Four of a Kind Part 1

Four of a Kind.

Kellie Sheridan.

For my sister.

The only one I have, and the only one I could have hoped for.

Chapter 1.

After nine hours of being stuck in the car, we're finally in Fairview. It's probably the combination of exhaustion, antic.i.p.ation, and a ma.s.sive bag of sour jelly beans talking, but I'm somehow more excited than nervous to be here. A new town, a chance to reinvent myself-as cheesy as that sounds-and I got to ride shotgun for the entire drive because my sisters were too hung-over this morning to fight me for it.

Reece and Reilly start to wake up as the car slows down on the off-ramp and we merge onto Main Street-the not-so-originally named central street of Fairview. Someone kicks the back of my seat, trying to stretch their legs, but before I can say anything, an impressive looking brick church catches my eye. Next to it is a tiny bungalow, painted bright purple. Beside that, there's an ice cream shop that looks like it's been in the same spot for fifty years. This place looks more like a movie set than a real town.

We're really here. Back in Fairview.

The four of us are dead silent as we take in the rows of mismatched shop fronts and midafternoon shoppers. Even Mom, who's been here twice already in the last month, seems a little awestruck by the town where she grew up. This is the kind of place you'd see on scenic postcards, not a place where people actually live. But we will, even though it may as well be a million miles away from the city where we've spent most of our lives so far.

Reilly's face reflects in the rearview mirror, her expression purposefully neutral. I don't have to see Reece to imagine the scowl smeared across her face; she will not be won over by small-town charm today. But while I'd never say it out loud to either of them, I have a good feeling about this place.

"Ready?" Mom asks, turning the car onto Oakridge Boulevard. Our street.

I force away a smile. As far as my family is concerned, I'm still p.i.s.sed about having to move in the middle of summer vacation with almost no warning. It's easier to side with my sisters. I don't have to say anything at all and everyone will just a.s.sume I agree with them anyway. Things have been less tense in the past couple weeks, once the reality of our move really settled in, but everything came right back up to the surface for moving day.

"We're looking for number one-fifty-one," Mom says as though we haven't all spent the last month staring at this house from Google Maps.

The street, ridiculously long due to the size of the houses, winds and bends. We're going to be living right at the end of the cul-de-sac, before the park.

But as soon as the grey house we're about to live in comes into view, so does a boxy, white news van. We're still a dozen houses away, but it's impossible to miss-and something I definitely didn't expect. All at once, I'm not that excited.

I wasn't supposed to talk to actual people today, let alone put on my publicity face. My heart races as a million possible scenarios spin through my head-anything they might ask me, anything I might do to make myself seem like an idiot.

"Looks like we've got company," Mom says, slowing down the car.

My body slumps down in the pa.s.senger's seat. I'm trying to hide even though we haven't been spotted yet.

"Seriously?" Reece snaps from the back. She only got about two hours of sleep the night before, and I don't imagine she's in the mood for surprises, even if there is a photographer involved.

"Mom," Reilly adds, the twinge of a whine in her voice. "What are they doing here?"

"I'm sorry." Mom's eyes dart around nervously, looking for a way out. "I had no idea they'd be here. I don't even know how they knew we'd be here." She pulls the car over to the side of the road, hiding us behind a minivan.

I inhale slowly, willing myself to stay calm. It's not like we haven't dealt with the media before, but it's been years since anyone has really cared about the Fairview Four.' When we were little, there were a couple of news features about us and a half-hour doc.u.mentary for some silly reality TV channel. Most people didn't care at all, but some people cared way too much. By the time we were old enough to search for ourselves online, there was almost no one left who cared about who we were or the anomaly of our birth.

Groaning, I bang my head back against the headrest. I want to be in my new room, in my new bed, organizing my bookshelves. Really, I want to be anywhere but here, about to have to answer pointless questions about myself and how it feels to be back after all these years.

"They can't see us like this!" Reece shrieks, probably realizing that it's been almost a full day since she's even thought about applying lip gloss. "We look like we've been living under a bridge."

I didn't even think of that and now it's one more thing to worry about. We've been sitting in this car for hours and probably smell like it. I'm still wearing pajama pants. This is not exactly the first impression I was hoping to make.

"All right," Mom says after a minute, starting up the car's engine again and simultaneously cutting off the whining in the back seat. "I've got a plan." Without saying anything else, she turns into the closest driveway, backs out, and takes the car back down Oakridge the way we came.

"Is the plan go back to Richmond'?" Reece asks. "Because that's something I can get behind." But the edge has gone from her voice. All at once, the tension in the car evaporates as we sneak back off the street, all on the same team again.

"That's a no. But at the very least you get some time to stretch your legs, eat, and get changed. If the Gazette is this eager to doc.u.ment our moving day, I expect they'll be willing to wait a little longer."

"Why do they even care at all?" I ask.

"When you girls were born here it was a big deal. I'm sure people are just excited you're back," Mom says.

"So, a slow news day, basically," Reilly says.

"Slow news day," Mom agrees. The sleeve of her sweats.h.i.+rt slips back down to her wrist as she makes a turn, and only then do I realize that she looks as frazzled as the rest of us.

