Archive of Our Own

January 24th, 2019

“This year,” Gregory announces, thrusting his one allotted champagne glass in the air, careful not to spill a single drop, “is the year of Gregory! Cheers!”

When they bump all the glasses together— most of them with real champagne, Violet refuses to let Hyacinth drink any alcohol, sucks to suck, Hy—he beams at all his older siblings. They try to do Sunday night dinners every week, but this feels like a special occasion. This is a special occasion. 

This is the year of Gregory!

As he drinks the champagne, the bitter taste hits the back of his throat. He can feel a cough swelling up against the glass, but he tries to swallow it down as fast as possible. He will not burp. Or hiccup. Or gag. When he lowers the glass, though, as smoothly and slyly as James Bond, he catches Anthony’s eye.

His older brother’s amusement is a little too clear.

“I hate Gregory’s birthday,” Hyacinth stagewhispers to Benedict.

“Keep yapping, Apple Juice,” Gregory says.

“What was that, French Toast?” Hyacinth counters without skipping a beat.

Gregory scowls at her. He should never tell Hyacinth anything. Ever. How does he forget? Last week, to celebrate the end of their last winter break together ever!, he got together with his boys and tried to vape for the first time. When he got home, he crawled through Hyacinth’s window—look, hers is easier to sneak back into—and complained about choosing French Toast flavoring. Why not cotton candy? Why not something actually good?

Violet cocks her head, confused. Anthony lifts an eyebrow, but despite his best attempts to look intimidating, Gregory can tell he doesn’t know.

Benedict through Francesca, however… they all understand. Gregory ducks his head right as Benedict winks at him. Despite becoming a father, Gregory still thinks Benedict would know the most about vaping.

Daphne surprises him. He guesses his oldest sister has range, but he has only seen her wine drunk, never high.

“What are you going to do this year?” Daphne asks, leaning forward like she can sense his inner monologue. Any day now, she will start telling Gregory how she ‘is still as cool as the rest of them,’ and Gregory will remind her he never thought she was as cool as the original Bridgerton boys. 

He’s sorry! He just needs to suck up until he can do shots with the other three!

“Well, first, I’m going to be the fastest mother—flipper, motherflipper—at state.” He mentally congratulates himself for that coverup.

Violet sighs. “Gregory.”

“I didn’t say anything bad,” he says, innocently. 

“If you win during state,” Violet says, “I’ll let it pass.”

Gregory pretends to look cowed, but they both know Violet would let him get away with murder if he wins during state. He broke records during track the entirety of high school, surprising pretty much everyone in his family. He has always been the fastest runner. They just didn’t expect him to be the fastest runner. Fastest. Ever. Could compete with cheetahs. Has a full ride to UW-Madison if he runs on their track team.

Gregory might be killing the life game; he hates to say it.

 “Second, I’m going to graduate high school,” Gregory continues, thrusting up his second finger. “Probably with the best grades of the family.”

That isn’t true. He couldn’t compete with Anthony or Eloise, but he enjoys watching how red both of them get in the face. Anthony pretends he doesn’t care, hiding it by sipping his champagne.

Eloise protests immediately. “I was valedictorian. I gave the speech.”

“They asked me, actually, I wanted to give the speech,” Gregory says loftily. 

“Because you’re an athlete. With athlete grades.”

“I probably am the best student in the family,” Gregory repeats. Then, he holds up his third finger. “Third, I move to Wisconsin, which is, like, the drunkest state in the nation, so I will be drunk all the time.”

“Oh,” Violet says, “so you don’t censor that one?”

“I’d like to think you are going to Wisconsin for an education,” Anthony says.

Gregory exchanges eye contact with Benedict, who winks knowingly at him again.

Score!

“Fourth? I don’t know. I think I could do literally anything because this! Is! The! Year! Of! Gregory! Bridgerton!” He drums his fingers on the table with a huge grin.

And he really thinks it will be the year of Gregory because Gregory both believes in the power of raw optimism and the power of pretending negativity doesn’t exist. It hasn’t bit him in the ass yet!

(Oh, God, he hopes he isn’t jinxing anything.)

(No, he thinks this is probably fine.)

(Right?)

January 25th, 2019

“You’re obsessed with me,” Gregory tells his brother. Before Anthony can talk, he hurries to tack on: “No, no! It’s okay. Most people are.”

“You are a brat,” Anthony says, and he reaches down and messes up Gregory’s hair.

Jokes on him. Gregory isn’t saying he gets his haircut to match Anthony, but he’s not not saying that. He just thinks since they have the same hair—and let’s be honest, all the Bridgerton brothers have the same hair—he might as well model it after the best case scenario. Benedict wears his in a very stoner-turned-father way (it’s a specific look, but when you know it, you know it), and Colin lately has been doing it up like he’s Elvis, and that is too much for everyone, even Penelope.

“I’m just saying the timing is suspicious.” And when Kate saunters up, Gregory repeats his first sentence.

Kate arches an eyebrow, unimpressed. “Why am I obsessed with you? Aren’t you trying to be Harry Styles this week?”

“Harry Styles wishes he was me,” Gregory says, but damn, Kate is a little too good at comebacks. “I’m talking about your son. It’s suspicious. I’m Anthony’s favorite sibling—”

“—I don’t have favorites—”

“—and his eldest son happens to be born a day after me? C’mon. C’mon.” He throws his arms wide to prove his point, but both Anthony and Kate keep looking unimpressed with him.

Edmund Bridgerton II—what a stuffy name for a four-year-old—takes his opportunity and tackles Gregory into a hug. Gregory whoops and scoops him up, swinging him around while Edmund squeals with delight. 

Edmund, who immediately starts messing with Gregory’s hair because he is his father’s son, settles down on his shoulder. Gregory lets it happen. There is one reason, and one reason only, that he works out, and it’s for his little nieces and nephews. He didn’t get to pick up Hyacinth (except for the brief period of time where he kept picking her up to throw her as a child—good times; baby Gregory knew what was up), so he’s making up for it now.

“If we could’ve picked his birthday, we would have picked someone better. Like Edwina,” Kate says, blatantly pandering to her younger sister, who happens to walk by at that moment, arm-in-arm with her wife.

Gregory waves to both of them. 

The moment they turn, he leans in. “Do we still think Edwina’s wife hates me?”

“I think,” Kate says, smothering a laugh, “you should probably use her first name.”

“I don’t think Ms. Sharma and I are on first name basis,” Gregory says quietly. “It’s getting awkward because she likes all of your other siblings.”

“You mean our other siblings,” Anthony says.

“The ones we care about, yes,” Gregory says.

“And which ones would those be?”

“We didn’t even invite Eloise or Francesca.”

“Because Eloise is in California,” Anthony says.

“And Francesca is in Iowa,” Kate says.

“I thought we were weeding out the weak,” Gregory says. “And then, my next suggestion is that we uninvite Hyacinth. She’s too awkward. Is she a child like Edmund? Is she an adult like me?”

“Like you?” Anthony says incredulously.

Gregory nods. “You’ve gotten old, Ant. You can’t even pick me up anymore. Say it with me, Edmund, Daddy’s old.”

“Daddy’s old!” Edmund chirps gleefully because Edmund has always been Gregory’s biggest fan. Sure, Edmund might prefer Benedict—but maybe that’s because Benedict is freakishly tall—or Daphne—but maybe that’s because Daphne is just better with kids! she works with kids—but he still cheers on Gregory an appropriate amount of times.

He’ll take it.

“Well, give me my son, and I can go ask Bronte for you,” Kate says. When Gregory starts to protest, she sighs. “Subtly. Come on. Who do you think I am?”

“Thank you!” he says, passing over one of his favorite children ever.

Kate walks away, her arms full of the birthday boy, and Gregory watches her go. 

Then, he throws an arm around Anthony’s shoulder—Anthony is not touchy-feely, so if Gregory wants his half-hugs, he has to create them—and steers him towards the table of food. “I’m okay with you being obsessed with me—”

“—literally nobody is saying that—”

“—because that means we get double the cake. It’s not my favorite cake…” Gregory eyes the Paw Patrol cake, and he wonders how his siblings have ever fallen so far. “But hey, free cake is free cake.”

“I’m going to make you pay per slice.”

“You should make Colin pay per slice. You’d make more money.”

And Anthony laughs, and Gregory grins at him.

February 14th, 2019

He comes home with a bouquet of roses for his mom— see, Colin, this is why he should be the favorite son—and a box of chocolates for Hyacinth. Violet kisses him on the cheek and calls him a perfect gentleman, and Hyacinth makes fun of him immediately for being “bitchless” (“and I can say that,” Hyacinth explains, “as a woman. You can’t. As a man.”), but she already funnels chocolate into her mouth.

He rolls his eyes.

And he plops down in front of the television, starting a binge of all the Netflix romcoms he remembers. 

Halfway through the second one— The Kissing Booth, which is almost hysterically bad, and he keeps texting Penelope live updates, knowing she’ll respond the second she finishes her date with Colin—Hyacinth plops down next to him and announces she wants to pick the next one. And, toward the end, Violet ends up perching on the edge of the couch, pretending she’s not really going to watch the movie, but she keeps adding in color commentary to get them both in stitches.

“You’re not allowed to get a girlfriend in college,” Hyacinth says, abruptly, as they transition between movies.

Gregory snorts as he fishes his hand around in the popcorn bowl, searching for the last of the chocolates he spilled inside. “Believe it or not, I’m not going to take your opinion into consideration.”

“You’re going to be lame. Like our siblings,” Hyacinth says.

“I think it’s sweet Gregory wants to spend this Valentine’s Day with us,” adds Violet. She leans across the couch to place a hand on his knee. “But I will be very excited when Gregory wants to spend Valentine’s Day with a girlfriend—with a girlfriend or a boyfriend or whoever he chooses.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Gregory says, sticking his tongue out at Hyacinth. “This will be the last Valentine’s Day I spend with my mom and my favorite sister.”

Damn. He’s getting weak because favorite sister is going too far, and both of them know it. Even if it was true—and Gregory wouldn’t admit that unless he was being threatened at gunpoint, and even then, he’d probably have to lie—they don’t say things like that to one another. They pretend the age gap between them and the rest of their siblings doesn’t affect them.

“You’re afraid to go to college,” Hyacinth says with a little too much knowing in her voice.

Violet’s eyes go wide, and she fixes Gregory with a much longer look.

And maybe it’s because Gregory has never been good at subtlety. Or maybe it’s because Gregory wants to prove his sister wrong. Either way, he can feel the heat building in his chest, and he blurts out: “I just think I’ll miss being able to watch movies with you guys.”

Gregory loves his big family. He loves having seven siblings, and his seven siblings all getting married and having children, so now, every time they have Sunday dinner, they do have an overflow room based on how fast people show up. 

But Francesca moved out three years ago. Eloise four. Daphne almost ten.

There have been a good amount of years with just Violet, Gregory, and Hyacinth. He doesn’t want to let that little unit of the family get drowned out by his leaving; he doesn’t want it to get swallowed by the rest of the family. 

“Then, we’ll make the most of tonight,” Violet declares, and she gets up. Both of them watch her instead of talking to each other—Gregory doesn’t have the willpower to let his sister see him on the verge of tears—and when she pops the freezer and reveals ice cream, both of them gawk.

“What?” Hyacinth says. “When did you get that?”

“I had plans after you two went to bed,” Violet says with a small twist of a smile. “That’s who I’ve become—I eat ice cream and drink Prosecco after my last babies fall asleep on Valentine’s Day. But I think I can spare some ice cream for them.”

“Is it the good kind?” Gregory asks.

“Who do you think I am?” Violet asks.

As Violet dishes out the ice cream, Gregory searches and puts on To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before. Hyacinth groans and pretends to hate the movie choice, but somehow, she closes the distance between them and ends up leaning against him. 

He wraps an arm around her shoulders.

She pulls the blanket over to share with him.

At the very end, when Gregory almost falls asleep, he feels Hyacinth reach around him and grab the remote. He ignores the weird French romantic comedy, thinking instead about Lara Jean and Peter, knowing that when Peter proposes, Lara Jean would say yes, and he falls asleep with a smile.

February 21st, 2019

“We need to have a serious conversation,” Hyacinth says the second she slides into the passenger seat of the old junker. They both agreed they wanted to go to the mall right after school. Gregory wants to buy new movie posters to hang up in his eventual dorm room, and Hyacinth wants to buy new earrings to better convince Violet to let her get doubles.

