Crossroads

Connection

One Month Later: Sunday, July 17th, 11:00am

"That's how many subscribers we have?"

"Holy shit."

The boys were all situated in Luke's room, crouched around his laptop. They peered over his shoulder at the screen, flooded with comments and subscriber interaction under the latest of their few videos. After only one month of having a Youtube channel set up, the five boys had already gathered over one hundred thousand subscribers.

Jai's Instagram alone had gathered thousands of followers. Many of them had come to the tattoo shop just to meet Jai. Some got tattoos, however, and Dylan was able to help out with the flow of fans coming through almost daily.

As for the rest of the boys, none of them could have ever predicted that they would become that huge for any reason whatsoever. They were simply enjoying the fame—hoping it would last them more than fifteen minutes.

"Alright, I'm headed to the gym," Daniel announced and made his way out of Luke's room. Beau and James followed after Skip, leaving Luke and Jai with their thousands amongst thousands of virtual followers.

"Incredible, yeah?" Luke turned in his desk chair to face Jai.

Jai could only nod in response; he was so amazed.

"So," Luke trailed off. He looked uneasy. Jai observed Luke's expression—slightly nervous about what his twin might have to say next. "I spoke to mum the other day."

Jai felt butterflies in his stomach. Between the Youtube channel going live and filming videos almost every other day, Jai realized that he had completely forgotten about William and Gina Brooks' existences.

Luke took note of Jai's vacant expression, and was quick to continue with an explanation.

"She doesn't know what's going on over here," he explained. "Or that we found each other."

Jai was unsure if he was disappointed or not. 

He was, however, disappointed with his father. William hadn't answered his phone calls for the  past month. While Jai hadn't left any voicemails or dropped any hints as to why he wanted to reach his father, William must have figured it out on his own and made his intentions very clear to Jai.

He had no desire to answer any questions or to be involved in the family's reunion whatsoever.

"Jai?"

"Sorry," he shook his head as Luke broke him out of his trance.

"It's okay," Luke said as Jai sat down on the end of Luke's bed. Luke remained seated at his desk. They were facing each other, but silent.

"I think we should go home," Jai finally spoke.

Luke looked up at Jai, eyebrows furrowed.

"To Australia? Do you think we should?" Luke looked down at his fingers, picking at the cuticles around his nails.

Jai shrugged. Although Luke couldn't possibly know just how evasive their father was being at the moment, Jai knew the only way they could get any type of answer was to quite literally ambush William.

"I think we should get some answers," Jai stood. "To be honest with you—I think my dad knows we finally met. He's been avoiding my calls for a month straight."

"Why would he do that?" Luke shook his head in disbelief. He looked as though he might cry, which Jai did not want to see happen. No tears would be shed over William, not if Jai could help it.

Over the past month Jai grew to truly despise his father. It was now clear that not only did he not want anything to do with Gina, Beau and Luke, but he also pushed Jai away at a young age. Being sent to boarding school at the young age of eight all of a sudden didn't feel like such a normal thing to Jai.

It seemed it was the thing a parent did if he truly wanted to be left alone: no wife, no kids. No marital or parental responsibilities to be had.

Jai didn't know what to tell Luke. It broke his heart to know that the man he was raised by was not only letting Jai down—but now also his twin and older brother.

"The only way we'll get to talk to him is if we just go and see him. He won't be expecting it, I don't think," Jai picked at the hole on the knee of his jeans.

"Alright," Luke spoke up, after a while.

"Yeah?" Jai looked at his twin, feeling both nervous and excited at the same time.

"Yeah, let's go," Luke smiled weakly. "But on two conditions."

"Name them," Jai shrugged.

"Beau has to come," Luke replied.

"Of course," Jai nodded—he thought Beau coming along was a given.

"Well, we don't know what he's going to think of this plan. But we'll cross that bridge when we get there."

"Right," Jai sighed, knowing how stubborn Beau could be at times. "Second condition?"

Luke sighed as well, reaching up to pull at a curl hanging down on his forehead.

"We go see mum first."

After just a moment of thinking, Jai realized there was no reason they shouldn't go to see Gina Brooks first. After all, she'd probably give more answers than her ex-husband would—she was at least still talking to her sons.

Well, two of them at least.

"Alright," Jai nodded. "That's fine."

"Right," Luke stood from his desk chair abruptly. "Let's go tell Beau."

+++++++++++++++++

It didn't take much to convince Beau of the plan to head back to Australia; he wanted answers just as much as the twins did. They had agreed to go to bed and think through the plan just one more time before would meet again the next day and book their airfare.

Jai went home that night full of questions—what if Gina turned him away at the doorstep? She wasn't going to be expecting him after all. The plan was that Luke and Beau were going to tell her it was just the two of them coming home for a visit. No Skip, no James, no Jai.

What if William acted the same way towards Luke and Beau? How would they feel finding out Mr. Brooks is in fact a real assho—Calm down, Jai. This was your idea.

Needless to say, Jai hardly got a wink of sleep that night.

The next morning, he walked over to the Janoskians' house, still ready to carry on with the plan. Luke and Beau were ready as well; it seemed to Jai that doubt did not once cross their minds.

That, or they were better at acting than they would ever admit.

The situation became very, very real for the three Brooks brothers when Luke's laptop displayed an "Order Confirmation" page on the Qantas Airline site. Friday morning they would fly out of LAX and catch a connecting flight in Hong Kong, to be in Melbourne by Saturday night.

"Alright boys," Beau clapped a hand down on both Luke and Jai's shoulders from behind them. 

"Time to call mum."

+++++++++++++++

Hello everybody. I'm so sorry it's been a while, I've been taking a summer course that has totally consumed my life... Hopefully this makes up for it!! Let me know what you think!

Enjoy xx

Sarah