Page 1 of If You Could Only Dream
Prologue
They say your handicap in life is that you can’t choose who you will be born to. And, if you can’t pick your parents, you sure as hell can’t pick the rest of your relatives. The family you’re born into is a family created by fate.
But, scanning the backyard, taking in everyone who was here, I realized I was one of the lucky ones. I was born into a family of great men and remarkable women.
They were all equally ridiculous, but their love, loyalty and devotion to one another was the stuff made of legends.
Today was my 21st birthday and my family felt it was a milestone worthy of a big family get-together. It felt ridiculous seeing as how in two months it would be Aiden’s 21st birthday and then two months after that, Gabriel would be 21, as well. But I guess being the first-born son of the next generation of Buchanans was sort of a big deal. However, I imagined the party that was sure to bring the cops by would be with the twins, Mason and Shane, when they turned 21 in a few months.
Those two guys were felonies just waiting to happen.
I glanced around the yard and I saw my Aunt Denise helping my Aunt Sophia setting up the table with the condiments, plastic ware and paper plates. Uncle Michael and Uncle Gabriel were setting up the volleyball net for later. Aunt Justice, my Grandma Natalie and Grandma Maggie were bringing out the side dishes from inside the house, while my mom, dad and Grandpa Adam were manning the grill. Well, my dad was manning it, Mom and Grandpa were just bullshitting. Uncle Aiden was off scolding one of my cousins.
The rest of the backyard was littered with Buchanans as far as the eye could see; all my cousins and my four siblings. If you weren’t part of the family, you literally needed a diagram to know who was who and who belongs to whom.
And, Jesus, when you threw in the five sets of twins? Well, my Aunt Sophia jokes that all our shirts should be embroidered with our names on them.
It’s not necessarily a bad idea.
What amazed me most about my family was that, while we all had our fair share of fights and arguments and got on each other’s nerves, we didn’t have one bad seed. There were about a billion of us running around, and not one of us was a black sheep or a problem child. Sure, Mason and Shane were destined to spend time behind bars at some point, but they had good hearts. Not to mention, while my Uncle Michael didn’t rule with an iron fist like my dad did, every last Buchanan knew he’d drop you in an unmarked grave, if you dared to upset Aunt Sophia.
And that went double for his children.
So, while Mason and Shane pushed the envelope a lot, they both knew jail was a better option for them instead of freedom if they ever upset their mother.
But they were the most challenging of us all. Everyone else was as mentally stable as you could be, being raised by our fathers. Luckily our mothers had balanced us out.
But, as I scanned my parents’ backyard, one thing was evidently crystal clear here. In all my 21 years, I never doubted how my parents and all my aunts and uncles felt about one another. If anyone who ever doubted the existence of true love could just peek into this backyard, they’d be proven wrong and know it.
Love was in how five kids (1 set of male twins) later, my father still looked at my mother as if she’s the hottest, sexiest woman on the planet and he can’t breathe without her near him.
Love was in how six kids (2 sets of female twins) later, my Uncle Aiden still looks at my Aunt Denise as if no other women exist in the world and he doesn’t know how to without her. function
Love was in how four kids (1 set of male twins) later, my Uncle Gabriel still caters to my Aunt Justice as if she’s the most delicate piece of China and he’ll die if she cracks even a little.
And love was really fucking evident in how five kids (1 set of male twins) later, my Uncle Michael lives for my Aunt Sophia as if she was the only thing that kept him sane every second of every minute of every goddamn day.
I knew the odds that we’d all each find that one true love were slim to none because there were just too damn many of us. Some of us were going to find the loves of our lives and some of us were going to crash and burn in the love department.
But one thing I did know?
When we found the real thing, we would to know what to do with it thanks to our parents.
Chapter 1
Mason Buchanan~
I stared at my wife, and the woman still took my breath away, five years later. Shane stole my heart and soul the first time I ever laid eyes on her.
And she definitely stole my motherfucking sanity along with the other two.
“I hope you realize that those six weeks are, quite likely, going to drive me insane, right?” I said, knowing she really didn’t care.
Shane smiled up at me from the couch, where she was laid out, with her e-reader in her face. “I know how you hate it when the Universe refuses to bend to your will, Mason, but I’m sure you’ll get through this as confidently as you get through everything else in life,” she responded, sarcasm lacing every word.
I grabbed her juice and walked into the living room to cater to her.
I always catered to her.