Gregory adjusts his mirror for the fifth time, trying to decide whether or not he wants to attempt backing up. He is embarrassingly bad at this part of driving, and the school parking lot does little favors for anyone driving. When Benedict first took him driving in his lot, Benedict just whipped in and out of spots with a fearlessness Gregory thought he would surely inherit.

He did not.

He wonders who will teach Hyacinth. She got her permit a little while ago, but everyone keeps waiting for the streets to get less icy, and Hyacinth pretends not to be afraid of driving but she is clearly petrified.

“I’m listening,” he says, still pretending he might pull out any moment.

“There’s a Bridgerton curse,” Hyacinth says.

That gets Gregory’s attention.

He puts the car back into park, stops white-knuckling the steering wheel, and faces her.

Despite saying something right out of a Gothic fiction novel, she doesn’t look like she’s going insane. In fact, she isn’t even looking at him for her own serious conversation. She is checking out her eye makeup in the mirror because she has yet to figure out how to keep her eyeliner from giving her raccoon eyes at the end of the day.

“Are you… going to elaborate? Or did you want to just say something dramatic?” Gregory asks.

“There’s a Bridgerton curse that activates—”

“ — activates?”

“—the second you turn eighteen, and you’ve turned eighteen, so you’re not going to be able to avoid it.” Hyacinth straightens, giving up on dabbing at the smeared mascara. “I have been training to avoid it, but you haven’t.”

“What is the curse?”

“Everyone always has a shitty, traumatic eighteenth year. Like, without fail. And you need to be braced to have a shitty, traumatic year.”

Gregory stares at her.

Then, he shakes his head. “What? This is supposed to be the Year of Gregory. It’s not going to be shitty and traumatic.”

“It will because it always does.”

“I don’t—”

“Anthony turned eighteen. Our dad died,” Hyacinth says, cutting him off. Both of them sit in silence after that, not quite sure if they have reached a point where they’re allowed to joke about that. 

Gregory swallows. “Well, you were also born when Anthony turned eighteen, so that’s not really a curse. Maybe it’s a… middle ground. Not a curse, not a blessing.”

“I mean, I do agree I’m an absolute delight,” Hyacinth says, “but I think it was probably one of the hardest years in Ant’s life. And when Benedict turned eighteen, he got outed to the entire school and our entire family.”

“I…” Gregory isn’t sure if there is a great thing to balance that one out. “Okay, that sucked, but I don’t think it was because he turned eighteen.”

“When Colin turned eighteen—”

Gregory lifts his hand, trying to cut her off, but Hyacinth launches into the rest of the stories. From Anthony to Francesca, all of them had at least one big thing happen to them when they turned eighteen.

“That doesn’t prove anything,” he grumbles.

“I feel like,” Hyacinth says, “that proves a lot. The universe is out to get us, and it specifically happens when we turn eighteen. So, I think you have to brace yourself for something bad. And I don’t know how you’re going to do that, but you know. Learn how to do CPR. Start carrying Epi-Pens around with you. Make sure you always have a hundred on you if you need to take a train home.”

“You sound like one of those old men who live in a bunker underground because the nuclear apocalypse is coming.”

“I’m the last one to turn eighteen,” Hyacinth says sagely. “I might just have the nuclear apocalypse coming for me. Promise me you’ll at least think about it, okay?”

Gregory rolls his eyes.

“Fine,” he says. “I promise.”

March 7th, 2019

“Race you to the swings!”

“Good luck, old man!” Gregory says, tearing after him. “I’m on the track team, asshole!”

“Whoa!” Colin says, trying in vain to trip Gregory up after he passes him, but Gregory has lived long enough with the Bridgerton family to avoid all that. “You kiss your mother with that mouth?”

“I do what I have to!” And when Gregory reaches the swingset first—come on, who’s surprised?—he launches himself into it, the momentum giving him some good height to begin with. 

Colin laughs when he finally reaches the swing. “I really do think you’re going to swing state this year.”

Gregory nods. “I have to, in honor of you. You’re about to die of old age.”

“You think the age jokes would get old…” Colin winks at him, absurdly proud of his pun.

Gregory does not give him the satisfaction of laughing at that. In fact, he’s very unimpressed with that.

“It’s my birthday,” Colin says with a pout. “Throw me a bone.”

“You’re the one who wanted to run away from your party.”

“I mean this in the nicest way,” Colin says, and Gregory is already delighted because it means Colin is going to say something not very nice, “but I needed a break from the screaming kids, and I think you did too. Is it just me, or did the family multiply by, like, ten in the last three years?”

“There’s seven of them now.”

“Soon to be eight,” Colin says.

Gregory almost falls off the swing. “What? Are you and Pen— oh my God! Congratulations!”

Colin, on the other hand, has gone so pale he thinks he might start retching. “What? No! I’m talking about Ben and Sophie again! She is clearly pregnant! God, can you imagine me as a dad?”

Colin makes an overdramatic face, and Greg giggles at that.

Then, he decides to be a good brother, and he reaches over and shoves him on the swing. “You’d be a good dad, Col.”

Then, with Colin’s momentum going sideways, Gregory kicks off the ground and pumps his legs as fast as possible, trying to get as high as possible.

Colin takes it as a challenge. He digs his heels into the ground before trying to get a running start. 

“I don’t know. I don’t know if I have that kind of… stability in me.” Colin presses his face into the side of the swing’s chains. “I know I married Penn, but some part of me… I want to show her the world. And I don’t think you can do that once you’re working a nine-to-five, and you have three kids of your own, and I know having kids is an adventure in itself, but…”

“But you’re not ready to give up on the actual adventure,” Gregory concludes.

Colin looks over at him, giving him a sheepish grin. “Is that lame?”

“Is it lame you want to go abroad again? No!” Gregory doubles over, trying to make eye contact with Colin despite the intense velocity of the swing happening. “Can you and Penn take me with you? Actually, you think about it as a trial run. Like, this is what parenthood is like. Letting me drink across Europe while you and Penn watch me.”

Colin laughs at that.

Then, he hops off the swing, and he waits for Gregory to do the same. Gregory tries to be as dramatic as possible as he flings himself to the ground, and when he has to run at the bottom of the jump, he all but charges at Colin.

And Colin grabs him and practically tackles him into a hug.

“I’ll take you to Europe,” Colin promises. “Though I don’t think you need Europe. Not like I did.”

Gregory doesn’t bother asking him what he means. They both know what it means to be trapped into a quiet competition with the Bridgerton brothers. Gregory always knew he wasn’t going to win.

“You’ve grown up well,” Colin says in a mock sage voice. “But I think Mom’s empty-nesting may be the thing to kill you.”

Gregory snorts. “I know.”

March 17th, 2019

The first practice for track is today.

The first practice is today.

Gregory shakes it out. He spends longer doing the warmup than usual, and when his teammates tease him about getting too superstitious in his old age (maybe he should’ve been nicer to Colin), he throws them bright smiles and giddy laughs. He knows how to get out of his head. Most of the time, he knows how to get out of his head.

Violet pulled him aside before he left this morning.

She spent a little too long hugging him, petting his hair down as if he isn’t wearing a headband to keep it out of his face, smiling at him.

“I can call you out,” she offered.

“It’ll be good to get out of the house,” he said. Then, he kissed her on the cheek and rushed out to his car before any of his siblings arrived.

If his siblings didn’t make this an annual occurrence, maybe he’d feel bad about it. But Daphne will be coming by, sans any children, to spend the day with Violet. When he gets home from practice, he’ll give her a sweaty hug, run off to the shower, and then attempt to help her cook. Francesca will call Violet at some point, and they’ll spend an hour having a soft-spoken conversation occasionally splattered with laughter. Hyacinth will watch a movie with Violet. Colin and Penelope will come by for dinner.

Sometimes, Anthony spends the day with them. 

Lately, with his own children, he stays at home.

Shake it out, he scolds himself. You’re getting ready to run, not try to solve the world’s problems.

There was someone last year who found out about Edmund and made it their mission to psych Gregory out with it. Gregory doesn’t remember their name—he tries his best not to remember the haters, actually—but he remembers the long hours in the locker room, trying to shake it off. It was so high school, so ridiculous in its bullying. It was all ‘your dad died from a bee, do you think you can outrun a bee?’, which isn’t a very good insult, and it shouldn’t have rattled Greg.

But he didn’t want anyone in his family to hear it, so for the first three meets, he convinced them not to come. Once because he pretended he ‘forgot’ to tell them. Once because he said he wasn’t running because he forgot to get his permission slip signed. Once because he just snuck out in the morning and didn’t tell them.

At some point, Daphne stalked the track team online and told Gregory she would be at the next meet come hell or high water.

So, Gregory did the only thing he knew how to do.

He was brutally honest.

“See that group in the stands?” he told his bee-bullier. “That’s my family. That’s my mom. She’s a widow because of that bee. If you say it in front of her, she’ll cry.”

And you know what? 

It made the kid get stealthier with the mind games, so, at least, Gregory’s family never found out about this instance.

Shake it out, Gregory thinks again.

“This is the year, Coach!” Gregory calls. “I’m getting under four-ten.”

His coach laughs, but he doesn’t commit one way or another. He tries not to pin his hopes on any one athlete, but c’mon. Gregory knows if there’s one person to care excessively about, it would be him. He beat out everyone else at state last year— first place, baby! 

And that was as a junior.

This will be his year.

It’s his last year, of course. He’ll do track in college, but it will be a different breed of people. It will be faster people, people who can run even farther and faster without getting winded. He won’t be a big fish in a small pond anymore.

So, he needs to be impressive this year.

He needs to make people proud this year.

It’s his last shot.

Do you think you can outrun a bee?

Maybe, somewhere, he can make Edmund proud. He knows his father didn’t do any sports—he used to ask about that too much as a kid, back when he was getting into running and knew nobody else in the family did any sports—but maybe, Edmund would still be impressed with the medals Gregory has taken home. 

Shake it out, Gregory thinks one last time before jogging over to the starting line for the first sprint of the day.

Shake it out.

March 24th, 2019

“You don’t think the shirts were too much?” Daphne asks, pulling at the hem of the neon pink shirt she wears. It matches the mallet she keeps swinging around, as if threatening anyone who gets close. Actually, it might be a real threat; Daphne takes Pall Mall seriously enough she would send someone to the ER.

And she has.

And judging by the careful space Benedict keeps from her, he remembers his broken finger from a few years back well.

Gregory is not afraid of death, though, so he stands next to her.

“I think they’re a nice touch,” Gregory says. “Kinda bougie, but—”

Daphne shoves him at that, laughing. “You and Hyacinth are the only people I know using that word.”

“That’s because you’re ancient now,” he tells her solemnly. “Thus the buying shirts. Me and Hy are too broke to be doing this kind of thing.”

“You,” she says blithely, “are my least favorite brother.”

“I thought that was Anthony.”

At that exact moment, Colin sends Daphne’s ball careening down the hill. He whirls around in his bright yellow shirt—Gregory has told him multiple times he looks like Big Bird, or Spongebob, or Pikachu, depending on the moment—and sticks out his tongue at her.

“Maybe it’s Colin,” Gregory amends. “Maybe Colin’s your least favorite.”

Of course, at that point, Daphne has vanished, stomping away to attack Colin with a shrill battle cry. He staggers the moment she launches onto his back, but he manages to stay upright. He keeps screeching ‘tell my story! tell my story!’ as he laughs.

Benedict saunters over to his ball with a grin. “Looks like it’s my year, lads and ladies.”

“Hasn’t been your year since 2015,” Eloise shoots back.

“Oh, look who’s counting. I didn’t know you could do that.”

“That’s homophobic,” she says without skipping a beat.

Benedict blinks at her. Then, he grins. “Friendly fire then.”

And, probably because Eloise made that comment, Benedict makes sure his ball nudges hers on the way to the wicket. Eloise groans loud enough that people of Asia can probably hear her. 

Anthony rolls his eyes and takes his turn with silent grace. 

Wow, Gregory thinks. He’s aged so well. The old Anthony would’ve made a big deal of being in the lead. 

Gregory coughs loudly. “Old folks’ home.”

Anthony whirls around, already exasperated. “What?”

“Sorry, I was just concerned that move threw out your back,” Gregory says. 

“I am not that old,” Anthony says, raking a hand through his hair and huffing. 

