blushed no she didn't. The embarrassed girl turned to his smiling face and looked him up and down. "Thank you. You do too."
Brayden grinned, "I look beautiful?"
"The beautifulest," Brynn responded, using the back of her cool left hand to subtly check if she felt as hot as she probably looked.
He chuckled, giving a soft kiss to her forehead and standing up. Now right at the back of the limo, he opened the slick, black door, gesturing for Brynn to get in. "Madame." Brynn chuckled, "thank you."
She got in, admiring the spacious lavish inside before having to make a split second decision of where she should sit. She didn't want to get it wrong.
If she sat close to the door, she might get in the way of people coming in and all her brothers were coming in. The very end seemed to be the best place.
She ducked down slightly and walked to the front, taking notice of the driver's seat which had Marv sitting in it, smiling in the rearview mirror. "Good evening, Brynn."
She smiled, sitting down, "hey. How are you?" A wider smile crinkled the corners of his eyes, "very good, thank you. Excited for tonight?"
You could say that. "Yes."
Brayden took a seat by Brynn, on in between them. "Good evening, Marv," he greeted, loosening the buttons on his blazer to sit down comfortably. Marv nodded, "sir," then reached forward to press a button and suddenly a wall was splitting up the driver's space and the large back space. The girl was taken back, cars could do anything nowadays.
Not so long after the divider thing was put up, Callan entered, taking the seat between Brayden and Brynn. Then everybody else entered and the vehicle started moving. The ride was made up of small conversation and arriving, Brynn was told to stay close by Callan.
Being told to stay close to him didn't make sense to her until they actually exited the car and were met with a lot of flashes. Brynn felt her breathing increase violently at the volume of people's voices and the tightly packed situation she was in being squished so close to Callan's right side. It felt like it took forever to be in the restaurant and properly seated, but realistically, it didn't take more than two minutes. Brynn felt like she could breathe entering the restaurant. It was definitely... fancy.
It had a quiet ambience and low chatter and the table they were showed to even had their names in each seat. It was a rectangular table with Callan sat at the end- his seat even had a happy birthday balloon. Brynn had the seat to his right, Zayne to his left and next to Zayne was Brayden and Zach. Next to Brynn was Zaiden and Silas and Ezra sat on the other end to Callan.
Brynn sat comfortably, looking around the table to see her brothers picking up the papers which were in their places. She looked to her place and saw the same paper, the menu. She picked up, her brothers were doing it which meant she had to, too. They were scanning theirs, so she did too.
Before having any real chance of reading anything on it besides the title, 'Menu', it was taken from her hands. She blinked, watching it rise and then go to the right to the front of Zaiden.
That's okay. She wasn't that hungry anyway.
Zaiden reached into the middle of the table, taking a fancy-looking pen from a rose-gold pot. He put Brynn's menu down in front of him and wrote on it. No one was stopping him and there was no way in hell Brynn was going to. Didn't he have his own to doodle on though? she thought, moving one the many forks a little straighter by their end.
Instead of dwelling more thought into it, she was silent. She was feeling a little sick anyway-
"Here."
She blinked once aggressively when her recently taken menu was displayed in front of her face. Zaiden was looking at his own menu as he held hers. Taking the paper, she re-looked over the menu to inspect the changes made. He wrote something under every dish or drink mentioned. Translations
The entire menu was in Italian and Zaiden translated everything so she didn't have to ask like an idiot. He did something which helped her not look stupid and she'd always be grateful for someone doing that for her.
"Thank you," she said, looking at him. His eyes stopped scanning the menu for a second before they looked over to her. He looked for two seconds before he cleared his throat and nodded, going back to reading his menu.
Brynn read through hers too. She didn't want to seem picky or anything, but she would prefer something simple. Not something where she doesn't know what half the vegetables are. If they had chips on the side, that was a good start. It was physically impossible to go wrong with chips anywhere. They were like a safety net.
In scrawly writing, Zaiden wrote the different sections too; Starters, Mains and Desserts. Basically three meals. Brynn was going to eat basically three meals. For Callan, though. She was going to do it for Callan. She wasn't going to be scolded at for not eating enough on Callan's birthday dinner on Callan's day. That was selfish.
