Chapter 1: SIAN

New town: new school, new attitude? Nah, well, maybe for necessity's sake; I wouldn't have my girls there after all, so I might have to tone my shit down in the beginning until I get the lay of the land.

Dad had disrupted my life without a by your leave. He'd gotten a promotion and a fat ass raise. Not like he wasn't raking in the dough before, but apparently, this new position came with a whole slew of other benefits that went right over my head.

Parents shouldn't be allowed to muck up their kids' existence out of the blue like this, but what the hell?

My brother, the jock, was chomping at the bit. This new school supposedly had a better football program and better standing in the Nationals, yadda, yadda, yadda, like I gave a frack.

All I know is that my final year and a half in high school was not supposed to be like this.

I was just getting into the groove of things. Mom and dad had just lifted the virgin seal, aka I was allowed to date and wham.

Right when I was going over my choices, they spring this crap on me. At least we weren't moving to a rinky-dink nowhere town, but an upscale neighborhood outside of Hollywood.

Mom was all excited to be rubbing elbows with movie stars and Uber-rich types. I was more worried about dealing with stuck-up starlet wannabes and their bullshit.

I'm no slouch in the looks department; any sixteen-year-old chick that wasn't aware of her attributes in this day and age was living under a big ass rock in Nowheres Ville.

I'm not one of them. I have a mirror or two to attest to the fact that I can hold my own with anything this town has to offer. And I've got the 'tude to back that shit up.

Still, it was a bit of a bummer to have to pull up stakes and start all over again.

Adults are the pits, just saying. They seem to think that it's pretty okay to call all the shots and drag their poor underlings all over hell and back on a whim. Okay, that was a bit of an exaggeration, but who can blame me?

"Sian hon, are you still mad at your old man?" Dad kissed the top of my head, which he knows is my weakness. I'm ever a daddy's girl, which makes staying mad at him for any particular length of time a trial, but I was sure gonna give it my best shot.

"Yes, and it's gonna cost ya, pops." I schooled my face into the sternest expression I could muster before looking up at him as he towered over me.

Dad was what my friends had dubbed a hottie, gross. At thirty-six, he was well built, from his obsessive use of the home gym, no doubt, and his coal-black hair was still full and boyishly charming, as mom likes to say.

He has my eyes, or I have his, I should say, so of course, they're gorgeous, a nice deep navy blue. I just wish he'd have given me some of his height too.

When I was little, I use to love riding high on his shoulders or when he would pick me up and twirl me around until my tummy hurt from laughter.

My family isn't afraid of showing love and affection for each other, so though I might've outgrown the shoulder rides, my dad and I still find ways to share our closeness. It's the same with my brother and sister as well, and we wouldn't have it any other way.

Now, rolling up his sleeves, he took the chair across from me at the table, where I was sorting out my photostream. I don't even remember taking half these pictures.

"Okay, doll face, what's it gonna cost me?"

"Let me see, hmm…what is the disruption of my life worth?" I pretended to ponder the question as he grinned at me. This was one of our games that go back to my early childhood. One of those things that I knew would follow me into my adult life.

As much trouble and sass as I've been giving him for the past month or so when the reality that this was really happening had finally set in, I really do love the old goof.

"A new car." I held back my laughter as he glared at me.

"You just got a new car not six months ago; try another one."

"Nope, that's the price you pay; I've decided I no longer like the beamer. I want something a little more exotic."

"Oh yeah, and what might that be?" He played along, giving me the gimlet eye because I'm a first-class negotiator.

I have in the past gotten afore denied goodies by using my stellar skills on the parent unit. I'm so good that both my siblings usually came to me to help them out from time to time.

I was really having fun with him now, though. I love my little red roadster, and though I'm sure that the kids where we were headed would have even flashier rides, I wasn't interested in the least. I just wanted to yank his chain a bit.

"How about a Phantom? I'm sure that would soothe my aching heart."

"I'll tell you what Si, in a few years and by few a mean twenty, why don't you ask your husband, poor soul, whoever he is to buy you that car?"

"Don't ask if you don't mean it, dad; that's just mean."

"Go finish packing, brat; we leave early in the morning, and the movers will be here before the crack of dawn."

"I'm all set, dad, just a few more odds and ends. I'll be ready, don't worry. Why don't you go harass your other offspring?"

"Nice, very nice way to talk to your old man, especially after he's bought you something nice." My eyes lit up as I searched him for the loot. I didn't see a bag or anything and thought he was pulling one over on me again, as he was wont to do on occasion.

"Give it up, old man." He grinned as he pulled me up from my seat and led me up to my room, where mom was standing in the middle of the room, acting as giddy as a high school kid herself.

It wouldn't be the first time these two planned a blitz attack. Mom and dad had had my brother dad's first year in college when he was still eighteen and mom was seventeen.

Her virginity was supposed to be a going-away present for her boyfriend, who had waited two whole years for his love to get older, and the two dorks had got caught their first time out.

Of course, they only shared part of the story with us kids, but grandma Rose filled in the rest. Grandma Rose is dad's mom who lives in England, but she's a whole other story.

Long story short, our grandparents worked out a deal where dad got to stay in school, mom got to finish high school, while they took care of Jared, that's the dweeb's name.

I don't think they were expecting me to follow a little less than a year later, though, but everything had worked out in the end. As was evident by our grand home and the luxury cars both my brother and I had been given for our sixteenth birthdays, respectively.

Anyway, the fact that they had us at such young ages meant that even with the help of their parents, they never really got to have a true teen life, so of course, they still acted like two goofs around us kids. We love it.

"What are you two up to?" I looked from one to the other. I could hear my kid sister in her room with her Disney music on blast. My brother was out with his deadbeat friends, probably getting in his last goodbyes before we went off into the ether.

Mom stepped away from where she'd been blocking my view of the bed, and I almost hyperventilated when I saw the large orange box there. "Mom, don't play, is that…?"

"Come on, open it and see." I rushed forward and started ripping the brown ribbon from around the box; my heart was racing. This was almost as good as a car. My first Hermes bag; this was like hitting the jackpot for a girl like me.

"And my favorite color too, mom, how did you pull it off? I thought you said I had to wait until I was eighteen and that it wouldn't be possible…" I started rambling in my excitement. I'd been begging for one of these luxury bags since I was fifteen, with no luck.

Mom had a closet full of them, it was some kind of secret thing between her and dad, and whenever he went away somewhere for any length of time, he'd come home with one of these orange boxes for mom.

She'd get this sappy look on her face, and the two of them would whisper and suck face forever until one of us kids threatened to hose them down. I somehow got into the habit of associating that bright orange box with love and romance, and I've been dying for one of my own since forever.

Of course, I knew now that the dang things cost as much as some cars, so I hadn't fussed too much when I was shot down for the past two years or so. But now! woot.

Dang, I am going to be styling like a diva when we land. It's probably really tacky, but that little bag made the move worth it. What can I say? I'm easy.