The news crew isn't really there for her, but she probably doesn't want them to see her like this any more than we do. Her hair is stylishly bobbed and obviously dyed, thick blond and red streaks line her brown hair, but I doubt she even thought to run a brush through it before we left Richmond this morning.

We park at the first fast food joint we find-a local mom-and-pop-style diner called Bobby's-and immediately go to work. We each brought a backpack of clothing so we'd have stuff while we got settled, enough to last until we unpack the rest of our stuff.

It takes half an hour for Reilly and Reece to put on makeup and force their hair into identical messy buns. Mine looks more like a tangle of brown hair that's sitting lopsided on top of my head, whereas their hair looks deliberate and styled.

"How do I look?" I ask, half joking.

Reece makes eye contact with me in the bathroom mirror and grimaces sympathetically. "Here," she says, and turns toward me.

It only takes her two minutes to transform my pathetic excuse for a hairstyle into a bun that looks exactly like hers and Reilly's. Without taking her eyes off me, she sticks her hand out behind her to Reilly and s.n.a.t.c.hes frantically until our other sister hands over the lip gloss. Within minutes, we all look like carbon copies of each other-which really doesn't take that much work. Anyone who doesn't know us will see three identical girls with long, brown hair, light-brown eyes, and slightly upturned noses. And somewhere on the road behind us is number four. Reece, Reilly, and I aren't a complete set. Not without Rhiannon.

We leave the bathroom a few minutes later to find Mom, sitting with all the food she ordered for us. We sit down around a pale-blue diner table and start to eat, but it doesn't take long to realize that everyone else has noticed us. I'm pretty sure ninety percent of the people here are just sitting and watching us eat, but I try to avoid making eye contact with anyone beyond our little circle. So I guess they know who we are, then.

"We should call Rhi and give her a heads-up," Reece says with an exaggerated smile. She's seen our audience as well and is enjoying the attention way more than I am.

Mom grimaces and fishes her phone out of the purse she has tucked between her and Reilly. "Hi, baby," she says so softly that she hardly sounds like my mother. "I just wanted to let you-"

When she pauses, I already know what happened. Rhiannon handed the phone over to Dad as soon as she heard Mom's voice.

"Hi," she says finally, her voice back to normal. "Yeah. It's fine. How far out are you? I just wanted to give you guys a warning about a news van in front of the house. I imagine they want to do a feature..."

While the two of them talk, I pick abandoned fries off everyone else's plates. When Mom hangs up, she looks defeated.

"Did Dad have any advice about dealing with the media?" Reilly asks, forcing a smile.

We all laugh at that, giving us an excuse not to talk about the cloud hanging over our mother. Even now, a month after having been told that we were moving back to Fairview, Rhiannon still isn't talking to Mom beyond when she absolutely has to.

For the first few days, we were all too angry to talk to either of our parents, but it took less than a week before we were talking to Dad again. And one by one, at Reilly's urging, we all caved and started talking to Mom again too-grudgingly, in Reece's case. But Rhiannon is still just as p.i.s.sed off at her as she was a month ago.

She hasn't exactly been fun to live with. No one even put up a fight when she said she wanted to ride with Dad in the truck because that meant none of us would have to deal with her for nine blissful hours.

Fed, dressed, and feeling at least a little more in control, we pile back into the car without complaint. I still don't want to go through whatever is waiting for us, but I suspect I won't have to do too much. Reece and Reilly have never had trouble dealing with the spotlight. All I'll have to do is stand there and be a part of the set.

They see us as we pull into the driveway. Two men-one holding a bulky camera-and a woman wave frantically, like maybe we didn't see them lying in wait. This is probably the entire staff of the small, local newspaper.

For a moment, I let myself forget them. We're here. A house three times bigger than the one we used to live in is sitting right in front of me, complete with dusty, blue paneling and a wraparound porch. It looks slightly crooked, but in a way, that makes it special instead of creepy. It's even prettier than the pictures we've seen. For the first time, I can really imagine us living here. Once we get rid of our uninvited guests, that is.

"Ten minutes, a few smiles, and they'll get out of our hair," Mom says, bringing me back to the current predicament.

It's only once I'm out of the car that I realize there's the fourth member of our welcoming committee. Sitting cross-legged on our lawn, hunched over a composition book, is a guy. Okay, I'm definitely glad we stopped to get changed before showing up here.

There's a guy on my lawn!

He's completely absorbed in whatever he's scribbling down into his notebook, letting me stare for a moment too long. He looks tall with long, deeply tanned legs sticking out from a pair of old board shorts. Brown hair sits almost straight up with a few streaks of lime green visible from the back. It's hard not to wonder what he looks like from the front.

Look up. Look up. Look up, my mind chants at him as my eyes continue to bore into the top of his head. He doesn't look up; I'm not sure he even noticed when we pulled in.

Reilly tugs at my wrist, pulling me away from the guy and toward the three waiting adults who have noticed us. "Reagan, come on." She tilts her head sympathetically like she thinks I'm lagging behind because I don't want to make small talk and get my picture taken.

Mom waves us over from the front porch where she's standing with a perfectly coiffed blond woman in a dark-green suit.