So when it came to her giving Brayden her order, she chose the meals which she thought would be the smallest. For the starter, courgette fries with spicy chilli mayonnaise. For the main, pasta carbonara and for dessert, fragola (strawberry) ice-cream.
Whilst waiting for the food, Callan opened his presents, which was, by far, Brynn's favourite part of the night. He opened Zayne's present first, grinning at the shoes and thanking him in what Brynn knew was Italian.
He laughed at Zaiden's inappropriate mug, holding it to Brynn so she could get a better look. Brynn acted surprised too and chuckled even though she already knew what Zaiden had got. Callan seemed to really love it.
He didn't even expect anything of Ezra either. Brynn guessed it was a known thing in the family that Ezra didn't 'do gifts'.
What surprised Brynn was the fact that Callan hadn't expected anything from her either. None of them did, and they acted like it wasn't a big deal, but to Brynn it was. She didn't even manage to write that stupid card.
And Callan was acting like it didn't bother him! Any gift given to him, he'd straight away show her and let her hold it.
He was probably pretending it didn't bother him, though. That made Brynn feel worse.
Another part of her that felt worse was her stomach, even at the mere anticipation of knowing food was coming. And when the food was set in front of her, she couldn't believe that it was possible for it to feel worse.
Every dish sent her insides spiralling and her throat started to hurt with the amount of food she had to force-feed herself, so much so that the only thing she found nice about the ice-cream was the soothingness it had it her throat.
Half-way through her ice-cream, more people entered the restaurant and were greeted. Brynn was naturally curious, but knew it would be rude to look up at stare so she didn't. Apparently, Zach did not have that policy.
He looked over straight over then whipped his head back, "oh, shit."
"Zach," Brayden scolded, but also taking a look himself and then doing exactly what Zach did. "Oh."
Brynn's eyebrows furrowed, now she had to look.
At the front entrance stood Ms Gren and a man who looked to be her husband. They were speaking to the lady who would show them their tables.
The whole table was looking that way now, shamelessly. Zayne was the first to turn his head back, "stop staring." The siblings did so, but that didn't stop their chatter.
"How is she here?" Ezra moving his ice-cream around in the dish and taking a few sneaky looks.
"No, literally, how on a Math teachers' salary?" Zach snorted, looking with no shame and causing the less mature ones of the table to laugh quietly. Brynn didn't know if she should laugh. Ms Gren wasn't the kindest to her, but she didn't know if it was acceptable to laugh.
"With her new husband's, by the looks of it," Silas responded, chuckling afterwards. "They got married last summer remember?"
"Yes, we never did get an invite to that, did we? Rather rude considering Zayne is the reason they're together," Zaiden said, smirking in the couples' direction.
That had Brynn's attention and remembering something. Zayne did something to Ms Gren that made her hate all of them, if Brynn's Math notes were anything to go by. And no one had told her yet what it was. She'd have to get an answer now, right? It's been made known to the table.
"What did Zayne do?" She didn't look directly at Zayne when asking, nor did she particularly ask him. She didn't know what Zayne's reaction would be because it could have been a touchy subject.
The question to the table was unanswered for a few seconds, they looked at one another and then to Zayne who remained blank faced.
"What didn't he do?" Ezra muttered into his coca cola and taking a sip.
"It was petty and immature," Zayne spoke, his eyes on Brynn as she shifted uncomfortably. Did she even want to know anymore?
"It was funny, that's what it was," Ezra responded, placing his glass down. Yeah, she had to know.
"Are you telling her, or are we?" Silas asked, aiming the question at Zayne who didn't look phased by the sudden stare down by the majority of the table.
It took awhile, but eventually Zayne spoke. "No."
And that was the end of that.
After dessert, a man came to the table, handing Zayne three sets of keys subtly before leaving. Zayne stood, the rest of his brothers following, gathering their jackets and naturally, Brynn doing the same thing because her brothers were doing it.
He threw one set to Ezra at the end and then to Callan. "Ezra, you drive Zach and Zaiden home. Silas and Brayden, with me and Brynn, you stay with Callan." He was ordering the whole table what to do, but it felt like he was more stern when ordering what Brynn was supposed to do. She nodded, "yeah. I'll stay with Callan."
