If You Could Only See

Chapter 8

Mason~

With three beers down, Aiden and I were about as relaxed as we would allow ourselves to be at these sorts of parties. With social media recording and immortalizing everything a person did on the internet for life, we tried to be as careful as possible. None of us kids wanted to be on the receiving end of a phone call from our dad about something stupid that may have been captured on film, ending up all over the place.

I knew that now wasn't the time or place, but the fanfare had become super ridiculous. I turned to Aiden, saying, "You know, it's going to be you in charge of the twins next year, right?"

He smirked at me. "I'm very aware," he acknowledged. "Don't worry, Mase. They'll be fine. We'll be fine." I let out a deep breath, knowing that he was right. "The twins aren't like other eighteen-year-olds, Mason. Hell, none of us are like other people our age." He clapped me on my back. "By the time you graduate, college will have lost its shine for the guys, and it'll be like high school all over again."

I gave him a pointed look. "I know, but some of these bitches are professionals, Aid. I mean, Dad's a world-class prick and everything, but he's not wrong about some of these women," I reminded him.

"True," he agreed. "But the twins have been dodging gold-digging bitches since they were fourteen-years-old, Mase. They know the score."

"It's those goddamn dimples," I chuckled.

Aiden laughed. "Yeah, it must be. Because it can't be their sunny personalities."

Gabriel and Michael didn't mean to be, but they were a deceitful duo. People took one look at them, then made up all kinds of assumptions based on their looks and the way that they played off one another. However, they were almost always wrong about the twins. People liked to believe that since they were the youngest that they were spoiled and flighty.

They weren't.

Gabe and Mike were sharp, assessing, and analytical, and just when someone thought they were getting over on them, the twins would show their teeth, and the bite was often swift, brutal, and completely unexpected.

Especially, Michael's bite.

I figured that I must just still be annoyed by my earlier encounter with Amber. Sometimes it felt like we were being attacked from all sides. If it wasn't our mother's neglect, then it was our father's abuse. If it wasn't random guys trying to be our best friends, then it was random bitches trying to trap us. If it wasn't someone kissing our asses for future favors, then it was someone hating us without even knowing us. Someone always wanted something from us, and the constant need to keep my guard up for myself and my brothers became exhausting at times. I needed my degree, so that I could ignore my mother and finally tell my father to go get fucked.

We each had a trust fund that'd been set up by our grandfather that ran into the millions, but we couldn't access it until we each reached the age of thirty. The theory behind the wait was that, by the time that we hit thirty, we should be old enough to handle that kind of monetary responsibly, and not go off the rails and begin snorting our weight in cocaine or lose all sense of morality with hookers and whores.

I supposed that I could have floated around until I had access to my money, but for better or worse, my father hadn't raised lazy, pretentious, entitled assholes. We weren't scared of hard work, and we weren't scared of carving out our own paths if we had to. Though we were sincere in our want to keep the tradition of Buchanan Industries alive and fruitful for the generations after us, not one of us would put a bullet through our brain if we couldn't be a part of the Buchanan Industries' legacy. My father had sought to raise each of us to be aggressive and ruthless, but the poor fuck just didn't realize how aggressive and ruthless we'd turn out to be.