“Maybe we should let you win. You must be, what? A year away from retirement?”

Hyacinth giggles as she sends her ball through the wicket. “I can see some gray from here.”

“See?” Gregory says as he strolls up to his. And look, Gregory is as competitive as the rest of his family, but he has never won Pall Mall. Neither has Francesca. Neither has Hyacinth. They just don’t have the killer instincts of the rest of the family.

So, when he sends his careening against Colin’s, he thinks this only makes sense. He’ll root for Benedict this year. 

That, and the ten dollars Benedict slipped him to root for him.

Colin, from beneath Daphne’s weight, jabs a finger in Gregory’s direction. “I’m coming for you next.”

“Good luck,” Gregory says.

Hyacinth nods. “Yeah. He’s so far behind, there’s no point coming after him.”

“Hey.”

Anthony snorts, trots over, and messes up Gregory’s hair. “Maybe the problem isn’t age. Maybe the problem is the player.”

“What was the thing Kate told you?” Gregory says, shoving him off. “A man blames his tools?”

“Are you blaming your tools?”

“I,” Gregory says, “am the most popular person in the family.”

“I won Prom King!” Colin says.

“I have the most Instagram followers,” Francesca notes. 

“I just don’t think that’s true,” Benedict—the traitor, though anyone who is willing to bribe someone probably doesn’t have morals—says.

Gregory flips them off.

Anthony yanks his hand down. “Hey now.”

“I am eighteen. I know what fuck you means,” Gregory says loudly.

All of his older siblings—even Francesca— pretend his language kills them. Because why not? 

Gregory groans. 

The rest of the day goes like that, all of them laughing and teasing and maybe going too far with jokes but Pall Mall has always been the most controversial time of the year. If there was ever a time to air your dirty laundry, it’s Pall Mall day. 

It would’ve been a perfect day.

But Hyacinth ends up winning the day.

Boo, Hyacinth.

April 5th, 2019

Eloise cannot make it home for her birthday.

“It’s ironic,” Gregory says, puffing on a candy cigarette, lounging at the damp park bench with Michael, “that Eloise can make it home for Pall Mall, but the moment we were, like, do you want to spend the day with us on your birthday, she’s too busy.”

“Pall Mall is too intense in your family,” Michael says, a little too knowingly for someone who has never played it. Gregory makes a solemn vow that if Michael ever plays with them, he will send the ball careening straight for Michael’s shin. “Can I get a drag?”

“I’ll do you one better,” Gregory says, and he hands over a new candy cigarette.

The two of them lapse into a shockingly comfortable silence—what! Gregory is a talker! he doesn’t believe in comfortable silence!—watching Francesca and John make their rounds around the party. Francesca has never liked being the center of attention, but this is the first party of hers where she bears the brunt of the attention alone. On her eighteenth, she pretended to get the flu to avoid having a solo party.

Why anyone believed her having the flu in April is beyond Gregory, but he always knew he was the smart one in the family. 

“John fits in well here,” Michael says at last.

Gregory shrugs. “It’s actually pretty easy to fit in. We’re ‘accommodating.’”

“Why do I feel like you’re saying that with air quotes?”

“Because my siblings are messy, and nobody has ever had a straightforward marriage.” He nods towards Francesca. “Except Franny, but she’s always been the best of us.”

“Can I tell her you said that?” Michael asks, a smile playing at his lips, like he expects Gregory to start protesting immediately.

He grins. “You can tell her she’s my favorite as long as you don’t tell the others I said that. I’m all about spreading chaos.”

It wins a laugh out of Michael, and Gregory glows in his attention. Take that, Hyacinth. The two of them made a game out of who could spend the most time with Michael the moment Francesca started bringing him around because A: he might be the most attractive man alive and B: they actually didn’t have a second reason, they are very shallow people, the final two Bridgerton siblings.

They haven’t told Francesca, for obvious reasons.

“You’re going to have fun in college,” Michael tells him.

“Are you saying you’d invite me to your college parties?”

“I don’t think I can say that, legally.”

“I won’t tell the cops if you won’t.”

“Oh, good to know.” He nudges Gregory. “But your sister would kill me if I even said something like that. She’s… shockingly protective.”

Only in quiet ways, Gregory adds for Michael. Because Anthony is the kind of person who would kick in doors for them, and Daphne would spread the nastiest rumors for the rest of them, but Francesca? Francesca always helped behind the scenes, and sometimes, that worked much better than any big show of defense.

Gregory thinks he should take a lesson from Francesca, but then, he remembers he wants to go big or go home, constantly.

“On my twenty-first birthday,” Gregory says after a moment of consideration, “will you do shots with me?”

Michael chokes on a laugh. “How long ‘til then?”

“Three years,” Gregory says. “Though, according to my fake ID, negative three months.”

“You don’t have a fake ID.”

“I don’t have a fake ID,” Gregory confirms. “But it was a good joke until you ruined it. So, that one is on you.”

“For ruining the joke,” Michael says, “I’ll do shots with you in three years. Though I might be too old for them by then.”

“I want this in writing.” 

“Get me a sheet of paper. And how ‘bout this… when you turn twenty-one, John and Francesca and I will all do shots with you? It seems like good family bonding.”

“Doesn’t it?”

Francesca glances over at them then, and she laughs. “What are you two scheming about?”

“I’ve never schemed anything in my life,” Gregory says.

Michael just winks at her.

She eyes him for a long moment before rolling her eyes and coming to plop down next to Gregory. “Don’t be getting any ideas from Michael.”

“He’s going to be a Mini Michael,” Michael tells her.

“Gregory? Absolutely not,” Francesca says.

Gregory pretends to be offended. “C’mon! I could be a huge heartthrob in college!”

“I mean this in the nicest way,” Francesca says, “but you’ve had one girlfriend all of high school, and you broke up the one time she convinced you to go to a high school party. I don’t know if you have playa in you.”

He sticks his tongue out at her.

Francesca jokingly slaps him.

Michael snorts. “I love seeing you with your family. It’s like seeing a wild animal in their natural habitat.”

April 6th, 2019

Gregory thinks this might be performance anxiety.

He only participated in a school play once, and that was back in middle school. He was in sixth grade, and after watching Francesca enjoy her theatre friends so much, he thought that might be his true calling. He loved being a showman; he loved being as dramatic as possible. Why wouldn’t he love theatre?

But the first night of the show, he found himself in his fake giraffe costume, pressed against the stall walls of the middle school bathroom—which probably transmitted all kinds of diseases to him; those bathrooms were nasty— trying not to throw up. He needed to be better by the Circle of Life (which, side note, their school was maybe a little too white to be doing Lion King Jr., but hey, Gregory didn’t pick the show), but he thought he might die there.

With sports, he never worried about that as much.

After all, when the adrenaline starts to drown out all the coherent thoughts, he knows he can go out and run his little heart out. When he runs, everything else falls away. He can’t be thinking about a petty fight he had with one of his siblings, or a test he wished he did better on, or whether or not he thinks the Smythe-Smith sister wants to ask him out for prom because does he say yes?

No, he just runs.

Shake it out, he thinks as he gets to the starting line for the first track meet of the season. 

Some of his family sits in the stands, but it is not everyone. Violet always comes to track meets if she can, and as long as Gregory isn’t hiding any details, she has been to every single one. Daphne brought Amelia, but her other three children stay at home with Simon because of the cold. He thinks it might be fair enough; Amelia likes him well enough to count for four little kids. Hyacinth came because what else would she be doing? Everyone else had an excuse, or simply didn’t want to come, but they promised they would come for state.

He glances over at them.

Daphne and Amelia start up a cheer, so loud he thinks he might blush. Luckily—because look, Gregory might be in touch with his emotions and a man who is unafraid of being loved and giving love in return, but sometimes, it is embarrassing your ginger sister is shouting loud enough for the whole world to hear—the wind already painted his cheeks red, so none of his teammates will be mocking him about this later.

Shake it out.

It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t win, although he thinks that sentiment might have been manufactured by one of his siblings or his mom, back in the day. This is the first track meet of the season, so if he fails, he knows he can shake it off and be better by the next one. Or, at least, he hopes he can shake it off and be better by the next one.

But it feels too symbolic.

Gregory knows he is rapidly approaching becoming annoying, but everything feels symbolic now that he’s turned eighteen. He will be moving out of state soon! And sure, his college would only be a three hour drive away, but that is significantly more than any other place he has been in recent years!

This is the first track meet.

But it is also the last first track meet.

Shake it out, he reminds himself.

None of this needs to go away, not if he wants to keep it. His family will be at future track meets. He can charge off this track and go straight to his baby niece, scoop her up and swing her around until she starts squealing. He thinks he doesn’t spend enough time with Amelia in general. 

(Though, of course, that is because there isn’t enough time in the world to spend with his family and his siblings and also do all the things he thinks a teenage boy should want to do.)

It will be okay, even if he doesn’t win.

(Of course, though, when he does win, it is all the sweeter.)

April 8th, 2019

“So, I know you have a healthy sex life,” Gregory says, pushing the Target grocery cart, pretending not to hear Colin choke on his spit and Penelope start spluttering, “but I hate to say it. It seems a little weird that you wanted to spend the day with me. Is this your way of saying you want to have kids?”

“You,” Colin says after regaining his cool. He, admittedly, does it much faster than Penelope, who is still bright red, “are a menace. If anything, you’re convincing me not to have kids, Greg.”

“Don’t be mean,” Penelope chides. 

Delightedly, Gregory thinks she might explode.

“I just thought… I wanted to take you shopping,” she says, “for college. I don’t think anyone has done that yet, have they?”

“Nah, but to be fair, Hyacinth has been a terror lately.” And Gregory thinks Violet might have assumed Anthony was going to take him out shopping, and Anthony assumed Violet would, and Gregory actually doesn’t want to spend his days at Target because they always turn into such an ordeal. 

“I don’t think that’s fair,” Penelope says, a little too levelly.

Even Colin pauses at that, and both of them exchange frantic looks. Penelope might be one of the most well-adjusted people they know… which leads to a shocking amount of truth coming from her direction. If she hadn’t chosen to become a journalist, Gregory thinks she would have made a great therapist. A scary therapist, but a great therapist (and besides, therapists are always scary, and no, he doesn’t want that to be psychoanalyzed). 

“I loved college,” Penelope says. She glances at Colin.

He throws up his hands, half-grinning. “I think everyone knows I loved college. I can tell you more about living in the UK if that’s what you want, but—”

“Penelope,” Gregory whines. “You got him started again.”

“You should be that excited about college, Gregory!” Penelope is on a roll now. She is power walking toward the bedding section, and Gregory almost wants to break into a light jog to see if he can trick her into doing the same. He can tell his coach he trained. 

“I am,” Gregory says.

She gives him a long look. “And that’s why you’re always talking about it?”

“I’m trying not to be annoying about it because I have such a good example of someone who should’ve stopped talking about college.” He flares out a hand.

Colin rolls his eyes. “Friendly fire.”

“You deserve it,” Gregory shoots back.

“Gregory,” Penelope says. 

“Penelope.”

“Is it because you’re scared to leave home? I know some people have been acting like Wisconsin is the other side of the country,” and here, Penelope makes a face that clearly means she wants to say more about it, but he bets Colin has talked her down from it, “but it’s not that far away. You can come home for holidays! And besides, why are we being so dramatic when Eloise went across the country?”

“Yeah, but people—” Gregory stops talking.

“Yes?”

“I’ve decided,” Gregory says, “that I don’t want to help make your point for you.”

“That’s pretty smart,” Colin muses. “I wish I was willing to do that more often.”

“I think you should talk—”

“I want one of those lamps shaped like a soccer ball,” Gregory blurts.

Penelope blinks, disarmed. “What?”

“In my college dorm room,” Gregory clarifies. “I really want one of those bedside lamps shaped like a soccer ball.”

Penelope starts to say something else before considering. Then, she nods and pivots her direction. “Okay, let’s go find you a lamp shaped like a soccer ball.”

“I don’t know if they’ll have one at Target—”

“If we have to drive to IKEA, we will,” Penelope says in a tone that brokers no argument.

But Gregory is a little bit of a masochist, so he brokers an argument. “Pen, it still is your birthday, not—”

“I want to spend my birthday with my two favorite men,” Penelope says. Then, she grins, a little mischievous. “With my two favorite husbands.”

