Author's Note: This is the first chapter from the first book I ever had the courage to really commit to and publish. It might be complete crap. It might completely flop. It might be a total disaster... Okay, I'm regretting this a little bit. :/
Carter wiped at a single drop of sweat sliding down his temple.
The muscles in his legs burned with the strain of the final lap. His brown hair clung to his forehead in wet clumps. Every little streak of his will power went into forcing air steadily in and out of his lungs.
A thin layer of sweat stretched over his skin, hot and sticky, as he finally slowed to a stop at the end line. Slumping down on the ground felt like a really appealing option, but he stayed on both feet as the rest of the team finished.
Seth was right behind him by only a few seconds. He joined Carter on the side of the field, mimicking his position with their hands on their knees as they got a hold of their breathing. The next few members of the team were just a few steps behind.
Carter straightened his spine and rolled his shoulders back as the last of his teammates joined them. He could usually handle their regular dose of running, but Coach Mason had asked them to run a few extra laps that day, even after putting them through one of the roughest training sessions in Carter's memory.
Seth caught Carter's eye with a smirk. His fair face was spotless, his raven-black hair undamaged, except for the usual deliberate mussed up look. Carter thought about how he should look himself – damp hair, sweat-stained clothes and a red-splotched face – and felt a slight pang of envy towards his best friend. While Carter often only had to go through warm-up to start distilling, Seth could endure an entire practice without barely breaking a sweat.
"Alright, boys, that was good. Stretch a little and hit the showers," Coach Mason, a beefy man with pale blue eyes and a bright red face, hollered at them.
Carter and Seth made their way to the bench where they had left their water bottles and towels. They wiped their faces and necks, gulping down half of their waters next. No one seemed in much of a mood for talking as the team stretched in silence, before starting to scatter away to the locker room.
Carter moved to his own locker, facing away from everyone as he removed his sweaty t-shirt. The usual noisy locker room banter seemed to have been put aside in favor of silent exhaustion.
Carter took his sweet time undressing. It wasn't until people started clearing the shower area that he reached inside his bag for a towel. When Seth finally came from the showers as well, Carter stopped pretending to be looking for the shampoo bottle in his duffel bag and moved through the cloud of skin-clinging steam to the now emptying showers.
Most of his teammates were gone or leaving when he returned, towel hanging by his waist. Seth was one of the few remaining, along with two seniors who were in the process of shoving all of their sweaty and rumpled belongings into their own bags.
Seth sat with his back against the lockers, wearing clean dark jeans and a plain dark t-shirt. His head rested back against the lockers, arms crossed over his chest and eyes closed. Only when Seth heard the sound of Carter's duffel bag being zipped shut did he open his eyes and got up, sliding his own bag over his shoulder.
Carter held the locker room door for him.
"You heading home?"
Seth just shook his head as the two of them made their way to the school parking lot. His black BMW stood out, among the late working teachers' cheaper and worn vehicles. He unlocked the car with the press of a button.
"Do you need to crash at mine?" Carter asked, sliding into the passenger's seat.
"I'm good", Seth said, starting the car. "Speaking of yours..." he mused through a crooked smile.
Carter let out a sigh before he could help it and slumped against his seat.
"How're things at the new home?"
"Full," Carter said on reflex.
Seth chuckled. "That bad, huh?"
"Not really," Carter answered, honestly. "Could be worse, I guess."
At that, Seth shot him a meaningful look of agreement.
Carter smiled sympathetically. "It's just a tough change." He shrugged. "Definitely will take some getting used to."
"And I take it the three weeks since the move-in haven't been enough 'getting used to'?" Seth glanced at him.
Carter sighed heavily. "I guess not."
Seth patted his knee with one hand before setting it back on the wheel. "Take it easy. They can't be all that bad."
"They're not," Carter replied promptly. "It's just... There's just so many of them. Everywhere. Like they need to live life at its fastest and loudest, always."
Seth chuckled. "That doesn't sound too bad, to be honest," he said.
They turned into Carter's new street and the car stopped in front of his new house.
Carter looked at the cream-colored building through the window before shooting Seth a faint smile and stepping out of the car. He walked past the tilted mail box to the front door. There was no doormat and Carter also knew the doorbell didn't work. Turning the key inside the lock, he opened the door — the silence struck him as hard as a bomb would have.
Carter knew Seth was sitting in his car, waiting for him to get inside. He looked over his shoulder to wave his friend goodbye. Seth returned the gesture with an acknowledging head nod, driving away. Carter stepped inside, shutting the door behind him.
Deafening nothing.
He felt a pang of suspicion jab into his chest.
In the Santoro household, silence was, almost always, a monstrously bad sign. The quiet before the storm. An expression Carter had never truly wrapped his mind around before moving in with this family.
"Hello? Mom?"
He stepped into the living room, wondering if maybe he was just overreacting. Maybe they were just up in their rooms, like a normal civilized family. It was while he debated on that blissful, unlikely thought that all hell broke loose.
