Challenge (45 page)

I huff, “And how will I find someone?”

Doc grins. “You’re a charming bloke…I’m sure you’ll find someone.”

THE BROTHERS HARRIS

“Oi, Vi! Get your arse down here, wench! We are in desperate need of libations!”

I stop dead in my tracks on the sidewalk near my flat and crane my neck toward the faint sound of shouting coming from down the alley.

“Don’t you ignore us, Vi! We know you’re up there!”
a deep, booming voice bellows. I’d know those voices anywhere.

“I think I can climb this wall. Quick, Booker, give us a lift.”

My eyes fly wide as I hear a faint groan and a scuffle. I quickly rush around the corner and peer down the narrow alley that leads into the private entrance of my flat. “Oi! Tell me I’m hallucinating!” I shout, pushing my stray blonde strands away from my face to get a better look.

My four brothers freeze like the cat that got the cream. Tanner—who’s all of twenty-three, but acts like he’s twelve—is sitting upon the shoulders of his twin, Camden, while our baby brother, Booker, is bracing his hands low in preparation for Cam’s foot.

“What the bloody hell are you all doing?” I ask. My gaze swerves accusingly to our older brother, Gareth, who’s leaning against the brick wall of my building looking thoroughly entertained.

Gareth shrugs his broad shoulders. “Just trying to determine who’s going to break a bone this time.”

“Get down, the lot of you. Dad will string you up if someone gets injured! What were you planning to achieve there?” I glance up to the fire escape ladder that’s a good fifteen feet above our heads.

Tanner drops lithely off Camden’s shoulders and says, “I figured you were up in your garden with your ear buds in and couldn’t hear us. I thought we could grab hold of the fire escape if Booker could give us a boost.” He scratches the back of his shaggy blond hair as his blue eyes squint up toward the roof. He stares off into the distance speculatively and admits, “It didn’t seem so high a moment ago.”

“I live on the eleventh floor! You were going to climb the entire way up?”

“‘Course I was. I’m made of stronger stuff than most, Vi!” Tanner says, puffing his chest out.

“And Booker?” I snap, ignoring Tanner’s cocky demeanour. “You think putting the smallest one on the bottom of this death trap was a good idea?”

“We asked Gareth but the bastard wouldn’t—” Camden starts but is cut off.

“Oi, I’m not that small anymore! I’ve been doing two-a-days.” Booker frowns and rubs his tricep defensively while maintaining his proud posture.

Truthfully, not one of them is small. They are all over six foot and athletically built. Gareth, Camden, and Tanner are more heavily muscled than Booker, but none of them have an ounce of fat on them.

I grin and rustle Booker’s brown hair affectionately. “You need a cut again.”

“Come home and give me one.” He grins sheepishly and my heart lurches at the tenderness in his eyes. I’ve only lived in my new flat for a year now, and Booker makes it no secret that he misses me living at home. I miss him too. The adorable, cheeky bugger.

“So what are you guys doing here, shouting up my neighbourhood?” I ask, placing my hands on my hips in a motherly, scolding type of way that is all too natural for me when I’m around them.

“You think you can get away with celebrating your birthday without us?” Camden replies, strolling over to me with a devilish smile. He’s such a man-whore that I can hardly look at him without rolling my eyes. He has twinkling blue eyes set in the darkest of lashes that have a way of sucking you right into his games. And of course he wears his blond hair like all the other slutty footballers, having just enough length on top to sweep off to the side. And the prat knows the women can’t resist him. I quit moaning at him about his conquests a long time ago. He’ll never change.

He throws his huge arm around my narrow shoulders and musses my hair. “C’mon, Vi. Off we go.”

I had planned on spending the afternoon on my balcony, soaking up some sun with Bruce, but it’s useless to say no to my brothers. The five of us walk through the top end of Brick Lane Market toward Welly’s Pub—the spot my brothers quickly dubbed their hangout in my neighbourhood.

It’s just finally starting to feel like
my
home area at last. A few years ago I got a proper job as a designer for Nikon working on high fashion camera bags. Their headquarters is located in a big converted warehouse in Shoreditch, east London, not far from my dad’s home in Chigwell. I turned into a commuter bee every day, until last year when I saw a brilliant penthouse flat open up within walking distance from work. Living in proper east London feels like a fun adventure compared to Chigwell. This part of the city has that gritty, urban edge to it that I find thrilling. It’s chock full of eclectic independent shops, street vendors, and shabby chic pubs. The graffiti-covered warehouses have that quintessential east London vibe that can’t be replicated.

“How’s Doggie Bruce?” Gareth asks, pulling a cap out of his trousers and securing it down low on his head to conceal his face from on-lookers. He suddenly turns to walk backwards so he can eye a pretty brunette we just passed. She shoots him shamelessly obvious bedroom eyes.

“A monster as usual,” I say.

“As long as he’s protecting you, that’s all I care about.”

Several more heads turn as we walk, many people likely recognising Gareth since he’s a defender in the Manchester United Football Club. He was signed at twenty-one and became a starter straight away. He gets recognised everywhere—as do my other brothers—on this side of town.

We stroll into the dimly lit pub and, as it’s not even four o’clock yet, it’s practically empty aside from the few day drunks holding the bar up. Gareth heads to the bar to get us our drinks while the rest of us grab the large, round corner booth that always feels as if it is here just for us. I slide in and eventually end up sandwiched between Booker and Tanner. Camden strides over to help Gareth carry the round of Guinnesses.