Colin groans. “I hate both of you.”

“But you love us enough that you’ll buy Gregory a lamp shaped like a soccer ball,” Penelope says.

Colin pretends to scowl, but the moment Penelope looks away, he softens and grins to Gregory.

April 11th, 2019

“Oh, wow,” Violet says.

Gregory grins, still panting from the elaborate dance number he invented with Hyacinth. Both of them are wearing pseudo-Victorian, pseudo-Edwardan, pseudo-he-doesn’t-know-fashion-time-period outfits they got from Goodwill, and the last of the string quartet fades from earshot. 

“‘Oh, wow?’” he mimics, running a hand through his sweaty hair. Hyacinth glowers at him. With the sheer amount of bobby pins they stuck to her, she can’t touch her scalp for the next five days. “That’s all we get?”

“Oh, wow,” Violet repeats, getting out of bed to join them on the ground, gathering them up in her arms. “What did I do to deserve two perfect children?”

“One perfect child,” Hyacinth corrects, “and then, Gregory.”

He smacks her behind Violet’s back.

Hyacinth grabs his arm and twists it.

Violet pretends she cannot feel, or see, any of this, by pulling them tighter into the hug. She immediately gives a fat kiss to Hyacinth, who grumbles, and one to Gregory, who makes a big show wiping it off. 

“We wanted to do something nice for you,” Gregory confesses, “before you have to deal with the madhouse at your birthday party.”

Violet tries her best not to make a face.

Hyacinth sniggers. “I’m going to tell Daphne.”

“You aren’t going to tell her anything,” Violet stresses. “We’re all… very impressed with her party-planning skills.” 

“With her ability to get stressed out about nothing,” Gregory adds.

“With her skill in overextending herself,” Hyacinth says.

“With her inability to text us for help,” Gregory says.

“With her absolute determination in pretending we’re still too young to help.”

“With her—”

“Enough, enough!” Violet says, but she’s laughing. The last time she offered to help Daphne by making decorations, Daphne told Violet she shouldn’t lift a finger and somehow implied her mother might be getting too old. Violet retorted by saying something about how she was aging gracefully, thank you very much, and the rest of the lunch was spent with them in a tense silence. 

“Our lips are sealed,” Gregory says.

Hyacinth mimes zipping her lips shut on the other end, and she flicks the key away.

Violet gives her a long look. “You’re the one I’m worried about most.”

“Hey, Greg can’t keep a secret to save his life!”

Greg grins and shrugs at that. Hey, there are worse reputations to get, and he’s not wholly convinced that it is true. After all, he takes great pride in being the best matchmaker in the family—probably the most romantic, too; Gregory understands how to woo someone unlike some of his siblings; changing your smoke detectors together is not hot, Anthony and Kate— and that takes some secret keeping.

“Gregory doesn’t like stirring the pot,” Violet says.

Hyacinth goes to dispute it, thinks it over, and laughs and flops on her back. “They just make it so easy, Mom.”

“I’ve seen you eight play Pall Mall,” Violet says. “I know they make it easy. Actually, I’ve kicked all of them down the altar. I know they make it easy.”

Gregory grins. “I’m going to make it easy for you, Mom.”

“You’re going to marry the first person who looks at you,” Hyacinth shoots back.

Gregory ignores the tiniest sting at that and sticks out his tongue. “At least, I’m not going to be conducting job interviews for my partner.”

“It’s worse to be romantic. I’d rather be practical.”

Gregory pretends to vomit.

Violet laughs, squeezing both of their shoulders. “You need to be both.”

And sure, that might be good advice, but Gregory would much rather be romantic than practical. 

Right?

Right.

Right, yeah, he means that, one hundred percent, with utter conviction. 

“I’m going to miss this,” Violet says suddenly.

Hyacinth kicks at Greg’s knee. “She’s about to start empty-nesting about you.”

“Stop,” Violet says, shoving her foot away, and she laughs. “You’re my two youngest, and you’re going to be out of the house soon.”

“Not soon enough,” Hyacinth says. She sticks out her tongue. 

“It’s not that far away!” he says, throwing up his hands.

“Oh, I know, I know,” Violet says, “and it makes me feel better that you know where you’re going. You should have seen some of your siblings… well, I guess you did. But it would have been harder for me if you weren’t so sure where you were going.”

Gregory… does not know what to say to that.

So, he tries for a joke. “C’mon. When have I ever not been okay?”

Violet laughs. “I know. I never have to worry about you… but Hyacinth on the other hand?”

Hyacinth immediately kicks up a fuss, and Gregory laughs.

April 13th, 2019

“I’m going to be just like you,” Amelia declares to Gregory.

Gregory picks her up, ignoring her squeals about his sweat and general grossness right now (give him a break! he just ran a mile in four minutes!), and holds her against his sweaty track shirt. “A winner?”

“Gregory,” Daphne says, trying to sound scolding but failing. “There is more to life than just winning.”

“Of course there is,” Gregory says, and then, he winks at Amelia, who squeals in delight. 

“I’m gonna run,” Amelia declares, and Gregory nods like she has said the smartest thing he has ever heard. 

“You’re already fast,” he tells her, lying through his teeth, but he thinks it’s okay to lie to children on rare occasions. Lately, for Sunday dinners, all of the kids want to play tag with Gregory and Hyacinth because of all the chatter about track, and Gregory never says no to them, but damn, does it get exhausting chasing the same kids around and around. Amelia ends up being ‘it’ a lot because she is, sadly, one of the slowest people Gregory has ever met.

She nods. “And I’m training!”

“You’re training?” he asks, delighted.

“Don’t encourage her too much,” Daphne says with a grin. “She has started sprinting around places. Dr. Danbury suggested we start putting her on one of those baby leashes.”

Gregory pretends to gasp, getting another giggle out of Amelia. “Not a baby leash! Not until Mommy buys you a real dog, right?”

“Gregory!”

“I want a dog!” Amelia says, lighting up.

Gregory knows this.

In fact, Gregory has heard a lot of this because while Daphne brought her ABC (which always throws him off—he appreciates Daphne continuing the alphabet trend, but it’s strange having an ABC being all girls versus the classic Bridgerton structure), it is actually her youngest’s—David’s—birthday. He wanted alone time with his father, though.

That, or Daphne wanted him to have alone time with Simon. She kept a level head—no, actually, that’s a lie, but he’s saying it to protect her—through the first three children, but now that she’s reached her own place in her family, she is suddenly afraid of all the things she thinks Violet failed her with. 

Such as, Daphne always felt like she didn’t get enough one-on-one time with their parents.

“I want a dog, too,” Gregory says. “Do you think we could convince your grandma to get me one for graduation?”

“Yes!”

“No,” Daphne says, laughing. “Gregory, how are you planning to have a dog in the dorm rooms?”

“I think it would work itself out. Besides, it’d be a quick way to get all the ladies.” He winks again at Amelia, who doesn’t quite know what he is talking about, but she cheers for him regardless because she is his biggest fan.

Between Amelia and Edmund, Gregory thinks he should just have a comedy routine for eldest siblings. He rocks with the eldest siblings of his older siblings; he needs to see if this will continue to be a trend with Charlie, who isn’t even one so can’t have opinions on a favorite uncle yet.

But he also isn’t the oldest child yet. Sophie and Benedict only recently announced they will be having baby number two (humiliating that Colin was right—every time, Gregory prays for Colin to be less right), so until that happens, Gregory doesn’t need to worry about the pressure.

“Me and you can go running later,” Gregory promises Amelia, planting a fat kiss on her cheek.

She stares at him, her eyes lit up, and he can’t help but think those eyes belong to Daphne. She is clearly both Daphne and Simon’s daughter—she has qualities of both, which never fails to make his heart melt in his chest—but moments where he just sees his older sister makes him want to cry.

“Do you promise?” she asks, sticking out her pinky.

With some maneuvering—Amelia is only four, but she is getting too big to pick up, something Simon has told Gregory frequently because Gregory ‘is going to set the bar too high pretty much’—he locks his pinky with hers. “I promise.”

April 21st, 2019

He wishes he could get drunk at prom, but the combination of the adrenaline crash and being up for almost twenty-four hours is getting him there. The entire track team decided to go to prom straight after returning from an away meet; the bus let them out to the locker room where they prayed their tuxes didn’t start smelling weirdly. 

It does mean Gregory has to walk home through the wild, wild streets of Chicago, but hey. Worth it.

Gregory grins as he loosens his tie, letting the wind skip down his shirt and cool over the remainders of the sweat. He tore it up on the prom dance floor. He knows the music could have been better—he thinks Don’t Stop Believin’ started playing on a loop, and he hadn’t noticed it until it was too late—but few people can compare to Gregory. 

He has been to a crazy amount of weddings for an eighteen-year-old.

Part of him can’t help but notice how eerie the city is when it lingers on the brink of falling asleep. There are still people stumbling out of bars and clubs—an enthusiastic bachelorette party already stopped Gregory to ask for photos, and Gregory said yes because he loves love, actually—but the usual sights disappear into the night. His favorite restaurants stay in silence, the chairs stacked atop the tables. The coffee shops no longer waft the scent of espresso into the street. 

A larger part of him cannot help but marvel at the city. His city.

And maybe Gregory would be sad here, realizing he will leave Chicago at some point, but that would be so silly, wouldn’t it? Because he has a big heart, and he can make two cities his. He can love Chicago because that’s where his family is, that’s where he grew up, that’s where so many of his memories are couched. And he can love Madison when he gets there, when he starts making new memories, when he finds a new family to call his own made out of people he chooses. 

Wow.

Is this healing? This is healing.

Gregory wants to see the city when it’s awake again, and he wants to do all the touristy things. He can take Hyacinth to the top of Sears Tower, knowing she hates heights and will whine at him the whole time. He will go on one of those boat tours where someone who knows the city—like, almost in a weird way, like they want to find a way to sleep with an embodiment of the city—rattles on about architecture. He can get one of those city passes the tourists get!

Then, when he leaves, he will be ready.

And he thinks…

Gregory loosens the tie again, pausing at the corner of the street. When he rounds this corner, it will be less than five minutes to his house. He’ll be quiet when he enters, but somehow, he’ll inevitably wake up either Hyacinth or his mom (sue him; he never figured out how to sneak home like he knows all three of his older brothers did). If it’s Violet, she’ll stay up to hear his stories if he doesn’t immediately pass out. If it’s Hyacinth, she’ll groan but she’ll congratulate him on the track meet, and it will be fun in its own way. 

He’d call one of his older siblings, but…

Well, maybe one of them would be up. Maybe they would want to hear about his experience tonight, about how he realized how much he loved Chicago and Illinois despite the fact the world is so big, and maybe he wants to travel all over. Maybe he wants to see things the way Colin has seen it. 

Maybe, just maybe, Gregory is young, and the entire world is his oyster. 

Gregory didn’t take a date to prom tonight. Some of the other guys on the team teased him for that. As one of the best athletes at the school, Gregory could have found a date on clout alone (take that, Daphne—she might have been prom queen, but he’s the popular one). He’s nice, so he thinks he could have found a girl because that’s a rarity amongst teenage boys.

But maybe, he can be sappy, and he can say Chicago was his date tonight. 

April 27th, 2019

“Sorry I’m late!”

“Gregory!”

A rush of children appears around the corner, desperate to get at him, so he crouches down as fast as he can. They almost bowl him over, and when the final presence appears—the wobbly Charlie trying to keep up with his older cousins—Gregory pretends to fall back against the front desk, exhausted.

Then, as his head hits the wood, he thinks he might just be exhausted.

“I thought you might not make it,” Simon comments as he appears in the doorway.

Gregory grins at him. “I’m getting greeted by the birthday boy himself? To what do I owe that pleasure?”

“Everyone else is downstairs. I was…” He makes a face. “I was catching some air.”

“You got tired of talking to the other adults,” Gregory says.

“There are a lot. Clear off, ‘Mel. Let Uncle Gregory up.” Then, Simon gently nudges his daughter off and offers his hand to Gregory.

Gregory takes it eagerly, letting him pull him upright.

Then, Gregory slaps his shoulder. “Happy birthday! You’re officially the oldest Pall Mall player.”

“About that,” Simon drawls. “How do I get out of it again?”

“Hey, the day you let me win, I’ll vouch for you next time.” He winks at him. Simon rolls his eyes.

Then, Simon nods. “I see you won again.”

