Page 4 of Winter Glam in Amsterdam

I expertly dodge the playful hit about to come my way before I fall into step with him as we make our way over to the terminal for private flights. One of the perks of having a hotshot CEO brother who owns a private jet.

“I definitely don’t miss those,” Reed says with a grin, nodding over to the queues forming around the TSA lines, with screaming kids and annoyed adults waiting for their turn.

It’s not like we never fly commercial. After all there’s only one jet and we’re five siblings who regularly fly around the world for jobs—well, three of them anyways.

Adam, as CEO of one of the hottest companies in the entertainment business and owner of the plane, has dibs on his jet, of course. But when he doesn’t need it, Jackson takes it to wherever his acting jobs are, Reed for his model jobs, and me?

Thankfully, I don’t really need it. I don’t mind flying, but I don’t love it either, and since I’m a voice actor, most of my work can be done in my private studio at home, or for more advanced equipment, in a rental in my city.

And Zoey, our little sister who just went off to college, doesn’t need it either. Judging by the fact none of us are hearing much from her, I guess she’s way too happy to have some space to fly in for a visit. Although she’s the only one that could get Adam to fly commercial if she gave him her infamous puppy stare.

“Same,” I finally agree with a chuckle as the two of us make our way past the deafening murmur of the TSA lines and past a ton of souvenir shops and tourists who are still figuring out where to go. Reed and I have been here often enough we’d know the way in our sleep.

“Any idea why Adam is ordering us to the Netherlands?” His ominous call came two weeks ago. Luckily still early enough for me to re-schedule a few things, yet he never bothered to let us know what this whole trip is actually about.

“Nope,” Reed says, popping the ‘p.’ “I heard from Asher that it’s Millie and Luca’s kind-of-but-also-kind-of-not bachelor parties. Apparently, they want to spend time with family instead of partying it up, and I guess Adam felt inspired.”

“Right,” I grumble and take a deep breath. “Cause that’s promising a fun time.”

Of course, I’ve heard about Millie and Luca getting engaged. The pop icon and the actor got together during a charity football match we did a few years back, and watching the two of them fall in love is the cheesiest shit I’ve ever witnessed.

Whenever they looked at each other, it was almost literally with hearts in their eyes and little angels flying around their heads playing love songs on trumpets. They played the media and had to go through a lot together, namely smear campaigns and rampant fans, and contrary to most couples in the entertainment industry, they came out on top. But there was so much else that came with it.

Millie and Kayla, the pop duo of the decade, shook up the whole entertainment industry by ditching their label and creating a new one. Even though Adam would have never said a bad thing about them, I could tell he was worried—Crony have a great reputation, but so did the Sirens and I know he was a bit scaredof his talent jumping ship. Thankfully, the two companies found a balanced space in the industry and act more like co-workers than rivals.

And as fate would have it, Adam has fallen in love with their CEO, which I guess made him close with Millie and her pop group partner, Kayla.

It even made him step back from his own job, finally. Not quite sure yet if I like him having that much time on his hands, though, because now he seems to do all the butting into our lives he couldn’t bother with when we were younger.

Now he’s doing stuff like popping by our houses unannounced or ordering us to a spontaneous family vacation to Europe—which, to be fair, I can’t really be too mad about since it’s on his dime and I’m not about to say ‘no’ to a free vacation.

Thank God I was able to push one of my audiobook projects back for this.

“You think Adam and Jackson will behave?” I ask Reed and see the corners of his mouth twitch, knowing his answer before he even opens his mouth.

“I think there’s a lot of mediation to be done,” he answers more or less diplomatically. “I mean please. They’ve been at each other for the past seven years or something, what makes you think this will be any different?”

I think for a moment before shaking my head. “Wishful thinking.”

“I hear you.” His sigh sounds like it’s coming from the depths of his soul.

“Don’t worry.” I nudge him, not able to hide the grin playing at my lips. “Weed’s legal there, right?”

“Why, you want to drug them?”

“I’m just saying, maybe if we all have some brownies,” I wiggle my eyebrows at him, “together and get them to talk instead of bitching at each other, it may resolve their deep-rooted parent complexes.”

“You might have a point.” He tilts his head, playing the idea over. “Let’s just see how it goes. Maybe we’ll get a very early Christmas miracle.”

“Here’s to hoping.”

“Ah, there he is,” Reed grumbles and nods towards the checkpoint in front of us, where our oldest brother is already putting his stuff on the conveyor belt for the private flight security check. He then leans down to untie his shoes, spotting us as he steps out of them and his face turns into a tight smile as he acknowledges us with a nod. It reminds me of when he’d have to smile his way through parent-teacher meetings, clearly wanting to be somewhere else.

“Wow, what crawled up your ass?” I ask him jokingly and pat his shoulder as a greeting.

“Sorry, sorry,” Adam grumbles and pinches the bridge of his nose, his face softening. “Didn’t get much sleep last night.”

Reed and I look at each other for one split second before simultaneously biting our lips to stop ourselves from bursting into laughter. It’s no secret he’s basically moved in with his girlfriend. We can very well guess why he didn’t get much sleep.

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