I nodded. “He didn’t invite you here.”
“No matter.” He waved away my concern. “You know me. Look, I brought my sons and nephew to meet you. Roman, Sebastian, Caden—introduce yourselves.”
All three boys stepped up on our cracked cement porch. None of them looked like boys, though. They were tall with wide shoulders that guys at my school didn’t have. They filled out their dark jeans and collared shirts, none of which had a single wrinkle in them. Dark hair, dark eyebrows, and dark stares, none of them smiled at first. These weren’t children. These were young men, molded by the experiences they’d already had. Not good ones either.
The night air blew cold around us, filled with a grim tension none of us could quite shake. The son that stood in the middle of them all stepped forward first, smiling at me with straight white teeth as if that would slice away at the gravity of whatever was about to happen that night. He held out his hand. “I’m Bastian.” He pointed his other thumb over his shoulder. “No need to meet the others. You’ll only need me.”
I glanced behind him, and my eyes caught on the one who lingered back just a bit. His hair was longer, and his dark eyes stared through me like I was nothing. I tilted my head at his assessment, and he crossed his massive arms over his chest. He didn't smile; he didn’t step forward to introduce himself like Caden, Bastian’s brother, did.
We stared at each other like a war was beginning, a power struggle that would last decades. None of them could have been much older than me, but he seemed to be tearing apart my soul in those moments, sifting through all of me and finding every hidden part of who I was. I wanted to look away but I couldn’t rip my eyes from his. They captivated me like no other person’s could have.
A creak in the hardwood floors had me jumping away from the door as my father hobbled up, clearly woken from his bed. “Mario,” he said from behind me. “I told you I didn’t want help.”
“Doug, you’ve worked for me for twenty years,” the old man with peppered streaks in his dark hair retorted. Then he clenched a fist, his large gold ring on his pinky finger digging into his flesh.
“I cut your lawn and fixed some light bulbs, nothing more.”
“Ah, you’re everything more. You’re family. I can get you a nurse. Just someone to help around the house, huh?”
“No.” My father glared at him and then turned to me. “Katalina, go upstairs.”
At fifteen, I knew my father’s tone. That low, measured command meant business even if I didn’t want to listen. I glanced at the boys, and one side of Bastian’s mouth turned up while the boy whose name must have been Roman stared off into the darkness. “Dad, I can show them my room . . . so they don’t get too chilled?”
He contemplated the options for a second. “Only for a minute.”
I nodded and waved them all in. Slowly walking up our scuffed hardwood stairs, each step creaking beneath us, I was suddenly self-conscious. Had I cleaned my room, made my bed? Was there a bra on the floor?
I sighed and turned the rusted knob. “Sorry for any mess. I didn’t expect—”
“No need to apologize. Thanks for inviting us in.” Bastian glanced around the room, and his eyes fell on my laptop with papers piled next to it.
I cleared my throat. “I’ve just been trying to learn as much about his disease as I can.”
Every paper looked crinkled, worn at the edges, and had highlights where I found ways to make my father’s Parkinson’s more bearable.
“You can’t save him,” Rome said, his voice just above a whisper, but the words pounded loudly on my heart, sending my walls flying up.
I glared at the one who was trying to crush a dream that wasn’t even there. “I know I can’t save him. I didn’t say I’d accomplish that. I’m researching for his comfort, not a miracle.”
I knew better than anyone that miracles didn’t exist. I didn’t need a drop-dead gorgeous guy with hollow eyes to tell me that.
Cade jumped in, trying to ease the tension in the room. “Our mother passed when we were young. I understand doing what you can to help him.”
“She doesn’t need to know our business.” Rome’s arms were still over his chest, and he stared out the window. His eyes bounced to the door when he heard a rickety squeak coming from downstairs.
“Just my dad’s rocker. Doors and walls are thin here.” I shrugged because I knew they probably all came from money. My father only cut lawns for people who could afford it. “Not that you’re used to that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Rome’s chest puffed up like he knew it was an insult.
“It means if my dad cut your lawns,” I motioned toward them all, smiling as I took in their name brand attire, their dark jeans with engineered weathering and faded spots, “you’re not used to a home like mine.”
“Your daddy cuts my uncle’s lawn. Bastian and Cade live there.” He glanced at them, and then his dark eyes fell on me like a ton of bricks. The weight of his stare crushed me, smashed my confidence, reminded me I was in a roomful of guys much bigger than me that I knew nothing about. “Not me.”
“And you live where, exactly?” I raised myself up onto my tiptoes, trying to appear as big and bad as they seemed, and spun to look at myself in the mirror hanging from my door. I fluffed my black-and-pink curls. I’d dyed my hair a few weeks back, taking pleasure in the fact that I could change my look any day I wanted. “You don’t go to school around here.”
I would have remembered him, the way he stood there like life could pass him by and he wouldn’t even raise an eyebrow. He wanted nothing to do with the world, or maybe the world wanted nothing to do with him. He had that black ink of a soul that washed over a person, that made even me feel darker.
He wasn’t like the normal boys that went to my school. I walked the halls, and they turned to stare at me, at my changing hair colors, my mercurial looks, and my always-different-than-their-own skin tone. I scared the normal ones, but Rome wasn’t one of them.