“I’m going undefeated. People are scared when they hear they’re going up against a Bridgerton.” And honestly, Gregory thinks it’s about time the Bridgerton name had an element of fear attached to it. Now, they have truly infiltrated every sphere. Law, art, education, athletics.

When he says that much to Simon, Simon guffaws. Guffaws. Sometimes, he thinks Simon must be made differently than the Bridgertons.

“I was in the NFL.”

“I know,” Gregory says.

“I feel like,” Simon says, “that is a pretty big deal. Don’t you?”

Gregory shakes his head. “Anyone can play football. Not everyone can run.”

“I actually do a lot of running—”

“Should we go see everyone else?” Gregory says loudly. He scoops up Charlie and lets the little version of Benedict—and this child has almost no Sophie in him; it is just raw baby Benedict, and Gregory cannot help but speculate what it would have been like if age order was switched, and he had helped raise Benedict instead of Benedict raising him—coo and throw his arms around his neck.

“I feel like you’re dodging the topic. Now that I’m winning.”

“I’m a Bridgerton,” Gregory says. “We’re built to be annoying like that.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Daddy!” Amelia complains. “You can’t call Uncle Gregory annoying! That’s mean!”

“Yeah, Simon. That’s mean.” Gregory sticks out his tongue before charging toward the basement. He can hear the faint pulsing of music. Right now, they play Beyonce quietly, and he knows Simon must have had some hand in making the playlist.

Then again, Daphne has gotten scarily good at making playlists. He doesn’t understand her finesse, but she can make both Apple Music and Spotify bend to her whims.

When he gets to the basement, he swears the family cheers for him. Just a little. Gregory eagerly spreads his arms wide and dips into a bow.

“How was the track meet?” Violet asks, hurrying over. “I’m so sorry to have missed it but—”

“But,” Gregory interrupts, “I told everyone that it was okay because it’s Simon’s birthday.”

Besides, while his mother would never admit it, he knows the track meets have started draining her because the other parents are insisting on doing special celebrations for the seniors. She cannot turn any direction without being faced with a happy set of parents who seem oblivious to how cruel they can be sometimes. 

Then, Gregory hooks the medal he put under his sweatshirt collar and trots it out for the whole family to see. “‘Sides, I won. Again.”

“Next meet is state,” Anthony says, appearing from the void. Gregory immediately flutters his eyelashes, waiting for his older brother to give him a reluctant side-hug, which he obliges. “Are you nervous?”

“Nah,” Gregory says. “Next time you see me, I’m going to be a champion.”

May 4th, 2019

Shake it out.

His whole family sits in the stands, united for the first time since the ill-fated (because Hyacinth won, boo Hyacinth) Pall Mall game. Daphne, once again, found a t-shirt maker. It sports their last name across their shoulder blades like this could be a team sport. Gregory hated it at first, but then, he saw the little ones toting it with big smiles, and he thinks it might be alright.

Maybe his victory can be for all the Bridgertons.

He will win, too. 

He can feel it in the air. He can feel it in his lungs. He can feel it in every nerve of his motherfuckin’ body because Gregory will be taking home gold today. Half the school cheers him on; nobody has gotten this far in the school’s history since the 90s. 

The 1890s, probably.

When the gun goes off, his thoughts end. He slides into the movement of running. Left foot, right foot, left, right, left, right—the wind stings a little against his face, but he relishes it, he wants every night to taste as sweet as the air does right now—he can hear his sisters shouting his name, but he can’t tell which one, and he doesn’t think it matters—left, right, left, right, left—he rounds the bend—his heart is exploding in his chest— yes, he wants this, yes, he can do this, yes, yes, yes— there’s the finish line—

And there is an explosion of noise. 

All at once, the world is different shades, different sounds, different than the roaring in his ears. His family is in the stands, stomping their feet, cheering his name, and Gregory holds up a hand to acknowledge it even as he pants and tries to catch his breath.

“That’s the record broken,” the ref says from the sidelines. His eyes twinkle. “Good work.”

His coach roars. “That’s what I’m talking about, Bridgerton!”

This is the end of a movie, Gregory thinks deliriously. 

The ceremony will come later, of course, because they want to draw this out, but he charges over to the packed stands. He dodges the Smythe-Smith family with extraordinary grace; he even manages to skirt around Benedict’s friends, Brimsley and Reynolds, who look conflicted about patting him on the shoulder because he knows he must look nasty.

He practically launches himself at Hyacinth.

“Did you see that?” he breathes out.

Hyacinth laughs as she hugs him. “Don’t get too big of an ego, Greg.”

“Everyone saw that!” Violet says, beaming. “And I think Benedict got a video of it.”

Gregory swivels his head, trying to find his older—and admittedly, the tallest— brother in the stands, but he gets distracted by another force crashing into his legs.

‘Sorry,’ Kate mouths.

Gregory ignores her to scoop up Edmund, who cackles and tries to tangle his tiny fists into Gregory’s hair. “Hi there!”

“You won!” Edmund says triumphantly.

“I did,” Gregory says. Then, he lets the words hit him. “Holy fuck, I won!”

“Gregory—” Violet says, a quiet warning but a bigger laugh in her voice.

He sets Edmund down, and he bounds down the stands, throwing his arms wide and grinning up at the sky. The crowd still cheers, and people try to talk to him, but he lets the sun soak in. It’s a nice day. It’s a beautiful day.

Holy. Fuck. 

Gregory won.

It makes everything worth it, doesn’t it? Training on the anniversary of his father’s passing? Getting into prom far too late to do anything fun besides almost pass out? Missing baby David’s birthday?

He did it. 

He reaches down, only for a moment, and he lets his fingers skim across the bright yellow shoelaces he bought for today. I did it, Dad. I did it.

It’s only because he’s so low that he registers the movement.

It’s through the bleachers.

It is a shadow of a person, too small to be an adult, playing with one of those rubber balls the school keeps on hand. They passed them out earlier to distract the children before realizing it would be a mistake. What if they let it roll into the track and injure an athlete? Gregory remembers laughing about that with one of his friends in the locker room. Imagine being taken down by a rubber ball.

But from here, he watches it tumble out of her— Amelia’s, the first Bridgerton grandchildren, his first niece, Daphne and Simon’s pride and joy—hands and into the street. 

He’s flying toward her before there is any thought in his head. 

Amelia, her hair bound up in space buns Daphne must have helped her with, lurches after the ball, letting out a soft disappointed cry. She wears the Bridgerton across her shoulders like a bloodstain.

The ball rolls into the street.

Amelia follows.

Gregory follows.

He leaps over the fence, barely feeling his legs, barely breathing, as he hears a car’s brakes screech and a horn blare, and Amelia, startled, stops pursuing the ball to look up with bright eyes, his sister’s eyes, and—

And Gregory flings himself forward, and he shoves Amelia out of the way. 

May 4th, 2019

He’s on the ground.

He can see something black in front of him. Warped. There is a surface to them, but when he tries to focus on the edges, another wave of pain crashes into him, so he stares at the black. He tries to move his eyes. He gets a glimpse of something else. He cannot process what it is. He does not know what it is. It could be anything.

His ears ring. And ring. And ring. 

He cannot hear anything.

And then, he can hear too much. 

“Call 911!” someone shrieks.

Someone places a hand on his shoulder. Agony roils from the touch. He thinks he might react. He thinks he might not. There is a whining, a murmuring, and he thinks it spills from his lips, but he can barely feel his lips.

Someone presses fingers against his wrist.

“Back up, back up! Let me see!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Mommy, I’m sorry, I’m—”

“Let her through!”

“Kate, please, Kate—”

“Violet, please, let me try.”

His vision cannot settle on anything, not really, but he thinks someone crouches in front of him. Dark hair. Dark skin. Kate? Kate. 

“Hey, Greg,” she says softly. Softly? Loudly? His ears still ring. He cannot tell. 

“Oh, God,” someone says, and it sounds like they’re gagging. “He’s still awake?”

“Back up!”

“Uncle Gregory, I—”

“You with me?” she whispers. Her hands are everywhere.

No, wait.

It is not her hands that are everywhere. It is the pain. Everywhere. His entire right side gets engulfed with flames. His right shoulder throbs. His right wrist throbs. He cannot feel his left side right. It is like it does not exist. 

And that pain in his chest? 

He cannot breathe.

Distantly, he thinks he should tell Kate that, but he tries to open his mouth, and all that comes out is a strange, bloodied rasp, and it is wet, and it is sloshing to the ground, and oh, God, he thinks this is more serious than anything he has ever experienced in life. 

“You’re okay,” Kate whispers to him.

He thinks he will never be okay again.

But he cannot…

He knows what happened. He can still feel the car’s heat against his right side, sending him tumbling tumbling tumbling. He landed on his left side, didn’t he? He tried to catch himself? Maybe it got tore off. Maybe it got rubbed into the street, and he is nothing but a raw pile of nerves and bone.

“Amelia,” he says, but it comes out as a wet gurgle.

Kate is listing things to herself, quietly, not meaning for him to hear. She is in doctor mode. Dr. Bridgerton-Sharma. He does not want to hear her diagnoses. He can guess. Bones are broken. Skin is broken. He is broken.

“Amelia,” he repeats.

That gets her attention. “What, Greg?”

It is almost absent. She isn’t paying attention to him. She is trying to decide how to treat him right now.

He says Amelia’s name again, but it is blood again, and the tightness in his chest increases, and he knows there is something wrong there. He wants to tear off his clothes. He wants to tear off what skin remains. He is hurt. He is so hurt. He didn’t know… he never thought…

No.

“Amelia,” he says, and for the first time, he thinks it comes out clear enough she can guess what he has said.

“Did he just say Amelia?”

“Oh, God, I—”

“Mommy, Mommy, he said my name, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m—”

“Jesus Christ, Daff, shut her up!”

“Amelia is okay,” Kate says, a little too carefully for Gregory to feel good about it. “We’re more concerned about you, you know.”

He thinks he will always be this hurt.

He wants to black out. He wants to be unconscious. But he can see the way Kate worries, so he clings to consciousness, listening to her diagnose him, listening to her fret over how best to help him with limited skills, and when he starts choking on his own blood, he is still conscious for it.

He hears Kate whisper right as the ambulance sirens hit the air.

“He’s drowning in his own blood. Think, Kate, what can you—we don’t have time—does someone have something sharp?”

???

“‘ts,” he tries to say.

Violet sits next to him, and she blinks back tears, and Gregory thinks he might be making everything worse, but he cannot say anything else, he cannot think anything else.

“It hurts,” he repeats.

“I know, baby,” Violet whispers. “It’s going to be better soon. You need to hang on, okay?”

“It hurts,” he says, dumbly. 

He didn’t know anything could hurt that much.

His whole body is ripping itself apart. He’s a mess of sweat and nerves and blood, but when he tries to look down, tries to investigate what happened, his mother stops him, and it hurts too much to fight back. 

It hurts, it hurts, it—

He loses time.

???

He’s on his back. 

There is the taste of copper in his mouth.

Someone masked looms over him, and the fabric wrinkles, so he thinks they might be talking, but he cannot hear anything, but when he tries to tell them to speak louder, his voice doesn’t work right.

He gags.

And he loses time.

???

The ground beneath him keeps moving.

He watches the ceiling pass overhead, tile after tile after tile, before he registers how fast people speak on either side of him. He tilts his head toward them. It is a doctor—it twists his stomach all at once, and he cannot help but think about coming to visit Anthony and Kate after their car accident all those years ago.

He didn’t think he could be that scared.

“Is everyone okay?” he tries to say, but it disintegrates in his mouth, and the doctor turns to him, and she murmurs something reassuring, but he doesn’t think doctors can be reassuring, it’s one of the greatest cruelties about Gregory, he has only heard them deliver bad news, and that’s how he remembers them.

He loses time.

???

“—win?”

He barely feels his lips, barely registers the sound of his own voice. There are too many bright lights. There are too many noises. There is a beeping here, a shout there, and he cannot register anything. His skin crawls with too much. Everything hurts, but everything’s numb, and everything’s confused.

And he thinks he’s talking, but it comes out as a strange babble.

“Did I win? Did I… did…”

Kate’s face—scared eyes, why is she scared? where is anthony, he’s supposed to be there to comfort her before she looks like that—swims in front of his face. There is a strange weight on his hand, in his hand, but when he tries to dip his gaze to investigate, the world swims and threatens to collapse.