The atmosphere around her felt thick, it softening a little when Callan placed a hand on her shoulder, "of course you will. Come on, hun."
As they went towards the back of the restaurant, the rest stayed at the table, still collecting their things and talking about something. Callan squeezed her shoulder, bringing her attention back to him as he opened one of the backdoors. It was an uncrowded car park, with Callan's black Mercedes to the left of it.
They walked halfway to it before a snapping sound was heard and Brynn was pulled behind Callan, who looked towards where the sound came from. She looked up at him, confused.
"It was probably a bird of something," she said, trying to look where he was but she couldn't see anything.
Callan seemed to take a while before he nodded and ushered her closer to the car, opening the passenger door and was rather pushy getting her onto the seat. Once she was in, the door was shut and Callan sped-walked over the hood of the car, getting into his driver's seat. He exhaled sharply and started the car.
It was like he couldn't wait to get out of there. The girl stayed silent as he drove, stringing her hands together atop her lap and crossing her ankles over, left over right, then right over left, rapidly doing it in a way that caused the eczema on them to become even redder.
His attitude change suddenly made sense when she had time to think about it. He was mad at her for not getting him anything and now he doesn't have to pretend it's fine in front of everyone else.
Her face didn't hide her guilt at the sudden realisation either; her mouth was parted, her eyebrows were drooped and her eyes didn't leave the dashboard.
Callan really wasn't saying anything. He really really wasn't saying anything. She felt cold as her knees started shaking, but she wasn't physically chilly. It was like she was mentally making herself feel like this in response to her guilt. Like the guilt was building up and it was building up so much that her body couldn't contain it, therefore it was emitting the feeling physically, ergo the slight shaking.
She winced inside, you can make up that excuse, but not write a simple card telling Callan how much you love him?
Braving a look at Callan, the guilty feeling now made its way to her eyes. Her head hung low, he looked more serious than she'd ever seen him.
She couldn't even take a proper breath in, for fear of Callan hearing her choke on the feeling.
With her head down and eyesight nowhere but the dress that covered her knees, she relied on the movement of the car to tell her the whereabouts of where they were. Callan had just turned into their driveway and parked in front of the house. He undid his seatbelt and sighed, "right-"
"I hope you know how much you mean to me," Brynn muttered, saying the one thing that she needed Callan to know.
Callan's mouth was parted still from being interrupted and partly from surprise, his head turning to the small girl in the passenger seat, who seemed to want to look anywhere but him.
"Brynn-"
"'Cause you mean a lot. And I wanted to show that through a present which you'd really like, but I didn't have money, Brayden will tell you, and I didn't know what to do," she took a deep, shaky inhale, "so Aubrey and Penny said I should write you a card and I tried, I really really tried, Callan, but I couldn't think of anything to write."
Brynn had to take another breath, now annoyingly scraping the pesky tears that escaped through her closed eyelids. "And you opened all your gifts tonight and I didn't have anything to give you and I'm really really sorry, please don't be mad or think I don't love you because I do. I do, I promise. I love you heaps, Callan. Please don't tell the rest, but you're one of my favourite people. You mean so much to me."
The final part was practically the lowest of whispers but it was heard the man, who didn't move. Brynn could hear her own breathing, which she wished would currently stop right now.
Without warning, Callan moved which caused Brynn to jump a little. Rather than being met with the feeling of something harsh on her flesh, the harshness met with her eardrums as Callan got out the car and slammed his door shut.
Brynn breathed a sob and looked up. What had she done?
She saw Callan storm his way around the top of the car before he came right to her door. She recoiled herself into the console as he opened the door and reached over to undo her seatbelt, his hands coming up under her arms as she was lifted out the car and held up against him. His arms tightened securely around her torso as he moved to sit in the passenger seat with his legs out the car. Brynn froze when Callan's face was pushed into her shoulder as his shoulders shook a little. She tried to lean away but she was being held real tight. "Callan?"
He held tighter, "this is my favourite gift."
Brynn's harsh breathing stopped. She closed her eyes and let herself be hugged by her brother. Her brother, who would never hurt her.