First, it was the rhythmic thumping of a basketball rolling down the stairs. Then, the colossal crash from the kitchen. The heavy footsteps down the stairs; the harsh, foreign curse from the kitchen; and a thundering laugh from upstairs.
Carter only had time to jump out of the way of the rolling basketball and the two stumbling teenage boys after it, before all three came crashing on the floor in a heap of limbs, heads and orange rubber. There were softer footsteps down the stairs, before the culprit of the laughter appeared at the bottom.
Carter stared wide-eyed between the two struggling boys on the floor and the grinning girl on the last step.
"Luca, gerroff!"
"No, you get off!"
"I swear to God, I—"
"What's happening over there?!" A strong male voice bellowed from the kitchen.
"Dumb and dumber are fighting over the one ball they have between the two!" The girl shouted back.
Carter looked at her incredulously. She didn't even look his way. Instead, her grin widened when the brown-haired boy's elbow hit the blonde's eye, and she cackled ungracefully when the blonde's knee hit the brown-haired's groin.
"Break it off, Bella!" The male voice from the kitchen ordered, followed by the disorderly clash of pans and cutlery, and the unmistakable shriek of a child's laugh.
Bella ignored the request, as she kept watching the two boys rolling around. The basketball had rolled over to the corner of the room, forgotten. Carter decided, if she wasn't going to do anything, he might as well.
"Guys," he said quietly, yet clearly.
Nothing.
"Guys." He spoke more assertively. When there was no reaction, Carter huffed, "Luca! Frankie!"
The two boys rolled away from one another to stare up at Carter.
"C-dog!" The brown-haired one beamed up at him, propping his body up onto his elbows.
"You back from your practice already?" The blonde asked, pulling himself up to a crouch.
"Clearly," Bella retorted dryly.
Carter looked over his shoulder at her. Bella, the bystander, had her arms crossed and was looking at Carter as though he had just reminded the teacher to assign homework after the bell rang. The long, wavy hair cascading loosely down her shoulders was the exact same dark color as the brown-haired boy, who the blonde was now helping up to his feet in casual camaraderie. Almost like they hadn't been trying to poke each other's eyeballs out, just seconds prior.
"Killjoy," Bella spat at Carter.
Carter scoffed. "Your brothers were going at each other like they were in the Purge!"
"Please, it was barely a cat fight," she said with an eye roll.
"Hey!" Both boys turned suddenly to look at their sister.
"Your words hurt, Belz," Frankie, the brown-haired one, said with a mocking pout and heart-felt touch to the right side of his chest.
Bella snorted. "The heart's on the left side, moron, if that's what you were going for."
Frankie cocked his head and narrowed his eyes at his hand, down on the wrong side of his chest. Luca, the blonde one, snickered grabbing his brother's wrist to move it to the other side of his chest.
"You sure about this?" Frankie looked back at Bella. She nodded meaningfully. Frankie frowned, confused. "Then, what was the thumping I felt on the other side?"
Luca cackled loudly and Bella smiled.
"Probably your brain punching at your rib-cage, yelling for someone to let it back up to work," she said.
Frankie scowled at her. "Mean," he hissed accusatorily. "You're mean."
"But also kinda right, bro," Luca said with a large grin and a pat to Frankie's shoulder.
Bella snorted again, this time looking at Luca. "Hi, pot — have you met kettle," she cooed, gesturing at Frankie with a flourish.
Luca scoffed at her. Before he could respond, there was another crash in the kitchen, another childish squeal and a hissed-out curse in a foreign language. All four heads in the living room turned in the kitchen's direction, but no one moved to help.
The upstairs trapdoor creaked open.
"What on earth is happening down here?" A male voice asked calmly, before another blonde guy materialized himself behind Bella, towering well over her. "Have we, as a family, finally taken the final step across the clinically insane line?"
"Dunno." Frankie shrugged.
"Not even sure I know all the words he just said," Luca mumbled back in Frankie's ear.
"Ask the old man. He and Charlie seem to be trying to tear our kitchen apart," Bella said, ignoring her two younger brothers to answer the other.
"I'm good, I'm fine! Everything's good, everything's fine," the male voice from before shouted from the kitchen. "Dinner's ready!"
He might as well have announced they had won the lottery, judging by the reaction that ensued. Carter watched as Mike stood back to allow Bella, Luca and Frankie to punch, elbow and kick at each other to get to the kitchen first.
Already knowing the drill, Carter walked upstairs to drop his stuff in his room. When he came back down, Frankie and Luca were carrying eight clean dishes and eight sets of utensils to the table, where Bella and Mike were stretching the towel.
Carter walked past them all, nearly bumping into Frankie and his tower of dishes. Before he could reach the kitchen though, a dark-blonde head reaching just at his waist blocked the way. Some water fell from the over-filled jug between the pair of tiny hands holding them and a pair of large amber eyes stared up at him.
"Hey, Charlie." Carter smiled at the youngest Santoro. "Need some help with that?"
The eight-year-old smiled timidly up at him and nodded. Carter took the water jug from the kid's hands.
