.:Chapter 12:.
"Sit, Yuma!" Katie commanded. She frowned as she looked down at the piglet. Yuma looked back up at her, making little snort sounds. She then looked away before starting to walk off. Katie grabbed onto her and set her back on the floor. "Yuma, sit!" This time she tried wagging her finger, but Yuma continued to look at her before walking off again. Katie let out a groan, sitting back on her heels. "Why won't she sit?"
"Because she's not a dog," Mrs. Knight replied from where she was sitting on the couch. She put down her magazine and let out a weary sigh, looking over at her daughter. She could tell that her daughter could care less if Yuma ended up becoming house trained. Everyone had given up at that point and just double checked where they were walking or else a pink, squealing, blur would come tearing away from you. "Katie, you know you're going to have to leave the apartment at some point."
"Not unless I have to," Katie replied stubbornly. She let out a loud sigh before getting to her feet and walking over to the couch. She flopped down on it and leaned into her mother's side, crossing her arms over her chest. Mrs. Knight smiled and put her arm around Katie's shoulders. "I'm too embarrassed, everyone keeps looking at me! Like they pity me!"
"Katie, you know that this isn't the way to deal with your first time having a rumor about you…or your relationship," Mrs. Knight said gently. "You can't just hide and act like it never happened." To prove her point, she reached out and grabbed the most recent published magazine of PopTiger off of the table in front of her and opened it. She held the pages up to Katie and Katie let out a groan, turning her head away. She didn't have to look at it to know what it said, she had seen it enough times…her friends from Minnesota had been e-mailing and calling her about it, saying that they felt bad for what was going on. Even the guys were looking at her with pitying looks and Kendall's attempt at a 'don't let it get you down, it's just a rumor' pep talk made her want to curl up and die.
"I wish it didn't," Katie growled.
The article flashed through her head.
Is it true that Patrick Jackson-McGuire had something going on with his backup dancer, Jewel Haggart? Maybe. Sources say that the two have been hanging out a lot more now that the backup dancers are in the US rather than the Land of Oz. But does that mean that the sibling duo of him and Katie Knight are over? No one knows for sure, but we're going to keep an eye out.
"You're lucky that you don't have to deal with something like this," Katie said. She grabbed the magazine from her mother, scowling at the article, before closing it. She tilted her head to the side, looking over the solo picture of Noah, as he had taken up the cover that month. "Though this is a good pic of No, I'm sure Lizz has it hanging on her wall with a giant heart around it."
Mrs. Knight laughed as she took the magazine and tossed it back onto the table. She let out a sigh, before starting to play with the ends of Katie's hair. The two were quiet for a long moment before she started to speak again. "You think that I haven't been in a magazine before? Not in a teenage magazine, I mean a real one. Like People and Us and OK and Women's and Men's Health. Ones that focus on the 'celebrities' older than twenty five."
Katie's right eyebrow lowered. "But you're not a celebrity."
"But Ronan is," Mrs. Knight reminded her. "Most people don't realize that he is, indeed one. Because he's a music producer, and got his own company at such a young age, he's a bit of an entrepreneur too. Though he wouldn't tell anyone, he's worth a lot of money and that's all rom hard work, the kind of hard work that he's instilling in his kids. He's been in magazines and on gossip sites for years even when he was first coming up in LA. He has a pretty famous family." She leaned closer to Katie, lowering her voice. "Did you know that, when he was fist working with the DarkElements, people thought that he had something going on with Riley and Rhuben?"
"Really?" Katie's eyes widened.
Mrs. Knight nodded, laughing a bit. "Yeah, he told me that because he would give them hugs and stuff and would be really friendly with them, now we know why, and people wanted to get pictures of him because he was gaining popularity quickly, they thought that there was something going on." Her smile widened. "It also didn'thelp that he thinks, though they won't admit it when he teases them about it, that the two of them had a crush on him when they were younger. After they stopped hating him, I mean."
Katie tilted her head back and laughed loudly. She brought her legs up onto the couch, turning towards her mother. She loved moments like this, when she was able to get one on one time with her mom, especially since they had moved out to LA. Ever since they first got out to LA, even before the guys were officially picked up by Rocque Records, she didn't feel like she ha anyone to talk to. Kendall had drifted away to hang out with his friends and many girlfriends, bringing James, Logan, and Carlos with him. And while she had found a friend in Lizzie, she was still somewhat lonely as she wasn't in the entertainment industry at all, so everyone was leaving her to do some random audition or appearance or in the Jacksons case, running around LA or Australia so many times over the year that she could barely keep their schedule straight.
