POV: TIMOTHY
Rule #1 of being the middle Fernandez brother: if a mess is made, you will clean it.
Doesn't matter who threw the cake. Doesn't matter who started it. If you're under twenty and not currently holding a weapon for the family business, you're on mop duty.
I stood at the sink, hot water scalding my hands, staring at a mountain of dishes that looked like a food bomb had gone off.
Vanilla frosting dripped from the chandelier. Ceramic shards glittered in a pool of milk. A single, sad strawberry sat in Julian's abandoned chair like a tiny warning flag.
Riven had vanished. Leo had evaporated. Typical.
That left me, Julian, and the ghost of Enzo's escape.
Julian was already slouched in a chair at the kitchen island, one earbud in, his phone propped against the napkin holder.
His face was lit by the cool glow of a TikTok video, a slight, absent smirk on his lips. His other hand slowly spun a butter knife on the marble.
A faint, slightly annoying snicker escaped him every few seconds.
"Julian," I said, my voice tight.
No response. Another snicker.
I grabbed a sponge from the kitchen. It was cold and slimy. Perfect. I started wiping. The frosting smeared instead of coming off. Great. Just great.
"Julian."
"Mm?" He didn't look up. His thumb scrolled. Another soft laugh.
"We have to clean this."
"Yeah, I heard." Scroll. Snicker.
I stood there, sponge dripping on my shoe. "So are you going to help or what?"
"In a minute."
The "in a minute" was our family's favorite lie. It meant never. It meant this is your problem now.
I went back to wiping. The sponge made a gross squelching sound. I wiped cake off the marble, then had to wipe frosting off the sponge, then more cake.
It was like fighting a monster made of sugar and spite.
Julian's phone volume crept up. Some TikTok audio—a guy doing a ridiculous voice. Julian's shoulders shook with silent laughter.
I threw the sponge into the sink. It hit with a wet slap.
That got his attention. He glanced up, one eyebrow raised. "What?"
"Are you seriously just going to sit there?"
He pulled out the earbud. The tinny sound of "Oh no, oh no, oh no-no-no-no-no" spilled into the room. "Chill, Tim. It's just a mess."
"It's our mess. Elijah said—"
"Elijah's not here," Julian cut me off, his voice flat. He shoved his phone into his pocket and stood up, stretching. "Look. I'll do the big stuff. You do the detail work."
"The big stuff?"
He walked to the table, picked up his own plate—the only clean one—and carried it to the kitchen. "See? Helping."
"That's your own plate!"
"Still counts."
He leaned against the counter, scrolling again. The audio started up. That same stupid voice.
I went back to wiping. Harder this time. The sponge tore. Frosting got under my fingernails.
After ten minutes, Julian had "helped" by moving three plates and one fork. He'd also eaten a leftover piece of bacon he found and made three more TikToks.
I was on my hands and knees, picking ceramic shards out of the rug, when the back door creaked open.
Enzo slunk in. He didn't make eye contact. His grand escape had lasted all of fifteen minutes—probably spent kicking rocks in the garden, plotting his revenge.
He saw me on the floor, Julian on his phone, and the mountain of unwashed pots in the sink.
His face fell. "You didn't start without me?"
Julian snorted. "Oh, we started. Your share's waiting." He pointed to the sink with his chin. "Potatoes. Elijah's orders."
Enzo's eyes went wide. "But I was gone! You should've done mine!"
"Should've, would've, didn't," Julian said, not looking up from his screen. "Rules are rules. You run, you still pay."
"But that's not fair!"
"Tell it to the boss."
Enzo looked at me, desperate. "Timothy, come on. You'll help me, right? We can split them."
I stood up, my knees aching. I held out my frosting-crusted hands. "I've been cleaning for twenty minutes while you were hiding. Julian's been... Tiktoking"
"I wasn't hiding! I was... creating a strategy!"
"With what? The garden gnomes?" Julian laughed at his own joke, then went back to his phone.
Enzo's pleading look was hard to stomach. But so was the mountain of dishes.
So was the fact that my back hurt and my hands were sticky and Julian was currently watching a video of a raccoon stealing a hot dog.
"Fine," I said, my voice tired. "But you're washing. I'll dry."
Enzo brightened. "Deal!"
Julian glanced over. "Aw, teamwork. How sweet." He pushed off the counter. "Well, since you two have it handled..."
"Where are you going?" Enzo demanded.
"Upstairs. My leg hurts."
"Your leg always hurts when there's work!"
"Perks of almost dying, kiddo." Julian gave a lazy wave and limped toward the stairs, the exaggerated hitch in his step just a little too performative.
The injustice burned in my throat. But what was I going to do? Tackle him? He was bigger. He was older.
Enzo stared after him, betrayal all over his face. "He's not even limping that bad."
"I know."