“You’re going to be okay,” Kate murmurs.

Is he not okay right now? What’s wrong? Where is everyone else? Today is…

What happened?

Gregory loses time.

???

“Countdown from ten,” someone says murkily above him. It’s not Kate anymore. When did she leave? When did everyone leave? He thought his whole family was here. Weren’t they? Did he scare them away?

There is something sweet being pressed against his lips and nose, but it only brings a flare of panic because he doesn’t know what is happening. 

“Ten, nine…” the doctors start to chant above him, but it’s too surreal, it feels like a nightmare, it feels like a sacrifice, it feels like everything is going wrong, and he doesn’t know what that means, but he knows it must be true. 

I’m scared, Gregory wants to say. I’m scared, and everything hurts, and it needs to stop, stop, please stop, please, please, please—

But they hit one, and he loses time.

???

He thinks he dreams of his dad.

He thinks he might be dying. 

He thinks the dream of his dad tells him it will be alright.

May 15th, 2019

He thinks he wakes up.

He isn’t really sure. He doesn’t really know anything, barely can even grab ahold of his name and his body, and it feels like something leaks out between his ears, and it feels like that might be his brain.

He doesn’t know where he is. It isn’t his bedroom—it isn’t any of his bedrooms. He doesn’t know why he thinks about the nursery first, about lying on his back and staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars and being alone with them in all their green glory, and none of his siblings can pay attention to him because his dad died and—

Whoa.

His dad died.

He knew that, didn’t he?

He knows that he must have, but it still is jarring; he still chokes on the fact, and he thinks the memories are like that now. Every memory is fresh. Every memory is happening right here and right now.

When did his dad die?

What happened?

Where is he? Because it’s not the nursery, and it’s not the bedroom he shared with Colin, who hated sharing with him and kept complaining about how bratty he was and how it wasn’t fair, how Anthony got his own room, and he never thought Colin hated him, but maybe he did, and maybe Colin still hates him, and where’s Colin, and who’s Colin, and he thinks he might die here.

Where did that thought come from?

“Gregory,” someone murmurs.

And whoa. That’s his name.

He stares down at his hands, and he remembers the blackness from before, but now, it seems to have been replaced with white white white. His skin is white. The bandages are white. The tube sticking out of him—well, that isn’t white, he guesses, so that might be breaking the illusion.

“Gregory.”

He forces himself to look, and he stares at the person, owlish, trying to get his thoughts out of the stupid loops they seem caught on, but he cannot figure out who it is, he knows who it is, but he does not know their name, but their name is in his very soul, so he knows he could never forget, and—

“Ant,” he croaks out, and his voice doesn’t sound right, but the name sounds right.

But why does his voice sound wrong?

“Hey, hey,” Anthony says, “you’re okay. Breathe. You need to breathe.”

Gregory struggles to breathe right, but he thinks he might get the swing of it judging by the way Anthony’s face relaxes. There is something wrong in the air, something broken, but Gregory cannot read the room well. 

“There you go,” Anthony says with a smile Gregory cannot read. He feels like his older brother doesn’t mean it. 

“Wh’ happ’ned?” Gregory tries to get out, but it sounds garbled and wrong. 

The room is spinning. 

So is Anthony’s face.

“You got hit by a car. You’ve been in and out of surgeries and consciousness,” Anthony says like he has said it before.

But Gregory doesn’t remember that. He tries to think about a car hitting him, and he thinks he might be damaged enough, he might be hurt enough to believe that, but he doesn’t think he has been. Wouldn’t he remember that? Wouldn’t he know that better than anything else?

“Gregory,” Anthony says softly. “Breathe.”

“What happened?” he gets out, and it sounds more like words this time, but there is a blind panic infecting his bones. 

“You saw Amelia playing in the street, and you saw a car coming and—Gregory, you saved her. You saved her, and you’re alright.” Anthony hesitates, going to reach for Gregory’s hands, but he pauses.

And that brings a new wave of panic.

Because both his hands are gone.

They’re in these massive things, these massive white things, and he cannot feel his fingers, cannot feel anything inside, and he needs his hands. The white thing travels up his arm on one side, and the other is hung to his chest, but when he tries to move his arm, it refuses, there is something attaching it, and what is happening what is happening what is—

“I don’t feel right,” Gregory whimpers to his older brother because Anthony knows how to fix everything, he is going to fix everything, he is going to make it alright again, right? Or is Gregory never going to be alright?

He cannot breathe.

“Fuck,” Anthony breathes out, and then, he is pressing a button and calling for a nurse, and oh, Gregory is in a hospital.

May 19th, 2019

Gregory gets more coherent as time goes on.

Later, he learns that wasn’t the first time he woke up in a blind panic, not sure what happened. In fact, he finds out he kept waking up, having forgotten everything, and whoever drew the short card had to walk him through the car accident again. He doesn’t remember a lot of those days.

To be honest, he’s not sure he remembers a lot of these days.

There are a lot of painkillers running through his system, making everything loose and unconnected. He will fall asleep in a conversation with his mother, and he’ll wake up to Hyacinth crying in his hospital room. Sometimes, he forgets he’s been injured. Sometimes, all he can think about is the pain. Sometimes, he is being wheeled into another surgery, another operation to fix something. 

There is a lot wrong with him.

He gets one of the interns—she’s a pretty intern, dark curls and a tired smile, always disgruntled at getting stuck on monitoring duty, but apparently, there is something wrong with his heart because he keeps coding—to write it down for him at some point. 

Pneumothorax, it reads.

“That’s a fancy way,” the intern girl says, sympathetic, “that your lung got punctured.”

“Tha’s bad,” he slurs, clinging to his pillow. “They’re my favorite organs.”

Broken right wrist. Broken left wrist.

It explains the massive casts.

Apparently, though, there is something very wrong with his right wrist. They put pins in it early on, but he gets told he had an allergic reaction to the pins there (and in his chest), and they had to rush him into surgery to fix that, which further strained his heart.

There have been a lot of mishaps with his care.

“We were afraid we were going to lose you that first week,” the intern girl tells him like that isn’t the most terrifying thing he’s ever heard. 

“You didn’t,” he says, but he doesn’t remember anything from the first week. He barely remembers getting hit by the car now. He barely remembers winning state now. He barely remembers a lot of things, and he cannot track it backwards to figure out when he can start recalling things with perfect clarity.

Probably nothing with all these drugs going through his system.

Dislocated right shoulder.

“That seems fixable,” he tells the intern.

She smiles at him. “That one was.”

“Tha’ God.” He falls asleep after that, feeling oddly appreciative for his shoulder.

Broken collarbone.

That one seems harder to fix, but they assure him it will heal up fast. He has to wear a sling, which does get complicated with the casts, and in general, the doctors tell him to move as little as possible, which makes Gregory want to vibrate out of his skin.

The one time he says that, though, the surgeons get very concerned.

The allergic reaction scarred them more than it scarred him, he guesses. 

Broken left ulna.

“That means forearm,” she explains.

“Thank you,” he says because he honestly didn’t know that word, and he doesn’t know if he’d ever be able to guess that kind of word. 

A doctor tells him they want to start easing him off the medication, but the first night they try, he cries out in pain, and he cannot breathe right, and they end up giving him more medication in fear he will hyperventilate into a heart attack.

“Am I being dramatic?” he asks Hyacinth one of the times she visits. He cannot feel his teeth that time, but he also cannot feel his broken collarbone, so he thinks that is okay. Oh! Or the broken rib. He doesn’t feel that either.

Hyacinth stares at him, teary-eyed, and he thinks he has never seen Hyacinth cry as much as she seems to be lately.

“I don’t think you’re being dramatic enough,” she says at last, “but if you could stop dying on us, that would be appreciated.”

That was a bad time for her to say that, though, because he had forgotten about the coding, and he started panicking, and they had to rush in again, and he thinks all the doctors do is rush in and try and fix him.

And Gregory is starting to think he’ll never be fixed.

May 30th, 2019

“‘M awake.”

Hyacinth stares at him, unimpressed. “It’s okay if you go to sleep.”

“No, no,” Gregory slurs out. “‘m so awake right now. Like. Ultra awake. Like. Like let’s go runnin’. C’mon.”

Hyacinth waits for him to move.

He blinks at her, and he shakes his head, trying to get rid of some of the cobwebs clinging to his subconscious. “What were we talking about?”

“They switched his medication,” Violet says from the other side of the room. He long since gave up trying to see his mother. He can only focus on one person at a time—otherwise, the exhaustion will take him—so he chose Hyacinth. “They said it was going to make him a little groggy the first few days.”

“It seems worse than the other medication,” Hyacinth says, crossing her arms, and the movement baffles Gregory. The flannel makes her arms disappear into her chest; the boxes of black against the red bob and weave in and out of his vision. “At least before, he could hold a conversation.”

“I can hold a conversation,” Gregory protests.

“We can come back another day,” Violet says. He can hear the chair creak from under her weight, and then, she appears in his limited field of vision. She looks… older. Sometimes, Gregory thinks he fell asleep in the hospital room and twenty years passed because everyone looks so much older than they talk to him. Violet now gets a few stripes of gray peeking out of the brown.

Hyacinth jerks backward from Violet’s touch, though. “I told you. I want to spend my birthday here. With Gregory.”

“I think you might have more fun at home. Or maybe out with Felicity!”

“I’m not talking to Felicity right now.”

“Oh, baby—”

“Don’t baby me. We’re fighting.”

“I don’t think she meant it like that.”

“God, why do you always have to take her side?” Hyacinth throws up her hands, and her voice cracks just a little.

Nobody says anything for a moment. Gregory can feel sleep starting to gnaw at his senses more, so he tries to grip the side of the bed, but the cast refuses to let his fingers move, so he ends up curling his toes into the sheets in an attempt to lock in. 

“Gregory might need some rest,” Violet says at last.

Hyacinth turns to him, and at some point, her eyes get redder.

Something tightens in Gregory’s chest, and he gropes outward with one of those ridiculous mitten-paws he rocks these days from the surgeries. “Don’t cry, Hy. Don’t… I’m good. I don’t need rest.”

That makes her cry harder.

Then, she pushes up from her chair, and she looks at Violet. “Can I at least say goodbye to him? Alone? Because it’s my birthday.”

Gregory should’ve brought her a present.

Then again, where would he have gotten her a present? The hospital Jell-O?

He realizes, belatedly, time must have passed because Violet has vacated the room, and it is just Hyacinth staring down at him with her bloodshot eyes.

“You have to get better,” she tells him, “because I cannot do this alone. Everyone else gets a person. You’re my person. Okay?”

Gregory blinks.

Then, he nods. “You’re my person too.”

Hyacinth wrinkles up her nose, and she looks away from him. Then, faster than he can blink, she moves forward and kisses him on his forehead, softer than anything he usually gets from her, and he knows this must be serious.

“I miss you at home,” she confesses.

“I miss you,” he says, dumbly. He feels like he’s missing multiple layers of this conversation, like he should be understanding something that is going unsaid between them right now. 

“Mom’s going to drive me out,” she says, “but—”

“Don’t go,” he blurts, and immediately, he regrets it.

Hyacinth stares.

Gregory ducks his head, feeling the heat swell in his cheeks. “Don’t go.”

He knows someone else will probably take her place. He knows he will fall asleep soon, and maybe, this will all seem more like a dream than a reality.

But he doesn’t want her to go.

“I…” Hyacinth nudges his shoulder. “Budge over then. We can both take a birthday nap together.”

June 4th, 2019

Today, Charlie Bridgerton, son of Benedict and Sophie Bridgerton, turns one.

He cannot come to the hospital because he is only one. They don’t want him to get sick in any way, shape, or form, especially because Charlie has always been a somewhat sickly baby. Gregory might be in the recovery wing, but it still involves trekking through the hospital, and neither Benedict nor Sophie want to risk it.

Gregory cannot go home because he fell during physical therapy two days ago, and now, they want to monitor him because he happened to hit his head again. And refractured his arm. He didn’t know it had healed because it still felt bad every day, but apparently, it healed enough that falling set him back, and he had a surgery yesterday to reset the metal rod he managed to dislodge by falling.

Finally, it has been a month since he first entered the hospital, and due to complications, surgeries getting rescheduled or postponed or pushed up, and any other freak accidents, Gregory hasn’t left the hospital beside the little recovery garden where he hobbles around like he is five times his current age.