Being able to hang out with her mother and just have some girl talk was something that she started to get used to it. At first she tried to shy away from it as much as possible, but soon got suckered in by the gossip that she could learn about her brother and his friends and other things that she wasn't old enough to hear before. Katie pushed her hair out of her face and smiled as she waited for her mother to continue.
"That's funny," Katie said. "But…how come he doesn't say anything?"
"Because he likes his privacy," Mrs. Knight explained. "And that's why he's always so quick to help out his kids when their news gets out in the business. Especially Riley and Rhuben, the industry is really hard on girls and he, like their brothers, are really overprotective with them. It's sort of a double standard with the boys, but still. So when it comes to his own privacy, he nips it in the bud as soon as possible, just so things don't get bad for his kids by association."
"So what does this have to do with you?" Katie tilted her head to the side. She studied her mother carefully, suddenly looking at her for the very first time. She wasn't just her mother, she had a life of her own outside of being the boys' momager; but she would do everything she could to help the boys. But still…her mother didn't change her style from when she had been in Minnesota to when she had gone to Los Angeles. She still dressed the way she wanted, she still ruled everyone with a moderately iron fist, and she was able to do it all with a smile. Katie couldn't believe that she had tried to act that her mother's job was nothing, when it was really everything that kept Katie's day going. She definitely admired her for that.
"When I started dating Ronan last year, it got into the news pretty quickly," Mrs. Knight explained. "And his publicist warned him about the news going out in People two days before, so he got me prepared for it. He told me that there was going to be a picture of the two of us holding hands as we came out of some shopping store and that there was going to be a little blurb saying something along the lines of 'Music producer Ronan McGuire and his girlfriend are seen coming out of the mall, holding hands'. That was fine. But then when more people found out, it started to get more into our business. They wanted to know what I was wearing, they wanted to know how long we'd been together, some cameras started to follow us around. But the only reason that you guys didn't know was because we dealt with it professionally and quickly. Sometimes there's nothing we can do and we just let it happen. He's invited to many parties, many appearances, to collab on a lot of different projects, he's really popular, like really popular in the music industry, but he would rather work when he can."
Katie gave a knowing smile. "You mean when he's not running around trying to keep the Jacksons out of trouble?"
"That too," Mrs. Knight agreed. Her smile faded a little. "But you know that they had a really hard time when they were growing up and they're still adjusting to living with Ronan, since they've only been there for two years now. But of course they have problems with authority. And, frankly, I think he likes having to run around after them, it's a change of pace for him."
Yeah, I guess they were right when they told the guys that when they first met…Katie nodded slowly. They are a breath of fresh air. We didn't really know anything until we met them. Being abused was something that we saw in movies or heard of in the news; we didn't think that we'd meet anyone that it happened to. But now they're some of our best friends.
Mrs. Knight lightly tapped Katie on the nose with her index finger. "So what I really mean to say about all of this is that if you're feeling bad about this article, then you really need to figure out what you're upset about." She waited as Katie thought about her, her face slowly scrunching up to one of annoyance. "And if I'm not mistaken, you're a bit insecure about Patrick and Jewel and where you stand with the whole thing."
"No, duh!" Katie snapped. She crossed her arms over her chest, shaking her head. "It's not even that I'm jealous, because I'm not. I just…don't like the idea….what I mean is….I'm not…" she let out a huff, sinking deeper into the couch. "I don't know!"
"You say you're not jealous, but it's written all over your face," Mrs. Knight said gently. "I hate to say it, but us Knights have been cursed with the jealous gene. Your father was a bit of a jealous person, Kendall is a jealous person, I find myself being jealous at times, and now you're jealous."
"Well that would make a lot of sense." Katie snorted. "I mean Kendall flips out anytime a guy looks at Riles. I mean, even the PalmWoods mailman, the young one, gets him pissed. Brodie, her backup dancer, is twenty-one and has been with his girlfriend since they were fourteen, and he pisses Kendall off. And don't even get me started how jealous he gets whenever any of the Jacksons hang out with Dak and WayneWayne."
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but you were the same way when Patrick and Noah would hang out with Lizzie and you couldn't go or they just didn't invite you," Mrs. Knight reminded her.
Katie waved a hand. "It wasn't my proudest moments," she admitted. She tilted her head back and made a whining sound. With the back of her head rested against the couch, she rolled her head to the side to look at her mother. "Do I really have to talk to Patrick? Can't I just send him a text or something?" Mrs. Knight laughed at the look on Katie's face and leaned forward, giving her a kiss on the forehead. "I'll take that as a yes?" Mrs. Knight nodded. "Great." Katie slapped her hands in her lap. "Fine, I'll go now."