"Move," a harsh voice spoke behind him.
Carter turned on his heels to stand face to face with Bella. Well, face to chest. She was short.
"'Please', you mean?"
She smiled cynically. "Move, or I'll castrate you."
Carter rolled his eyes and stepped to the side to let her through. No point fighting her. Even if he had the energy.
As he set the water on the table, Bella came back with napkins and a basket of bread and bread-sticks. Charlie came close on her heels, bumping into his sister's back as she stopped by the table. She smiled, turning around to grab him around the waist. Charlie shrieked as Bella turned him feet-up-face-down, spinning once before dropping him smoothly on one of the table seats, in the proper orientation. The rest of the Santoro hoard of siblings converged to their own seats as their father came into the room with a large dish of something really hot that smelled wonderful.
Tony Santoro was a man in his late forties, with dark hair much like Bella's and Frankie's, only his displayed a dusting of white. They all also had the same golden-brown tan, except for Charlie. Tony's eyes were the same rich dark-brown of Bella's and Frankie's, as big and expressive as all the other Santoros.
Mike had his father's frame – ridiculously tall and broad-shouldered. Frankie was tall like his dad, but without the bulking figure. Luca was broad-shouldered, but not quite as tall – for now, at least, as he was only fourteen.
Carter had always thought himself to be tall. Then, he moved in with the Santoros, with their six-feet-much heights and NFL tackle shoulders. It made Bella, the only Santoro girl, look like a pixie. She wasn't too short for a girl, but she was curvy and often wore over-sized baggy clothes that made her look like a puffy little dwarf. A puffy little dwarf that could run her mouth like a sailor.
Carter took his own seat between Bella and Charlie, as soon as his step-siblings settled down. Across the table, Frankie reached not so subtly for the serving spoon. Mike slapped his hand away non-too-gently to grab it himself and start serving people.
"How was your practice?" Tony asked Carter with a smile. An easy, warm smile that brought his intimidating large man appearance tumbling down.
"Good," Carter answered politely. He was always polite with his new step-family. Well, except with Bella.
He knew he was supposed to feel comfortable with these people, since he lived with them now. And they really did went out of their way to make him comfortable. Well, except for Bella.
He did feel comfortable, to be fair. Mostly. When his mom was around, at least. She was, after all, his connection to this family, after marrying Tony four weeks before.
"Where's my mom?" He asked, while Mike filled Bella's plate, after skipping Frankie and Luca.
"She had a meeting running late. Called a couple of minutes ago saying we could start without her," Tony explained. Two seats across from him, Charlie was already making a red tomato mess of his face, which Bella seemed to think was hilarious.
Mike served his own plate, sitting down. Frankie and Luca scowled indignantly at him. Their older brother ignored them both and Frankie jumped to the serving spoon, Luca poking his arm to let him get a go first.
"Leave some for Abby, you fat watermelon," Bella said as Frankie piled his plate with pasta.
Luca snorted. "She called you a watermelon, dude."
In fairness, that hadn't been the best in Bella's repertoire. Carter should know. He often found himself on the receiving end of her snark.
Frankie passed Luca the spoon. "Could be worse. Could've called me a lime or a persimmon. Watermelons are sweet and loved," he finished with a grin.
"I hate watermelons," Bella said.
"You also drink coffee black and bite lemon slices," Frankie added. "You're bitter and sour. Sweet don't go with that."
"Doesn't..." Mike muttered between forkfuls of pasta.
Frankie rolled his eyes. "Bite me, grammar Nazi."
"For that, I think he really should bite you," Bella shot back matter-of-factly.
Mike grimaced. "Unlike you, I'm not keen on sour flavors."
"Mike, don't bite people. Frank, don't call your family Nazis. Bella, don't pull a Bella," Tony chimed in serenely.
A new conversation ensued regarding which occasions would be appropriate to accuse family members of being xenophobic, racist extremists. Like everything the Santoros seemed to do, it was loud, and chaos-driven, and Carter didn't know all too well where he fit in it. A headache was starting to hammer its way to the front of his skull, by the time his mother finally came home.
The perfectly ironed blouse she had put on that morning was crinkled and slipping off the waist of her pencil skirt as she freed herself from her high heels. She kissed Carter on the top of the head, smiling tiredly at the rest of the family as Tony filled her plate. She was lucky to have anything left, since Frankie and Luca were both on second helpings. "We are growing boys," they had argued in their defense. Luckily, Tony always cooked industrial amounts.
By the time they were finished – late, as usual – Charlie had little to no clean space in his face and both Frankie and Luca tried to sneak away without helping. Mike pulled them by the collar of their shirts and forced them to pick up the dishes. Carter politely offered to help Tony load the dish-washer, while his mom went down to get ready for bed.
It was even later, when Carter finally got to slump down on his bed. He didn't even have time to change or get undressed. One minute he closed his eyes for a second, the other he fluttered them open to the morning light. For a new day in the new life he hadn't really asked for.
***
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