Seven seconds later, she heard other cars begin to pull up into the driveway. She tried to pull away, "we should-"
"Sh."
---
Saturday mornings can go a lot of ways.
They can go a lot of ways. Brynn's Saturday morning consisted of being hunched over the toilet, feeling the strongest urge to throw up but having nothing come up or out.
Her throat felt like it was constantly constricting tighter and tighter and her head was throbbing considerably. It was weird, she had a full stomach and yet nothing was coming out. It needed to, but it wouldn't. It was like her body was refusing what it urged to do because having a full stomach didn't feel right. Her throat was saying it had had enough and couldn't take anywhere and it was taking a toll on her stomach pains and headaches.
She heard her bedroom door, standing up from the toilet and hearing, "Brynn?" It was Ezra.
She didn't have time to check herself in the mirror and she didn't want to. She felt the paleness. She unlocked the bathroom door and opened it. Ezra stood at the end of her bed with his hands on his hips. His eyes narrowed the second he heard the door unlock and they zoned in on her when she made herself known.
"What's up?" she asked, rubbing some guck out of her right eye to play off the fact that she looked exhausted, hoping he'd pass it off as her just waking up.
That wasn't true though, she'd been up since five fifty eight am, needing to throw up but not being successful. It was seven eighteen am now.
Ezra finally talked, after she'd relentlessly rubbed her eye to sell her act. "You have to come to the studio with me."
"Did Zayne say-"
"Yes. He did. I wouldn't choose this willingly. Get dressed and meet me downstairs in five."
He left, leaving the girl to wince at the door slamming loudly. Everything seemed so vibrant and loud.
She tried to focus on different things. She had five minutes to brush her teeth, her hair, change into something comfortable and get downstairs. She did those in six minutes, finding something else to focus on on the way downstairs. She didn't have to eat any breakfast. Thank god.
That small piece of excitement was diminished when Ezra dragged her to the garage the second she stepped off the staircase. "Come on, we're late as it is."
He complained the whole way to the boxing studio, making Brynn's headache worse. He complained as they made their way in. "Move, Brynn. Come on, you're making me late."
He complained when she spent ages walking to his office. He complained when she took ages getting to the couch to sit down. He complained when she needed to go to the toilet. He complained when he was getting something out of the storage closet and she knocked over a box from the top shelf trying to help.
"Goddammit, Brynn! Just leave it, I've got it," he muttered angrily, picking the box up more aggressively than needed. Brynn took a step back as he put the box back and took a shaky inhale in.
Her head hurt, her throat ached, she needed to throw up and everything was so loud. Ringing sounded from the depths of her eardrums and it increased. It got louder and louder and unbearably louder so much so that she couldn't hear herself think.
Ezra kept muttering things, "just stay quiet, for once, will you?" He crumpled an empty box and threw it to his left. "It's not hard. I don't need you getting in my way. I don't know why Zayne even-"
All she could hear was him. Not Ezra, him. And then Ezra. It was all she could hear alongside the piercing rings.
"Then you knock the boxes over and I have to clean up your mess. Why can't you just-"
"SHUT THE FUCK UP EZRA!"
The ringing stopped.
Ezra's back straightened up as he slowly turned around. Breathing had never felt this hard before.
"It's not fair!" Since the ringing stopped, she could hear her thoughts again and they were telling her to shut up, shut up and shut up!
"It's not fair!" Ezra didn't look livid or even slightly angry. He looked... concerned? His eyes scanned over her face, clearly detecting that something was not right. Something that had gone unnoticed for a while now.
"Brynn...?"
"It- it's not fair, Ezra! You- you can't just speak to me like that! I- I didn't do anything!" she gasped breaths really hard.
Ezra dropped the box he was holding and took a step forward with his hand out only to bring it back when she took a wonky step back.
"And- and- and-" she didn't even know where she was going with her speech. She was so dizzy. And the ringing had returned as did the pounding headache. "It's not fair."
Ezra didn't care if she was recoiling backwards, he came right up in front of her and placed the back of his left hand on her forehead.
Brynn's vision went to nothingness as she swayed, "I need to throw up."
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laugh out loud
<3