No, actually, not finally.

The cherry on top today is Violet bringing him his diploma.

“Gregory,” she says softly. She already pulled her purse onto her shoulder, and she wears a cardigan despite him knowing it must be a sunny, Chicago day in the real world. “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay? And talk about it?”

“You’ll be back tomorrow,” he says. “We can talk then.”

They won’t talk then, though.

Tomorrow, he will be able to cover up his frustration, and his hurt, and all those negative emotions the doctors keep telling him that it’s okay for him to experience. He snapped at Eloise yesterday. He sent a mean text to Sophie when she apologized again for him missing out on Charlie’s birthday party. He feels like he might be burning bridges left and right, but he also thinks he might explode.

“Okay,” Violet says softly. “If you want space, I can give you space. But if you want to talk to me, or any of your siblings, let me know. I’m sure all of them would be happy to speak to you.”

“Except Daphne, though,” he says before he can regret it.

Violet freezes.

Gregory almost apologizes, right then and there, but you know what? He thinks he has earned the right to be a little bit of a dick about things. Sometimes, the rest of the family gets to be a dick for no apparent reason. Why did Anthony yell at him about his Latin homework nonstop as a kid? What was up with that?

“Daphne has come by,” Violet says at last. 

That’s not what the problem is, though.

Gregory doesn’t have enough willpower to say that, so he turns away from her, staring out the window instead. The Chicago landscape outside leaves a lot to be desired since an office building immediately blocks his view of anything good. Instead, he gets to stare at some random salt-and-pepper man eating his bagel every day at 11 AM.

He doesn’t even know what the salt-and-pepper man does! He could be in the mafia for all Gregory knows!

“I can let her know you want to talk to her,” Violet says.

“Will she let me talk to Amelia?”

There is a silence after that.

Then, Violet sighs. “Gregory—”

“Never mind,” he says. “Go have fun at the birthday party.”

“Gregory—”

“Goodbye,” he says, a little sharply, and he regrets it the second he hears his mother walk away from him.

But when she disappears, well and truly, he feels the tears come on, and he hides his face into the pillow.

He wants to be at the birthday party.

He wanted to be at graduation.

But, maybe more than either of those, he wants to know he gets to escape this moment. Today, Violet came in and told him UW-Madison has rescinded their scholarship offer. They were willing to reevaluate after Gregory gets out of the hospital for the following year, but they could not, in good faith, give him a full ride when he wouldn’t be able to participate in his sport this year.

His life is supposed to begin.

In many ways, though, he thinks it might have ended.

June 7th, 2019

Gregory cannot sleep.

They changed his medication again. He thinks they will change one last time because right now, a low throb runs through his entire body, and he falls straight back into a fever from the pain. Sweat clusters in his hair, all but glued against his skin, and he still shivers beneath the comforter Violet brought for him next week.

After staying awake for so long, he thinks he might hallucinate the way light and shadow cut across the floor. The door creaks just a little, though, and he crosses the line at auditory hallucinations, so he sits up, and he gets ready to fight.

“I’m pretty scrappy,” he announces to the intruder. “I might not look it, but—”

“Holy shit!” the intruder says, wilting against the door as he slams it, all sense of tact abandoned. He flails a hand out before he catches the light switch. When he throws them into the bright fluorescence, Gregory briefly— but only briefly!— winces.

Then, he stares.

“You’re supposed to be an old man,” the insanely hot boy in his room says.

Gregory nods, slowly. Then, because he’s in pain, and he’s tired, and he might have a fever, he says, “you’re not supposed to be that hot.”

It makes the other boy grin, and he tosses his hair back like someone from a Disney channel movie. The movement does illuminate a line of stitches on his forehead. And while he might be wearing a leather jacket, it does not quite cover up the fact he’s wearing a hospital gown like an escaped inmate.

Or like an escaped friend.

“Can we go back?” Gregory says, struggling to sit upright. 

The boy takes him in, analyzing his injuries. Rather than shrinking back from it, Gregory lifts his chin as proudly as he can. He knows he still looks like a mess; nothing about his appearance changed from a month ago. Maybe the swelling in his face went away, and his eyes look less blotchy and red, but he still looks like someone who got hit by a car. Literally.

“We can go back,” the boy says, trying to lean against the wall as casually as possible. 

“Why did you think I was an old man?”

“Because I’ve seen the people coming in and out of your room. I figured… children and grandchildren?”

It surprises a laugh out of Gregory. “Nope! Nieces and nephews… and brothers and sisters. And their spouses. And my mom. And sometimes family friends.”

“Holy shit, dude. Your family is huge.”

“Seven siblings.”

“Holy shit,” he repeats one last time. Then, the boy cocks his head. “What are you guys named? One through eight?”

“We’re named alphabetically.”

“You are not.”

“We are!”

“Which one are you?”

“Seven.”

The boy does the math before perking up. He grins and gently pats his chest over his heart (which he winces at, just a little). “I’m a G too.”

“What kind?” 

“What kind are you?”

“I’m Gregory,” he says. Then, when the other boy doesn’t respond fast enough, he nods toward his double casts. “I got hit by a car.”

“Oh!” He pats his chest one more time. “I’m Gareth. I got stabbed.”

“Stabbed?” Gregory leans forward as much as he can. “How did that happen? Are you, like, a secret spy? Or a stunt double?”

“Are those the only options?” Gareth hesitates before nodding toward the chair next to Gregory’s hospital bed. “Do you mind if I…”

“If you sit down, you’re committed to being here until I fall asleep. And, bad news, I don’t do that anymore.”

“Ah. Made friends with an insomniac.” 

“Always a mistake.”

Still, Gareth saunters over—with a little bit of a limp; Gregory thinks maybe this stabbing is ongoing and he should probably seek medical treatment—and plops down in the seat. “Well, I’ll tell you my horror story if you tell me yours.”

“Mine isn’t very good,” Gregory warns. “It’s kinda… it’s what it says on the tin, you know? I got hit by a car. So I got hit by a car.”

“See, maybe the problem is how you tell the story. I can give you some tips,” Gareth says. 

“Like the tip of a knife?” Then, Gregory realizes what he said, and he tries to slap a hand over his mouth, but he ends up punching himself in the face with a cast. “I’m sorry, I’m… I think I lost my thought to voice filter, and I didn’t mean—are you laughing?”

Gareth finishes his laugh—and his laugh is surprisingly loud and surprisingly heartwarming, and Gregory finds himself wanting to get him to laugh again—and he drags Gregory’s cast down from his face. “I think we’re going to be good friends, Greggy.”

June 9th, 2019

“You look like shit,” Eloise says.

Gregory sniffles, leaning farther back into his pillows. He fumbles with the hospital blanket, trying to drag it high enough to keep the cold from invading his bones. Violet grabbed the comforter to wash it, but she didn’t bring anything back, and the nurse seemed to vanish when he asked for another blanket.

“I mean,” Eloise says after a moment, “you look like you’re in recovery.”

“I feel like shit,” Gregory croaks. “Or like plague shit. Or like Black Death shit. Or… I don’t know. Give me another way to feel like shit.”

“I—”

“Like I got hit by a car!” Gregory says, and he tries for a smile, but something trembles in his chest, and he ends up falling into his bed again. “El, I don’t think they’re ever going to let me leave this hospital.”

“I thought they were going to let you leave this week.”

He shakes his head, and his bottom lip pops out. He tries to suck it back in, but it doesn’t work. “I got sick, so they said they want to keep me for observation, and I… I… I have another surgery in, like, two weeks, so I’m never going to leave, and—”

“Oh,” Eloise says, cutting him off. “You haven’t slept, have you?”

He shakes his head again, miserable. 

“You used to get like this as a kid, too, you know.” She sits on the end of the hospital bed, and she places her tote bag on the other side of her body. He tries to shift and see which one she brought—two Christmases ago, every Bridgerton sibling got her a tote bag because they should have had a conversation about it—but he cannot tell.

Then, he wrinkles his nose. “Like what?”

“You would get sick, and you would spiral,” Eloise says. She grins at him. “I don’t need so many steps to spiral.”

“You didn’t spiral.”

“Please. I am a Grade A spiraler. I can spiral over the smallest thing. How do you think I became a lawyer?” She pulls something out of her tote bag, but she makes sure to block it from him with her body. “Do you remember what we used to do when we got sick? When we were a lot younger?”

Gregory thinks about it.

He really does.

“Refuse to admit it?” he guesses in the end.

Eloise barks out a laugh, and she runs a hand through her hair. “Okay, let’s pretend I got caught with a fever, and I got sent home from school. You were always home because of the Bridgerton sick patterns.”

“I don’t like the Bridgerton sick patterns,” Gregory says with the smallest pout.

“It’s not our fault you liked licking poles as a kid.” She considers. “Or anything. You would lick anything, and you would put anything in your mouth, and—”

“And is there a point?”

“Maybe I’m spiraling too,” Eloise says.

“I just think you talk a lot.”

“I’m only giving you a pass because you’re literally in the hospital. Got it?” Then, she swivels and reveals what she brought.

Gregory squints at the book cover before looking at her. “Is that the one from—”

“From Dad? Yeah.” She peels the cover of The Little Prince back, revealing where their father’s neat scrawl frames the title inside. Everyone in the family—even Hyacinth—got a book from their father. Edmund picked out a book the moment Violet revealed she was pregnant, and he wrote a quick message to all of them. 

Eloise had gotten a copy of The Giving Tree.

Gregory got The Little Prince.

“I used to read you a book any time we both were sick because I wanted to prove I wasn’t sick, and you wanted attention. We were a good pair like that.” Eloise reaches down, gently nudging his leg. 

“Because you don’t stop talking,” Gregory says again.

She rolls her eyes. “Again. I’m giving you a pass, but I won’t give you a pass forever. Anyway.”

She passes it over to him, only for a second, and he runs his finger over the text.

To Gregory, the note reads. Keep dreaming. Love, Dad.

Then, Eloise steals the book back, and she starts reading.

And somehow, as the chapters keep going, he finds himself drifting off to sleep for the first time in a long time.

June 11th, 2019

“You,” Gareth says as Yoshi zips across the finish line despite the red shell breathing down his—or her! but Gregory personally believes the green dinosaur must be a boy because he made that judgment call at six years old and never looked back—neck, “are freakishly good at this game. Especially when you can barely use your hands.”

Gregory giggles and deflates into the pillows. 

He watches Gareth’s character—a clumsy Mario riding the most basic cart someone could build—slide off the cliff yet again. The second Lakitu puts him back on the course, Mario limps to the finish line and seems to start crying. 

“I think your problem,” Gregory says after a moment, blinking a little too hard to focus up again, “is that you chose to play as Mario. You gotta pick someone more like you.”

“Because that lizard is more like you?”

“He’s a dinosaur,” Gregory corrects. 

Gareth rolls his eyes and leans back as well. He still moves more gingerly than Gregory, and Gregory still thinks there might be more to the story than a light stabbing. However, he doesn’t want to ask any follow-up questions.

Especially since he found out Gareth gets to go home tomorrow.

He thinks both of them should be more devastated about it. After all, even though they have only been friends for a few days, they ended up bonding in a way Gregory couldn’t bond with his older siblings. Sure, all of them have been hurt in some way before, but it’s hard being the one who gets visited while everyone else gets to hop in their car and drive back home afterward. It’s hard being the one who needs help doing everything and breaks down crying a little too much.

Gareth and Gregory just get to be bros who happen to be hospitalized at the same time. 

And they get to be two eighteen-year-olds.

And they get to be two recent high school graduates.

Gregory really thinks someone—maybe his dad—pulled some strings when they sent Gareth into his life. 

“I think it’s because you’re high as balls right now,” Gareth says after a moment. Their scores still flicker on the screen along with a new gold trophy to commemorate Gregory winning all four races in the cup.

Gregory giggles and shrugs. “Maybe. I’m on the floaty stuff again.”

The doctors changed out his medication one last time, deciding that would help him fight the fever better than anything else. While he thinks his focus ends up being scattered or so specifically tuned into something, Gregory prefers it. Anyway, he gets to go home soon, contrary to the breakdown he had with Eloise recently.

One more surgery, and then, he gets to hit the road and only come back once a month for various checkups.

“I prefer you on the floaty stuff,” Gareth says. “It’s a lot better than the insomnia stuff. Who would hang out with you after I’m gone?”

