Finally Us

Interrogation

Ireland just became the number one spot on his bucket list. Not that the band hadn't been to the island country before, because they had. Many times. But as he heard his sister talk about all the adventures she had taken with Ellington during their engagement-moon, he really wanted to go back to explore. He wanted to see the Cliffs of Moher, and the Ring of Kerry, the distillery was a must and according to Rydel, there was no way in hell that anyone couldn't be impressed by the Dingle Peninsula. She had shown him pictures upon pictures and went through Ellington's Vine account to tell him the true stories behind each and every one of them.

Rydel and Ellington had been back for a few weeks but this had been the first time he had gotten to really talk with her. On top of her getting back into school and him being recruited by Rocky to help on a few music projects, he was getting ready to go off and film a pilot in Vancouver in just a matter of days. They had met up at a local dive before heading back to their parents' place to rest before the rest of the clan returned for a big family dinner. With the promise of Stormie's best recipes - which, let's be honest, were all of them - everyone would be at the table. That meant at least eleven chairs and two leaves, not just one, in the table. Just like it was Thanksgiving.

"You guys set a date yet?"

Rydel rolled her eyes and let her head hit the back of the cushion on the couch as the sound of some random television show became background noise. "You are the sixteenth person who's asked me that."

"Sixteenth? That's a very specific number."

"Mom was asking a half hour after I had this on my finger," she wiggled the piece of jewelry on her hand.

"So, that's a no?" Ross let one of his eyebrows go higher than the other as he took a drink of his beer.

"Yes, that's a no. I just got engaged. Let me enjoy it," she punched him in the arm.

Ross smirked over at her as they heard the door open and close, with voices headed their way. "Heard you've been enjoying it," he muttered, his eyebrows wiggling suggestively. "Very much."

He knew a lot of things about his sister. The first was that she was possibly the sweetest person alive. So sweet that if you got too close to her at some times, you'd get a sweet tooth yourself. The other things he knew was that she loved with all her heart, was passionate about everything and the best one? When she got embarrassed, which wasn't often, it was never hidden. Her face turned not the bright pink that Laura's did, but a very deep red. One that if you didn't know her, would confuse as anger. Her legs came up from being outstretched to the table, her head disappeared into her shirt and she tried to hide away from whoever was joining them and him altogether.

While he laughed at her demeanor and wanted to see her turn even more into a turtle, his attention was taken away when their brothers entered the room and were talking in beats. No words. Just beats. It had been about a year since they returned from their worldwide tour and each of them had taken their breaks, and worked on some music in between...but nothing like Rocky had. In between all his producing other tracks for major artists (Ross was secretly jealous of this), he had also been working on new stuff for the band. Their sound really hadn't changed through the years, but the songs got more meaningful, more personal.

"Letting Go" was one that Rydel wrote after the she and Ellington first broke up. "Coming Back" was Ellington's answer. "Living Wild" was Rocky's attempt at giving them a classic rock song. "Deep In My Heart" was Riker's love letter to all the fans and for him, "That Night" was about missing a chance in a night from the past.

Riker and Rocky slipped down in some chairs spitting out beat after beat, not noticing that Rydel still hadn't come out of her shell. Ross leaned back and listened to the music his brothers were making and started to tap his fingers against the neck of the bottle in his hand. It was a good beat, something that their band wasn't really known for. It was a rough beat and he was willing to beat if they got Ellington in here, they'd have a song put together with lyrics in an hour. Some songs were like that, some were not. He could recall many, many times having a melody in his head and not being able to use it until the last possible minute to make an album. It actually happened much more often than anyone knew.