Katie got off of the couch and went into her room to grab her shoes and phone. She sat down on the edge of her bed and started to pull on her shoes, looking over at the corkboard that she and her mother had put up to decorate the room as soon as they had gotten to the PalmWoods and had it made over to the crib. She wasn't much of a picture taker (at least before she met Lizzie) but there were a lot of them scattered over the corkboard. Her eyes moved over to the one that she, Patrick, Lizzie, and Noah had taken recently, smiling a little. Patrick had his arms around her shoulders and the two were smiling brightly. Lizzie was standing next to them, up on her tiptoes in a way to get taller than Noah, who had a slightly exasperated look on his face, though he was smiling too.
She looked at the picture one more time before grabbed her wallet and leaving the room. Her mother was watching TV and bid her goodbye as Katie headed towards the door. She heard a snorting sound as she pulled the door open and looked down to see Yuma sniffing at her heels. "Sit, Yuma!" Yuma let out another squeal and ran over to the couch, jumping up onto it and resting in Mrs. Knight's lap, looking at her warily. Katie laughed and shook her head. "Figures. See ya, mom!"
Katie left the PalmWoods and waited for the shuttle to come around so that it would take her to the bus stop. She could have called the guys to take her to the Jacksons' house, but she didn't want to take them away from Gustavo. She was just as excited about their new album coming up than the guys were, she loved being one of the first people to hear their new music. When Elevate had come out and Kendall got her an advanced copy, it had gotten almost completely scratched from play in almost two days time, she loved it that much. So while she knew that they would probably be begging her to save them rom Gustavo at some point, she was going to give them all the time they needed to make a album even greater than the last one.
When the shuttle dropped her off at the bus stop, it was perfect timing as her bus just pulled up. She climbed on, told the driver where she needed to go, and waited, listening to her iPhone as the bus took her to her stop. When she got there, she got off and waited for the bus to pull away before starting to walk down the sidewalk, coming up towards the neighborhood. She couldn't help but feel a little envious of the extravagance of them. They had only been in the mansion in Bel-Air for what felt like a minute, and the guys had to go and mess things up for them to be run out of the neighborhood. Though she was sure that her fight over lemons with Fabio had something to do with it. A tiny bit, but part of it. But that was the goal that she set for herself. When she made enough money after starting up her own business, she was going to buy herself and her mother a house like that. Where they weren't stepping on each other's toes when they walked out of the room, so she didn't have to continue living with four teenage guys that didn't seem to have a clue when it came to having personal space and how to treat a girl. Not…that she was weak or anything. But she wanted to be treated nicer sometimes.
Katie was so lost in her thoughts that she almost walked by the Jacksons' house. She quickly doubled back before going up the front porch and ringing the doorbell. A second later, she knocked on the door. She waited, holding her hands behind her back, rocking on her heels, as she waited for the door to open.
"Hey Katie," Ronan greeted her with a warm smile. He let her into the house. "C'mon in." He turned to look at her as he closed the door behind her. His green eyes showed warmth as well as a bit of concern. "I'm assuming that you're here for Patrick? You haven't been around much lately from what I can tell." He shrugged. "He should be in the den watching TV," he said before walking away, disappearing into another part of the house.
And that was what Katie really liked about Ronan. The fact that he had a way of wanting to know what was going on with someone, but not prying too much if they didn't want to say anything. He usually waited for someone to come to him to talk, since he didn't like to push people, though he was curious, it definitely was the best way to go. Unlike Gustavo, who practically demanded that you tell him everything whenever something was getting in the way of his work.
Katie walked to the den and spotted Patrick sitting on the floor on a pile of pillow, his glasses on his face and his laptop resting on the floor between his feet. He barely looked at her as she entered the room. Nonetheless, Katie gave him a smile and a wave as she walked over to him. He didn't smile back. Not that she was surprised, Ronan was right when he said that she hadn't been around in a while, after Mrs. Knight had shown her the article about her and Jewel and Patrick, she had locked herself in the apartment and she hadn't come out in days. She hadn't talked to Patrick at all, she barely talked to Noah, and she changed the subject with Lizzie whenever she tried to talk about either of them.
"How's it going?" Katie placed her hands inside her jeans pockets.
"Not bad," Patrick said shortly, his eyes still on the TV screen. He flipped the remote in his hands. "Just getting some things ready for the surgery that Ronan is having this weekend. Other than that, I've just been around." He changed the channel a few times before rolling his eyes and turning up the volume on the video that was playing on MTV. Katie winced and moved further into the room, closer to him, as the music was too loud. "But you haven't, obviously."