"He just doesn't want to do potatoes."
"I know."
We stood there in the silent, messy kitchen. The tower of dirty pots loomed. A single potato peeler lay on the counter like a challenge.
Enzo picked it up. It looked tiny in his hand. "I hate potatoes."
"I know."
We got to work.
For the first five minutes, it was pure resentment. Enzo washed with aggressive splashes. I dried with angry clatters.
Then he said, "Do you think Leo's actually working? Or is he just pretending to work?"
"He's probably running facial recognition on the cake crumbs," I muttered.
POV: Julian (Age 20)
My leg did hurt.
Not a lot. But enough. A dull, metallic ache where the pins held bone together. A permanent reminder.
I lay on my bed, phone on my chest, staring at the ceiling. From downstairs came the sounds of water running, dishes clinking, Enzo's occasional dramatic sigh.
I should be down there.
I knew it. Timothy's silent disappointment had been a physical weight in the room.
But here's the thing about guilt: once you're carrying enough of it, a little more doesn't change the load. Even after 3 years the ghost of my past never really left.
Nightmares came often. Was skipping out on dishes really going to change anything in my life?
My phone buzzed. A notification from a music band. Someone had sampled one of my old guitar riffs.
For a second, I felt it—that old spark. The before-times feeling. When my hands made music, not mistakes.
Then I heard Enzo yell from downstairs: "THIS POTATO HAS EYES! IT'S LOOKING AT ME!"
Timothy's tired reply: "Just peel it, Enzo."
The spark died.
I rolled over, grabbed my guitar from the corner. The neck felt familiar in my hands. I strummed once. The sound was off. I hadn't tuned it in weeks. Maybe months.
From downstairs, Enzo started singing some made-up, ridiculous potato-peeling song. Off-key. Loud.
Timothy joined in, monotone, deadpan.
They were bonding. Over potato duty. Because I'd left them there.
I set the guitar back down. The ache in my leg felt sharper now. Different.
I got up and limped to the door. Hesitated. Then headed downstairs.
They were in the groove now. Enzo at the sink, Timothy drying. A pile of peeled potatoes sat in a bowl. Enzo's ridiculous song had turned into a full musical.
"Peel the potato, slice the potato, boil the potato, mash the potato... STOMP THE POTATO!"
He did a little stomp dance. Water splashed everywhere.
Timothy groaned. "Now I have to mop."
"Sorry!"
I stood in the doorway, watching. They hadn't seen me.
Enzo's face was flushed with effort and laughter. Timothy's shoulders were less tense than before. They'd built something down here. A tiny, temporary kingdom of shared labor.
I cleared my throat.
They both turned. The laughter died.
"What?" Enzo said, defensive.
"Need help?" The words felt strange in my mouth.
Timothy and Enzo exchanged a look. A whole conversation in a glance: Is he serious? What's the catch? Do we trust him?
Enzo shrugged. "Potatoes are done. But there's still the pots."
The mountain of cake-crusted pots. The real punishment.
I nodded. "I'll wash."
Now they both stared. Timothy's eyes narrowed. "Why?"
"Because my leg feels better," I lied. "And because you've been down here twenty minutes longer than me."
Another silent brother-conversation passed between them. Then Enzo stepped aside, handing me the sponge , satisfaction flickering across his face.
"Here. Enjoy the scrubbing."
He then bent down to pull out a small speaker. Switching it on , he played a terrible trap remix of baby shark doo-doo.
Yeah ,this was the part of the Fernandez family no knew about.
I took the sponge. The water was too hot. The first pot was a nightmare of hardened cake and icing.
I scrubbed. Timothy dried. Enzo leaned against the counter, vibing with the song even trying to twerk a bit.
"So," Enzo said after a minute ,shaking his hips to the beat. "You're not going to just leave again?"
"No."
"Promise?"
I looked at him. His face was open, hopeful in a way that hurt to see. "Yeah," I said. "Promise."
We fell into a rhythm. Wash, dry, stack. The kitchen slowly came clean. The marble gleamed. The sink emptied.
It wasn't forgiveness. It wasn't even really an apology.
But it was something. A small, grudging correction. A tiny shift in the family gravity.
When the last pot was dried and put away, we stood in the clean kitchen, three brothers in a silent truce.
Enzo broke it. "I'm still telling Elijah you skipped the first half."
Timothy elbowed him. "Snitch."
"lt's revenge for the time Julian put me upside down in a bin for talking too much."
I smiled despite myself. "Fair enough."
Enzo cranked the volume up until the bass vibrated in my teeth.
Timothy didn't say a word. He just turned and walked upstairs, his shoulders loose with relief. I followed, the music chasing us like something alive.
My door clicked shut. His, down the hall, clicked shut a second later.
Two different silences, in the same loud house.
And maybe that was enough for now.