One extra Guinness sits ominously in the centre of the table. Gareth looks down and yanks his hat off, smoothing his hand over his dark hair in preparation. With a quick exhale, he raises his glass. “To Vilma on her birthday,” he begins, his hazel eyes glossing over as he looks at me. “You share a lot more than just a name and a birthday with our mum…but you’ll always be Our Vi to us.”

My chin wobbles as the others murmur, “Happy birthday, Vi. Happy birthday, Mum.” We clink our glasses with the spare drink in the centre and tip the dark liquid into our mouths, remaining silent for a moment.

This is the first birthday I’ve spent away from home and, if I’m being honest, I’ve felt a bit emotional about it all day. I’m just newly twenty-five, but I fully admit that I lived at home for longer than I should have. However, when you grow up as the only female in a house full of men, you can’t help but become attached to the feeling of being needed.

Our mother, Vilma Harris, died of cancer when Booker was only one year old. Tanner and Camden had just turned three, and I was four. Gareth was eight, so he remembers a lot more about her than the rest of us, but he rarely speaks of her.

What I do know is that in only a few short months, our father, Vaughn Harris, went from being a professional footballer with a large, happy family, to a single parent of five kids…four of which were under the age of five. It was certainly a game changer for all of us. Dad was a star striker for Manchester United and one of the best they’d ever seen. He was in the prime of his career in the 80s when they won the FA Cup in ‘83 and ‘85. About ten years later, he was still a starter when our mother got the diagnosis of stage four ovarian cancer. It had spread to other organs before she even had a chance to start treatment.

She passed away in our family home just two months after her diagnosis. Dad retired from the sport immediately following her death. Both our maternal and paternal grandparents passed away before I was even born, so there were no other family members to help him take care of us. Although, I’m not sure it would have mattered since he refused all offers of help from friends. He was determined to raise us on his own. Truthfully, I think he just didn’t want anyone around to witness his immense grief.

It was…painful.

After Mum’s death, Dad moved us permanently into the mansion he and Mum owned in the posh neighbourhood of Chigwell. They had a smaller flat in Manchester during football season so Dad could be closer to his team, but I don’t remember much about living there. Our dad’s career was very successful and had set us all up for life. Materially, we wanted for nothing. But it still wasn’t an easy childhood. He loved us fiercely, but being both a mother and a father is too much for any one person to handle. I think the stress of it would have killed him had he not been offered a managing position for the Bethnel Green Rollers Champion Football Club.

Once football came back into his life, he was a new man. Happier and more alive than I’d ever remembered him being. I was so delighted to see this newfound light in him that I was all too willing to help pick up the slack with my brothers. And when your dad manages a team and your brothers all play, you pretty much have no choice but to submerge yourself in that lifestyle.

Football was my life. Without question. I didn’t play a lick of it, though. Honestly, I had no desire to. Booker was a killer goalie. And Camden and Tanner argued over who was the better striker between the two of them. Me? I was just happy to mother-hen them and know the ins and outs and needs of a footballing athlete.

Last year I finally reached a breaking point when Gareth got in a massive row with my boyfriend at the time. Rumours had been circulating that Pierce was cheating on me. He showed up when we were all at a pub and Gareth grabbed him around the throat. He looked positively homicidal as he slammed Pierce against a wall. Paparazzi got hold of pictures; the whole scene almost ruined his football career. It wouldn’t have been that big of an issue for me if it was the first time Gareth did something like this. But it wasn’t. My relationship track record was meagre to say the least. Regardless, every one of my breakups involved one of my brothers turning into a crazy, neurotic, bruiser of a brother. Maybe if I had been the one to do the dumping, things would have been easier for them to accept. However, I was cursed with constantly being the dumpee.

But Pierce was the straw that broke the camel’s back. After that incident, I knew I had to get out of my dad’s house or I’d never have a life without my brothers interfering. And I am doing a proper job of it if I may say so myself. Of course I’m still very close to my family and I see them every week, but having my own space to go to has been extremely liberating.

“How was China, Vi?” Gareth asks after some idle football chatter. They’re
always
talking football.

“Fine, fine. Nothing too exciting. I’m just finally starting to feel human again. It’s always so exhausting over there. Those factories work intense hours.”

“I want to go with ya sometime,” Booker says, propping his head on his hand. “I imagine it’s beautiful there.”

“You see plenty of the world with the team, Book,” Camden admonishes.

“Yeah, but it’d be quite different going when you don’t have to be thinking ‘bout the game the whole time.”

“Oh, stuff it. We live the life other sorry bastards only dream of. You’d do well to remember that.” Camden scowls into his glass as he takes a sip.

“There’s more to life than football,” I snap defensively on behalf of Booker. He’s the littlest and even though he stands six inches taller than me, I can’t help but continue seeing him that way. I’m protective over him the way all of my brothers are protective over me. And I sometimes get the impression he doesn’t even like playing football but is too scared to ever say.

“Not in the Harris house.” Camden takes another long drink of his beer.

“You doing anything special for your birthday, Vi?” Tanner asks, oblivious to Camden’s owly mood toward Booker. Tanner doesn’t take anything too seriously, including girls. He and Camden aren’t identical but they look very similar, which is probably why Tanner wears his blond hair shaggy around his ears. It matches his playful personality perfectly.