We had one full day of vacation without any major drama. Ant and Isabelle had an arguement which was the highlight of lunch. But other than that we swam, ran, ate. Those of us with significant others had sex. And I know cause I walked in on Matt and Laker that morning when I was looking for Hunter’s shoe. Which wasn’t in the shared room he was in – where the boys were catching some alone time.
Lake was blood red as soon as he saw me, but Matt was beaming. I don’t know if it was pride or lust, but he only barely was aware that I’d seen him fucking my brother. Not a sight I was likely to forget anytime soon.
And idiot me walked in on Ant and Izzy after their fight. But they were making out on the couch after everyone had gone to bed. Alex and I were thirsty so I volunteered to get us a glass of wine. Not my thing, but it was vacation and Alex had wanted a real drink and he didn’t do beer – this was our in between go to.
Alex and I had had our first round pre-Ant-Izzy walk in. And a second round after we finished the bottle of wine.
Day three started out wonderful, until I got a phone call forwarded to my phone from Jin. Something she wasn’t doing, but apparently it was important enough to do that. “Hello?” I answered the unknown call.
“Mr. Sétanta?”
“Yes ma’am,” I said still unsure of who this was as I didn’t recognize the voice either.
“I’m Sherry O’brien down here at Oberon Charter School, where your children are supposed to start this next school year with.”
“Yes, Ms. O’brien.” I still had no clue what was going on.
“I just received some bad news. Apparently we have over booked our enrolment and your children will be unable to attend.”
I frowned. “Really? And is my bank account going to be refunded?”
She spluttered. “Mr. Sétanta, our fees are non-refundable.”
“I don’t give a flying fuck. You aren’t teaching my kids. You overbooked. This is not my fault. You will have the money in my bank account by the end of the day today, or I will be having my lawyers contacting you.”
“Mr. Sétanta, that isn’t going to work for us.”
“Then you will be seeing my lawyers first thing in the morning, Ms. O’brien.” I hung up the phone.
“Fuck!”
“What was that all about?” Alex asked.
“The school Dorian set up for the kids just told me they didn’t have room for them and don’t want to refund the money. Which tells me they have room, they expect to keep the money, and someone is trying to keep my kids from normal schools.”
“You think it’s Venatori intervention?” Ant asked.
“I know it is. Can you get Larry on it? I guess I need to hire a retainer for myself.”
Ant laughed. “Mother said her people are your people, and they are more than happy to help you change the world one thing at a time. Why else would she give up Ryan.”
“The others can do work for anyone, and while you don’t pay, your favors mean more,” Ant said.
“Can you do that?” I asked as my phone rang again. “What?” I asked.
“Is that the way to answer your phone Mr. Sétanta?” Ms O’brien scolded me.
“To a woman who is being a jackass yes, ma’am it is. I told you my lawyers will be in touch with you tomorrow morning.”
She spoke quickly before I had a chance to hang up. “I will have the money returned to your account by the end of business today, there is no need to have your lawyers here.”
“If the money isn’t here by end of business today, Ms. O’brien, you will be seeing my lawyer in the morning.”
“Understood.” I hung up before she got the full word out.
I sighed. “So now what?” The Venatori were going to make my life a living hell on top of trying to kill me.
“I can home school them,” Isabelle said. “I’m a certified teacher, but we can purchase on-line curriculum for each of them. I’ll get together with other home schools and extracurriculars for the boys, and you have their magical abilities all covered right?” She looked happy. “And we would be able to keep them safe at the Night Life building.”
I looked at the boys who were all playing video games. Hunter was as usual curled up in one of their laps watching, but he never played. I didn’t understand why. Alex muttered in my head He’s like his Dad.
I still didn’t know why. I didn’t know why I didn’t particularly care for them. I just shrugged and smiled at Alex. “What do you guys think?” I knew they’d been listening.
“Dad would be happier if we didn’t get involved in all that New York Gang shit. So he’d be cool with it. And we know more supernatural kids than we do normal ones, so it’s cool either way,” Laker said.
“And you already have a boyfriend – so meeting new people means nothing to you.” Rider laughed. “Having said that, I’m good, Nox I might want to take up Dance or Photography or something.”
“Or Cooking,” I suggested. “I bet Marco would absolutely love to have another boy to boss around.”
Rider’s eyes went wide. “But that won’t be something that I can do with girls.” But the look on his face was more convincing – he liked the idea of learning from a master chef.
Alex sighed. “This looks like a sign – we probably need to get back home. I’ve got to check on Benji, if they are giving you problems with the kids – they might be giving us problems with the club.”
Everyone sighed, but everyone also got up and started packing. Alex looked at me and smiled. Sorry, pretty boy.
“For what?” I asked out loud.
“Cutting it short,” Alex added.
I shrugged. “We have forever together, not all of it will be fun.”
Alex laughed. “God I hope more of it is fun. No more dying on me.”
“At least I should wake back up,” I quipped.
He rolled his eyes. “As long as you have a head – right?”
“That’s the going theory.” I smiled brightly at him as I got up and started putting things where they went so when we came back later it wouldn’t drive both Alex and I up a wall. It was back to reality now. Life wasn’t going to wait for us to be ready for it.
The Mind of Nox 