We stop beside Reece on the stone walkway that leads up to the house. "And this is Reilly and Reagan. Girls, this is Mindy Harris with the Fairview Gazette."

"It's so nice to meet you both," Mindy says, her eyes only meeting mine for a second before they dart past us and back to the car. It's easy to see exactly what-who-she's looking for. "We seem to be one short." Mindy scrunches her lips together as she takes us in.

One, two, three. Not the four she was hoping for. I'd like to point out that we're actually two short, since my dad isn't here either, but like always, I keep my mouth shut.

"Rhiannon made the drive up in our moving truck with the girls' father," Mom says like she's apologizing. She has nothing to apologize for, especially not to this woman who gave us no warning she'd be here. "We didn't quite expect this today."

"Of course, of course! No trouble at all, Elaine." Mindy smiles, showing off a row of perfectly white teeth. "Will they be arriving soon?"

"Unfortunately, no. They're at least two hours behind us. We'd be happy to sit down with you tomorrow though, once the girls have had a little time to settle in."

I almost laugh at the comment. We moved out of the city, to an entirely new state, and it's only going to take us one afternoon to get settled in? Yeah, okay.

"I guess that will be fine," Mindy says. "If there's really no way to get Rhiannon here. Everyone is so looking forward to seeing the girls together in Fairview again. And we did want to do this before the new school year starts."

"When's that?" Reece asks.

"September second." Less than two weeks. "I a.s.sume the girls will be going to Fairview High?" She can't be bothered to speak to us directly. Apparently we're just supposed to stand here and smile for the cameras. Which isn't so bad, now that I think about it.

"Yes, just like I did. They'll be soph.o.m.ores this year."

"My son Kent is starting his soph.o.m.ore year, too." Mindy claps her hands together. "He keeps a busy schedule, but I'm sure he'd be happy to show you around!" She beams at the three of us like we should be weeping with grat.i.tude that her darling boy is willing to play tour guide.

It's tempting to roll my eyes-until someone shoulders his way past Mindy and sticks his hand out in front of me. It's him. The guy with the green hair. This is Kent?

I blink slowly, looking back at him. From the front, he's even better than I imagined. His eyes are the same warm brown as his skin, and they crinkle up a little as he smiles at me.

"Hi," he says, looking down at his hand expectantly. I'm still fixated on the near golden brown of his eyes, and the way they stand out, unnaturally bright against the even tan of his skin. "I'm Kent. Welcome to Fairview."

Right! Hand-shaking. Frantically, I grab on to his hand and bounce it up and down a few times before he moves to Reece and then Reilly.

"Nice to meet you," I mumble.

I don't think he hears me, but a second later his eyes lock on mine. For an instant, he just looks at me and I will myself to do something, anything. His eyes almost seem to be teasing me. I can't help it. I smile before we both glance away. "Welcome to Fairview," I hear him mumble. He's already shaking Reece's hand, but something about the way his head still tilts in this direction suggests that maybe she doesn't have his full attention.

After he introduces himself to Reilly, the four of us all hang back as Mindy and my mom keep chatting about everything from the drive to the move to the weather. No matter how short Mom's answers are, the questions seem to keep coming like Mindy is hoping that if she holds us here long enough she'll be able to wait out Rhiannon.

The boy-Kent, I remind myself-smiles back at me before getting dragged back in to a conversation with his mother. But I'm not listening anymore. All I can think about are brown eyes, and just how much I'm going to like living here.

Chapter 2.

I didn't think I'd get even a wink of sleep the night before school starts, but all of my obsessing must have taken more out of me than I'd realized. I wake up to the screeching noise Rhiannon has set as her alarm-it's supposed to be some sort of post-alternative-something-or-other music. It's awful.

Everything is awful.

I don't want to be awake.

Ugh.

I open my eyes to see my sister already flitting around the room. She offers me a half-apologetic shrug when I sit up, well aware of how I feel about her need to wake up this early. Every. Single. Day.

Once she turns off the shrieking, my brain gradually begins to function again. I glance down at my phone. I could sleep for another half hour and still wake up with more than enough time to eat and get ready. But this is our first day at Fairview High, and now that I'm up, I am wide-awake.

Rhiannon already has a cup of black tea sitting on her dresser, the biggest kick of caffeine Mom will let her drink. I keep trying to tell her that sleeping in past six thirty is another way to gain some extra energy, but she never listens. No, she has too much to do and too little time to do it. Or something.

Me? I'm a night person through and through. If my parents would let me, I could stay up until four every night playing City of Ages, reading, and talking to my friends online. Except then I'd sleep until noon every day. It's a trade I'm more than willing to make.

"Get up, get up, get up!" Enthusiastic fists bang against our door from the bathroom that connects our room with the one Reece and Reilly share.

In response, I groan and throw my pillow at the door. How is everyone functioning this early?

"We're up, we're up!" I answer when the banging refuses to stop.

Rhiannon walks over and opens the door, sending Reilly flying into our room.

"You're awake!" she announces as though this is somehow news. "I've thought of something." She's already poking her head around in Rhiannon's closest. "What are you wearing today?"