RARE (THEROCKAFELLABOYSSERIES#1)

Welcome home, Luke!

FIRST DRAFT ♥️

Luke Holland

I don't want the fuss. I hate it. I'm back from a three-month stint in rehab for snorting cocaine off of a hooker's chest, not for travelling fucking Europe. The stupid 'Welcome Back' banner hanging across the wall in the music studio pisses me off, and the grins splashed across my bandmates faces push me to throw my backpack onto the couch.

Maeva, our lead singer, and the only one not smiling, blows a bubble with her chewing gum, then bursts it. "I had nothing to do with this."

Grabbing my electric cigarette from my pocket, I take a few steadying puffs on it because my blood pressure is already through the roof. "I didn't expect for it to be."

"You don't deserve it," she responds with her lanky tattooed arms crossing over her waist. She's always disliked me, but my previous mistakes have turned that scorn into hate. "If it was up to me, you'd be out of the band."

There's a loud groan coming from the back of the studio and it belongs to Leo, who's carrying their sleeping kid in his arms. Leo is Rockafellas' base guitarist and Maeva's on and off again fuck-buddy/long-term boyfriend.

They're toxic as hell, I know that for sure.

Maeva takes little Oliver from Leo's arms, flashing him her best evil-eye when he grabs me into a tight, back slapping hug. "I missed you, brother!"

I can't help but smile. "You too—all of you."

The other band members slink over here as soon as my arms extend their way, shouts of Netflix and Nando's takeout mix in between the cheers for me finally being home. It's been a long twelve weeks without my boys.

Maeva lays Oliver on the couch when the team in the control room shout for her to go through and sing. "Leo, watch him while I'm working on this song."

"Sure," he replies, slipping out of our embrace to step over there, grinning when Oliver wakes up. "Good sleep, bud?"

I watch the little boy scrub his eyes with his stubby fingers. It's crazy how much kid's change in a short amount of time. "Since when did he get that big?"

Leo looks up at me with a stupid grin splashed across his face. "I bet he looks like a different kid."

I head over to the cooler to pluck out a bottle of water and rip off the lid, gulping each mouthful with such purpose that it goes in four swallows.

"Yeah, he really does. How old is he again?" I reply, wincing at Leo's sudden scowl.

"He's two," he says, causing me to drop the empty water bottle onto the floor when he strides over here to drop Oliver straight into my arms. "And, it's about time you bonded with him."

Looking into Oliver's wary blue eyes, we stare for an uncomfortable amount of time before he pulls away from me and towards his dad's retreating back. Leo carries on with setting his guitar up watching me struggle with a smug grin.

"I don't think he likes me," I grumble, taking in the kid's thick blonde curls that pile on the top of his head.

I get all nostalgic for a second, remembering Leo sporting the same look when we were young. We go way back, our childhoods the same as we grew up in the lively port district of Laith in Edinburgh, Scotland.

There's no escaping our broad Scottish accents, but the time spent travelling and living in different parts of the world has tainted it somehow. My twenty a day cigarette habit doesn't help either, I think.

Leo strums a little tune on his Fender bass guitar. "He doesn't know you. Bond a little."

It's true. I was strung up on drugs and drowning my sorrows in a bottle of whiskey way before he entered this world. I can't even recall his birth as I was recovering from a three-day bender. I'm the shittiest of people.