Katie winced. She let out a sigh through her nose. "Can we talk?"
"What's there to talk about?" Patrick turned off the TV before using his foot to close his laptop. He stood up and started to throw the pillows back onto the couch. It was then that Katie suddenly noticed that the room was clean, a lot cleaner than it normally was. The Jacksons weren't neat freaks to say the least, and even Ronan was fine with an organized mess. Usually there were magazine and plates and cups sitting all over the place, not it was eerie how picked up it was. It didn't help that she could feel Patrick's anger. "A stupid article came out, you believe it without even a second of thought and avoid me like I killed your dog or something."
"I don't have a dog," Katie denied. Bad idea. Katie looked at her feet as Patrick shot a glare her way. Should have just let him have that one. "But I did want to talk."
"What made you want to do it now?" Patrick continued to throw pillows around. "Did your guilt finally catch up to you? Or did you start to feel stupid over thinking that something was going on with me and Jewel?" He glanced at her. "You don't have to answer that question, by the way."
"Why?" Katie had asked in a low voice, now afraid to say anything in case she said something wrong.
"Because I already know the answer," Patrick walked out of the den and Katie followed him. "It was written all over your face when you walked in. You saw the magazine article, decided that something as stupid as that was true and didn't even bother trying to talk to me about it at all. Because if you did, then you'd know that Ronan's publicist has already called PopTiger and threatened them for defamation saying that they can only post articles about our relationships only when they have a direct quote from him or one of us." He shrugged. "I seriously doubt that's gonna stop them, but still." He scratched the side of his jaw. "I have more important thigns to worry about anyway."
"I-I'm sorry," Katie apologized quickly. She ran a hand through her hair. "But we can talk now, I just wanted to say that I don't really believe any of it, I'm just-"
"Get out," Patrick said. Katie gasped lightly, looking over at him. He was looking hard at her, while pointing to the front door. Katie's eyebrows lowered as she watched him, waiting. Waiting for him to smile or laugh and make a joke or to do something that would show that he wasn't being serious. But he continued to look hard at her, his lips pressed into a thin line.
"B-but I-"
"I don't want to talk to you right now! Ok?!" Patrick walked over to the front door and yanked it open with a sharp tug of his hand. He turned his head away so she didn't have to see the look on Katie's face.
Katie closed her mouth, dropping her gaze to the floor. She took a deep breath, trying to force down the urge to cry, but didn't make it. Tears were already welling up in her eyes and she knew that she wouldn't be able to stop them once they started. She had never seen Patrick look so angry, he could be upset or mad and then change the subject, make a joke, or find a way to channel his frustration, but she had never seen him mad. Not at her, not at the boys, not even at her brothers and sisters. Katie blinked and tears from her eyes.
Oh great. She quickly wiped them away.
"I'm not going to ask again," Patrick warned.
The fierceness in his tone shocked her. Katie swallowed thickly before ducking her head and quickly walked out of the house. She winced when she heard the door slam behind her and started to cry harder. She dropped down onto the porch step and whipped her phone from her pocket, trying to figure out who to call. Logan would probably be too busy on his phone to answer, Carlos wouldn't be able to help, Kendall would probably threaten Patrick, which would make things worse, and that just left James. She knew that he would at least listen to her with an open mind, wanting to hear the whole story before thinking rationally. He could be like a big brother to her, but at least he was able to take her seriously and not jump to conclusions.
"James?" Katie ran her arm across her eyes, trying to stop crying. "Can you come pick me up? Please?"
"Yo," Noah greeted Sydney as he walked into his baby brother's room.
"Yo, yo," Sydney replied, his eyes on his computer screen. He smiled when he heard Riley and Rhuben give the greeting as well. He turned away from his computer, sitting Indian style in his chair, and watched as Noah closed the bedroom door and sat on the bed next to his sisters. "Did they stop fighting?"
"It's not much of a fight if it's one-sided," Riley commented from where she was lying on her stomach, her chin in her hands, lightly kicking her feet so her heels hit her butt with each kick. "Trust me, I would know." She smiled a little as Rhuben, Noah, and Sydney laughed. "Besides, you're only glad he came because it somewhat takes the attention off of you."
Sydney sighed loudly, rolling his eyes. "I already apologized for not telling you guys that I was thinking about going home, ok?" He crossed his arms over his chest, pouting a little as his shoulders slumped.
He really was sorry that he didn't tell them.
