Two Punks In Love

Near Miss

Kat

I suppose it's predictable that Trace suggests we take a separate car from Leed and Ash and the girls. We're all meeting my parents for lunch, and then Luis will bring the girls home for a nap while the rest of us continue on to my mom's doctor's appointment. That's a high-profile party of nine for lunch in busy Buckhead.

Hell, we might even have to wait for a table, since we are living like normal people in the suburbs.

Trace grew up in a family of three, so the logistics of a bigger family crowd without deference to his starpower is something that he's still getting used to. I think Trace has had all the domestic bliss he can handle in these last three weeks.

It surprised me a little bit, to see how easily annoyed Trace has been by the chaos of life with kids. Normally, my rock star rolls with the punches, but the more time we spend with my sister's family, the more time he acts like the grumpy dad of the bunch.

I mean, he's great with Lyra and Lucy in every way. He's good at playing with them, he's good at managing their routine, and he's even helpful—way more helpful than Leed, actually—at picking up after them and making them pick up after themselves. In some ways, he acts more like their dad than Leed does. Not just to the kids, either.

To me, he's always super positive about the kids, like I'm on the outside. It seems like Ashlynn is the only one he can share his kid exasperation with.

And not always just exasperation. Sometimes it's like they have these...bonding moments.

One day, we were all headed out to dinner, and I was the last one out the door, because I was finishing up a work call. I trailed behind Trace and Ashlynn carrying the kids to the car and strapping them in while Leed lingered in the driveway kicking a hackey-sack with Luis. When Trace snapped a picture of the kids in their seats and showed it to Ashlynn across the hood of the car—the way she smiled at him and the way he winked at her...well, I had a pang of the old jealousy.

I mean. I know that Trace is in love with me. I know he chooses me.

But in that moment watching them sharing a look over the hood of the car, I had a thought so obvious that it struck me as naive that I had never thought it before.

If there had no Little Sister for Trace and Ashlynn to play tug of war with during their childhood, would their friendship have evolved differently?

Would they have argued less, bonded more? Wasn't I—the little tag-along—the source of most of their disagreements? If there had been no me, would Ashlynn have been the one to hold Trace's secrets, his loyalty, his heart?

I had the thought, but then I let it go. It's not useful, to speculate on an idea like that.

It doesn't matter what might have happened. It only matters what did.

And what is happening now is nothing unusual, really. The four of us have been extremely close for years, but this is first time have cohabitated under the same roof as family without the band. So the dynamic is just a little different. A little more intimate. And we're back home, living just like we did as kids, in our old neighborhood, with all the memories of that. Of course Trace feels close to my sister and her kids. Of course he's annoyed a lot of the time. Leed's a lunatic. A loveable lunatic, but a crazy man nonetheless. My sister is a saint to put up with him, and who wouldn't admire her grace at managing the Lion of Soundcrush?

So I should stop focusing on a hurt I've forgiven long ago. I should be glad that Trace loves my sister and my nieces.

I just hope this whole experience isn't giving him second thoughts about starting a family, because right now I need one of us to be in the solid pro-family position.