Dismantling my gun would have been so much easier to do if Landon wasn’t playing his shit music and pelting his shit singing so loudly. This wasn’t even his room, but if there was one thing I could confidently say about Landon, it was that he had no boundaries. Not when it came to me or any of our brothers anyway.

Casting him a dry look, I mentally dared him to keep going. Landon didn’t even bat an eye at my frosty gaze, if anything, he sang louder, his voice rising in pitch as he attempted a wobbly falsetto. His dancing grew even more lively as he threw punches in the air and in all of this, Landon never broke eye contact with me. I was surprised he could even hit such high notes.

“How old are you, Landon?” I asked him, my voice as flat as my expression.

“Twenty-one,” Landon answered without shame, not missing a beat.

I scoffed under my breath, shaking my head to myself. I couldn’t deny it, I admired Landon’s playful energy. He wouldn’t be himself without it. Whenever Landon was feeling down, it dragged everything and everyone down too. Just looking at the loveable idiot now, one wouldn’t think that he was my loyal Number Two. No one would guess he was capable of the things he was capable of. Or that he’d done the things that he’d done. Landon was ruthless when he wanted to be. But he was also the senior family clown, the triplets taking up the junior roles, of course.

Landon started gliding his way closer to me, now attempting to sing to me as the song playing from his phone changed from an upbeat indie pop song to a classic ballad. I sat still, my hooded eyes locked on his as he drew closer. Despite my no-nonsense facial expression, Landon reached for my hair and I wasted no time slapping his hand away.

“Alright, that’s enough,” I decided, pushing myself off my bed.

Landon’s singing ended abruptly, and his face sported a massive grin instead, sensing the fight that was to come.

“You can leave now,” I grabbed his shoulders and tried to steer him to the door. Simply asking him to go wouldn’t result in anything.

“Oh, come on, Phoenix,” Landon chuckled, resisting me. “We were having a great time.”

“You were having a great time,” I corrected. “I have had enough now, so get out.”

Landon playfully wrestled me back for a few moments, his hands seizing my arms as he tried to manhandle me back to my starting position. Our feet scuffed against the cream carpet, and I couldn’t help the small smile on my face as I finally managed to shove Landon out of my room entirely.

“Wait, my phone!”

“Take the damn thing with you,” I grabbed the phone which was still playing music and slapped it into his hand before shutting my bedroom door.

To think of what had started off as a quiet afternoon job hunting had turned into Landon giving me a private concert. He had obviously been as bored as I had. Honestly, maybe I’d appreciated the interlude he provided. Looking for a job was the last thing I wanted to do, and the whole process was miserable. The thought of working for someone, anyone that wasn’t myself, was enough to sour my day.

It had been the same thing for weeks now. Job sites after job sites. Finding nothing I wanted to do. Everything was beneath me. Landon said I had to lower my pride if I was going to get anywhere. And that was usually when I turned the attention to him and asked why he was also still unemployed after so many weeks.

Returning to my bed, I eyed my laptop for a moment before pinning my attention back to my gun. Picking up the solid weapon, I rubbed my thumb against its smooth metal casing. It sat comfortably in my hand, fitting perfectly into the folds of my palm. It was mine. I didn’t want to get rid of it, but the truth was, I didn’t have a legal licence for it. Even if I applied to get a licence, I wouldn’t be granted one. My criminal record would ensure that. If the police found it somehow, they’d put me inside for possession and I wasn’t ever going back to jail, not even for a day.

I took the gun apart in mere seconds and took my time cleaning the various components. It had been a habit since I’d owned my first ever firearm. To keep it clean and in perfect condition. Reassembling the gun in the same time it had taken me to pull it apart, I stared at its silent beauty. Flawless machinery filled with copper plated bullets. If I thought about it hard enough, I could still smell the gunpowder that came from firing shots. I replayed in my mind, the blinding flash of light and the almost deafening sound that accompanied pulling the trigger. The heat that came off it.

I didn’t even intend to use it at all, but I couldn’t let it go. It was part of me. To get rid of my gun would mean really putting my past behind me. It would mean becoming a nobody, and I wasn’t a nobody. I was Phoenix Simpson, leader of the Simpson Snakes. Well, I used to be.

I looked at the weapon in my hand for a further few seconds before sighing softly and putting it away in the top drawer of my bedside desk. I was well and truly tired of being in this room and it wasn’t just because of the job searching. The room was practically half the size of my old one, and it was the biggest bedroom in the house. So that was saying something.

Stepping out onto the landing, it was easy to notice how blissfully quiet it was. The triplets weren’t home then. It was late afternoon, but the days were longer in summer. The sun wouldn’t set for another five hours or so. Knowing them, they’d be at the beach still, eating chips and ice-cream. Giovanni would then eat again when they got home, depending on if anyone had bothered to cook anything.

Trudging down the stairs, I heard a key scratching the keyhole before I saw the figure standing on the doorstep through the translucent glass panes in the front door. From their size and their blonde hair, I could tell it was Coral. Turning the handle and swinging the front door open, I watched as Coral’s brown eyes widened before a smile spread across her face.

“Hey,” she greeted warmly.

“Hi,” my gaze dropped to the two heavy bags of shopping in her hands.

“I’ve got this, there’s more in the boot,” she motioned over her shoulder to Walter’s parked car on the street a few feet away. Both mine and Landon’s cars were parked on the driveway in front of our house.

I let Coral in before walking out the door and descending the two steps that separated the patio from the driveway. Coral had bought large potted plants to ‘spruce up’ the tiny patio space, and at the time I’d thought it was unnecessary, though now I appreciated the spot of green. Other houses on the street had more of a garden with a couple shrubs, but I preferred having the parking space.

The houses in the neighbourhood were all detached, but there was barely a breadth between them on either side, so that was pointless. They were decent sized houses, probably all five bedrooms like ours. The designs were similar. Basic, square houses, with four windows and triangular rooves. Nothing special. Nothing unique like our old house. Gone was the old-style, slim structure with four floors, including a basement and attic. We now had one upstairs and one downstairs.

Passing between the two parked cars, I pulled open the boot of Walter’s car which Coral had parked on the kerb. Grabbing two full bags in each hand, I was beginning to wonder where Landon had gone off to when I heard the sound of his voice. Glancing over, I spotted him chatting up one of the neighbours next door.

I hated having neighbours.

I liked my own privacy. People were always too damn nosey. The shifting of the curtains in their windows were a dead giveaway. Some of them, as well as being nosey, were too talkative. A simple ‘hello’ wasn’t enough for them, and they would try to stretch the small talk for as long as they could. They’d learned pretty quickly that I wasn’t a person who would endorse that shit.

But clearly Landon didn’t mind. He already had one girl who hated his guts, and we’d been living at the new house for only a month. The girl he was talking to now was a different one. Or the same one. I couldn’t tell. If she was the girl who’d scratched my car, having mistaken it for his, I had no idea why he was still engaging with her. Landon had paid for that to be fixed. He’d found it funny.

“Hey,” I called to him. “The bags.”

My brother turned to see me carrying the shopping back to the house, just as Coral was coming out to get the rest. He turned back to say something to the girl, they laughed, then Landon threw her a wave and bounded over to the car to beat Coral there.