Sometimes he didn't think how hard everything was for him. He was the youngest out of all of them, his brothers and sisters got most of the attention, not that he even wanted a lot of it anyway, and he was the only one out of all of them that didn't remember their parents at all. He was the one that had to sit back and watch as his brothers and sisters got in trouble day after day because they were acting out their anger and frustration over their death. He got in trouble too, he stopped doing schoolwork, he did petty shoplifting, he talked back to his teachers, but it didn't affect him so bad that his whole life was in an uproar. That is, it wasn't until Robert had adopted them. Then he had figure out how they were going to live to see the next day, what was the best way to get out of the house if Robert was still there, what was the best way to keep him from getting angry. Then there were the songs that he had to produce after Robert had realized how gifted he was, the hours he put in with Ronan trying to help him as much as possible, being pushed o the brink during dance rehearsals, having to spend two years of his life on tour (not consecutively), all of that and he didn't complain too much.
He willingly helped his brothers and sisters when they needed it, the same with his friends, and there were many times that he had felt ignored by his friends, not realizing that he wasn't just a little brother that tagged along with them. He was a part of MENSA and had the tests and research projects to prove it, some of which he was still working on through video chats. All of that was weighing on him, but he did his best to keep from letting his own problems get in the way of their happiness.
It was a curse, but it was something that all of them did.
"I just didn't want you to be mad," He continued.
"And we already told you, Little Man, that we aren't mad," Rhuben said slowly. She cracked her fingers. "It was only a matter of time until we started thinking about college and everything, so the fact that you were thinking of leaving the band wasn't too much of a shock."
Sydney's lips curled into a smirk. "Liar," he contradicted. He ran a hand through his hair. Though attention was always something that he wanted, he was a bit unnerved by the fact that he was getting it. Especially since it was for a reason that he wished he didn't have to announce in the first place. Like that's the only thing that you're keeping from them. He mentally rolled his eyes, trying now to openly grimace.
"You just caught us by surprise, no worries," Noah reassured him calmly.
Yeah, right. Sydney turned back to his computer to continue looking over his research paper. He looked at Noah out of the corner of his eye, smiling a little. "Did you hear anything good with Patrick and Katie?"
"No," Noah crossed his arms over his chest, looking disappointed, mimicking the looks on Riley's and Rhuben's faces. "Patrick didn't really let her say anything. Otherwise, I think we would have heard some really juicy stuff."
"Do you really mean 'juicy' or 'stupid'?" Rhuben asked him. She then twitched her eyebrows up. "Never mind, for Pat, that usually goes hand in hand." She, Riley, and Noah laughed and she and Noah bumped fists. Riley held her hands over her mouth before she openly laughed with them as well.
"Ha ha." Patrick laughed tonelessly as he walked into the room. "That's so funny."
"Lighten up, Pattycackes, you can't be mad at her forever," Riley said, moving to make room for him on Sydney's bed.
"I think I can, Ri-bread," Patrick returned, sitting down in the empty seat. "Anyway, I don't want to talk about it." He pulled a envelope out of his pocket and handed it over to Sydney, who looked at him curiously. "I'd rather talk about this."
Sydney slowly took the envelope and looked over the front and the return address before flipping it over. "It must be important, it's from Oz." He laughed lightly. "Hey, maybe it's a nomination for the Nobel peace prize." His brothers and sisters waited patiently as Sydney opened the letter. "It's about Dad," he said, his eyebrows twitching.
"Dad dad or Ronan dad?" Rhuben asked for clarification.
"Dad-dad," Sydney replied slowly. He lifted his head to look at his brothers and sisters. "They want me to present an award in his name."
A/N: I change my mind on chapters too much, I can never really make up my mind about how I want them to go (a little bit of a lot of characters/story lines or a lot of a little bit of characters/story lines). But this is the first bit of drama that you see and a lot more is coming up. I wanted to do a chapter on Mrs. Knight and Katie because I wanted to show them bonding a bit more. And Sydney's small part is to further his own plot as well as show more of his parents and Julius when it gets to it.
Also, for those wondering, it's possible that we could start Big Time Boarding School again. We just found out that in 2011 it was nominated for the best friendship story in the 2011 BTR Fanfic awards and we really did like the fic, but just lost inspiration. So, yeah, it could potentially be brought up again, even if only one of us is writing it and it's updated slowly. Or maybe completely re-done because there was a lot of things that didn't make sense. We haven't decided yet.
Umm, also, we cleaned out our profile a bit, deleting old stories that didn't make sense or just weren't that good. Oh and Rhu and I are going to start (trying) to do a split of stories that have Dak, WayneWayne, and Lizzie, and those that don't because we know that there are people that prefer our stories with just BTR, DE, (and Jo, Camille, and Stephanie if they appear) and people that prefer ones with everyone.
I'll update again soon.
Cheers,
-Riles