“Wait, I thought we agreed not to talk about that.”

“Someone in my life told me, and I quote, to man up and make friends. So I’m manning up and making friends.” Gareth puts down the Switch controller and reaches for his phone, which sits on the bedside table instead. He starts to hand it to Gregory before pausing. “Should I put my number in your phone? Are you going to mess it up if I give it to you now?”

“One hundred percent,” Gregory says. “I don’t think I could spell my own name right now. Do you think this is what it feels like to be on edibles?”

“That can be a later adventure for us,” Gareth says with a wink.

Gregory nods. “I know a guy.”

The guy is Benedict, and it might take a lot of convincing to get his older brother to fork over an edible, but he thinks he can play the ‘I got by a car’ card for a good, long time. Probably until he turns twenty-eight, to be honest. Ten years seems like a reasonable amount of time to be upset about something that big and that important.

“I have a Switch at my apartment, too, so we can play Mario Kart online when you’re still at the hospital,” Gareth says as he punches in his phone number. “Say the word.”

“It’s so cool you have your own apartment,” Gregory says, maybe a little too dreamily.

Gareth grins at him, though. “I think it’s so cool you don’t have to pay rent. Does your mom still buy your groceries? Make you food?”

“You can come over, and she’d do it for you, too,” he says, and he thinks that must be right. In fact, when Gregory first told Violet about Gareth, she was so delighted, she even cried a little bit. “You can be part of the family.”

Gareth nudges him. “I don’t know if you need another brother.”

“Well,” Gregory says, “you can always marry Hy and become a brother-in-law.”

June 23rd, 2019

“Hey,” he whispers, but his voice sounds strange. It echoes, too loud, and he winces at the sound of it. 

Yet, the person on the chair next to him swivels, smiling. She wears her hair up, a mess of auburn reflecting the hospital light, but if he focuses on it for too long, he thinks it might be red like Daphne’s or a dark brown like Eloise’s or something in between. It sparkles and glitters in an inhuman way, as if reminding him his sister is too good for this earth, and he wonders if she knows that about herself and if he should tell her.

She moves fast—lightning fast, almost scarily fast—to brush some of Gregory’s hair out of his face. “‘Course you woke up after everyone went to get lunch. It used to be a bit of a madhouse here.”

He tries to parse through the words before giving up, and he smiles at her again. “Hi, Franny.”

“Hi, Greg,” she says, amused. 

“Are you supposed to be here?” he says.

She laughs. “Are you kicking me out?”

“No.” He fishes for the right words. “Iowa?”

“Iowa?” she repeats. Then, she shakes her head and moves closer to him, still carding her long fingers through his hair. She is good at it—too good at it. She will make someone really happy one day, and Gregory isn’t ready to let his sister go around, sticking her dexterous fingers in other people’s hair. That would be too far; that would be letting her grow up too much. 

“Iowa doesn’t need me,” she says.

He blinks. “What about Iowa?”

Francesca giggles. “They have you on the good stuff, don’t they?”

“Yeah,” he says. Then, he blinks, and he tries to twist to stare down at his abdomen. “I was in surgery.”

“You were. They were taking some metal pins out.” Francesca wrinkles her nose at that, disgusted, and Gregory debates apologizing before deciding it was much grosser for him because he had metal pins in his body. Actually, he still has metal pins in his body; he just doesn’t have it in his lungs anymore.

He spreads a hand—whoa, he can see his fingers again, and they look gross— and wiggles the tips of his fingers around. “Am I all good?”

“I don’t know if I’d say all good,” Francesca says, “but good enough they’re going to let you come home finally.”

“Home,” he echoes. “But not in Iowa.”

“Oh, please, Greg. I’m not going to settle down in Iowa, even if I go to university out there.” 

He still thinks that’s unfair. He never would have guessed Francesca would leave the state, too. And she wasn’t as dramatic as Colin or Eloise; both of which went places far enough they couldn’t return for a quick weekend but instead only on holidays. But Francesca was supposed to stay in the city.

Gregory thinks he might have scammed everyone by going to UW.

All at once, he can feel the tears rushing up, and he cannot stop them fast enough, despite him blinking.

Francesca coos at him, reaching up to cradle his face and wipe around his tears with her thumb. “Hey, hey, you’re okay. What are you thinking about?”

“I—” He doesn’t know how to describe it, and just as fast as the thought hit him, it disappears. It leaves the emotion behind, the dragging in his heart and the roiling in his stomach, but it doesn’t leave the words to articulate it, so he just closes his eyes and leans into Francesca’s hands.

He misses her. 

He misses all his siblings if he’s being honest—and he thinks he might be, especially under the influence of all these drugs. 

“I want to see everyone,” he breathes out.

“You will,” Francesca promises. “Everyone’s in town and everything. I’m not supposed to tell you this, but you have a surprise party coming up.”

“But it’s not my birthday,” he says tearfully. 

“No, it’s not,” Francesca agrees. “I think it might be a bigger day than your birthday, if I’m being honest.”

“I don’t want a bigger day than my birthday.”

“Okay,” she says, processing that. “Then, it’ll be like a birthday party, but you and me? We’ll know that you’re going to have a great birthday soon. For your nineteenth birthday.”

“Hy says being eighteen is being cursed.”

She snorts. “You’re all over the place, aren’t you? But… I think she might have a point. I didn’t love being eighteen either, although I think I might have had a better go of it than you. You survived this, though. College is going to be easy. Life is going to be easy.”

“But Fran—”

“But nothing,” Francesca says, and she moves her fingers back up to his hair, and he loses his train of thought.

June 25th, 2019

“Okay, careful, careful,” Violet says, softly, as she keeps Gregory’s arm locked in hers. He almost wants to protest—he actually made the joke ‘look, Ma, no hands!’ and giggled the whole way home—but his balance gets shot by the amount of post-surgery drugs they keep him on. They’ll start weaning him off them as he ‘recuperates’—which, by the way, is a stupid, fancy word for stay on the couch and stare at the ceiling— but right now, he wobbles like a baby giraffe.

Still, Gregory sighs and leans into his mother. “It’ll be nice to be home. In my bed.”

“Is that what you missed most?” she says, almost teasing.

Gregory takes it and runs with it, nodding and grinning. “It was actually quiet at the hospital, so… this might be tragic.”

Hyacinth, sensing her fatal flaw being spoken about, flings open the door with one arm.

Because the other arm is—

Wait.

“What?” Gregory breathes out, and he does stagger away from his mother. “Did you steal him?”

“How do you know it’s a him?” Hyacinth shoots back, her arms still full of a cat. The cat. The cutest, cuddliest, staring-at-him-with-such-innocent-eyes cat ever. “Don’t you think that’s sexist?”

“Are you a cat burglar now?” he says.

Hyacinth groans.

But Gregory all but vaults over the porch—balance be damned—and through an act of sheer will, he stays upright to start petting the cat with his one good arm. The other one— there is a cat right there, and he can’t use both arms because of the broken collarbone, this is the worst— stays at his chest, unresponsive.

“Hi, sir,” Gregory says, offering his fingers to the cat.

The cat—the most divine, beautiful cat ever—leans in and sniffs his fingers. Then, after too long has passed, he nuzzles his face against Gregory’s hand, and Gregory thinks he might be melting.

“I know you’re disappointed you’re going to be at home alone a lot,” Violet starts from behind them, “and you equally said I am not allowed to stay home and baby you.”

“No, you’re not,” he says cheerfully.

“I’m willing to—”

“Go to book club, Ma,” Gregory says. “And wine night. And whatever secret dates you keep going on and pretending we don’t notice.”

Hyacinth gawks at him. “Mom’s not going on dates.”

Violet stays, predictably, very silent.

That’s right. Gregory is more perceptive than anyone in his family gives him credit for. He knows Violet isn’t getting dolled up to eat at a restaurant alone. She could because his mom is, frankly, a MILF, and he’s willing to admit that because he thinks it’s healthy to realize his mother’s garden is in bloom, and he isn’t going to freak out like the rest of his siblings, but Violet has definitely been going on dates.

Maybe not when he was at the hospital.

His bad, Ma.

“Anyway,” Violet says, trying to move past the elephant in the room, “I thought you might like a companion.”

“You’re telling me,” Gregory says, still gawking at the cat, “I have asked for a pet my entire life, and it took me getting hit by a car to get one? I should’ve been hit by a car earlier!”

“You should not have,” Violet says, immediately.

Hyacinth nods, though. “We could have had a cat, like, five years ago if you would have committed.”

“What’s his name?” Gregory says, looking over at his sister, who had to have named him the stupidest thing ever.

“You’re confident he’s a boy?”

“Is he not?”

Hyacinth pauses.

Then, she frowns. “Okay, fine, he is, but I think there is some good social commentary there—”

“Hy,” Gregory says. “What’s his name?”

“Mom said she would let you name him. Because you were the one who got hit by the car.”

“Kia,” Gregory proposes immediately. “Exposure therapy.”

“Gregory Bridgerton,” Violet scolds.

“No, we can’t name the cat that. Gregory the Second, maybe?” 

“We are not naming the cat after you,” Hyacinth says.

“Fortnite,” he says.

“You’re the worst, and we never should have let you come home from the hospital.”

“Hyacinth,” Gregory says. “The first.”

“I’m—”

“And now,” Gregory says, reaching out to put a hand on his sister’s shoulder, “you will be Hyacinth the Second.”

“I cannot express to you,” Hyacinth says, her face getting a little redder, “how much I hate you.”

“I’ll think on it,” Gregory says. “But Hyacinth the First is a strong contender right now.”

(In the end, Hyacinth the Second gets vetoed. He names the cat Prince Charming, or, as he introduces the cat to everyone, PRIC.)

June 28th, 2019

On a bright June day, Gregory gets blindfolded and kidnapped by his little sister. He gets (gently) shoved into a car. He gets driven to a secret second location while Hyacinth blasts the worst music known to man. He gets trotted out, and he hears the creak of a gate he knows a little too well.

And then, the blindfold gets yanked off, and while his eyes adjust to the sunlight, they shout SURPRISE.

And Gregory tries not to burst into tears.

“It’s everyone?” he says, unable to hide his awe.

“It’s everyone,” Hyacinth confirms, glued to his side. 

Gregory has seen his family these past two months. He has. They visited him at the hospital, and he thinks he only went one or two days alone, and those always came because he requested them, or he had a surgery, or there was a good excuse. But they couldn’t visit in a pack. And he didn’t see the little ones, not often. And he didn’t—

“Charlie! Charlie, Charlie, Charlie!” Gregory chants, crouching down and throwing his one good arm wide for the toddler to come sprinting at him. 

His other siblings—namely, Anthony and Daphne—keep a close arm around their children. He feels a little bad, but he knows he can only handle one hug at a time.

Good thing he’ll have at least three hours to squeeze them in (get it?).

Charlie—a little bigger, a little steadier on his feet, still a carbon copy of Benedict but with Sophie’s tan now—gets to him, and Gregory hugs him as tight as all his recovering bones allow.

“I’ve missed you,” he breathes against the lavender-scented brown hair.

“Uncle Greg,” Charlie says confidently. 

“Mom,” he hears Edmund whine.

“Okay,” Gregory whispers. “I’m going to let you go now, but then, you’re going to tell me all about the adventures you’ve gotten up to.”

Charlie, who is barely one, makes some sound of babbling agreement, and when Gregory scoots him away, a heavily pregnant Sophie steers him away.

He points up at Sophie. “You also owe me stories about your adventures. I haven’t seen you in years.”

“You saw me at the hospital!”

“Yeah, with my brother looming threateningly.” He sends a pointed look toward Benedict. “It’s not my fault I’m such a heartthrob. Like, I understand the urge to be threatened by me, but I think we need to be a little more serious.”

“I am,” Benedict deadpans. “Sexiest man alive.”

“Benedict!” Violet says. “There are children here.”

“Right, how could you forget about Hyacinth?” Gregory asks.

“Hey!”

But the rest of his banter gets cut off by Edmund and Miles both sprinting up. They approach him cautiously at the end, almost like airplanes nearing a landing strip, and the image makes Gregory smile as he kisses both their cheeks. 

“Ma said you’re fragile,” Edmund confesses in a loud voice, the kind of voice he only uses when he ‘tells’ Gregory secrets.

Miles gapes at his brother, unsure of how Edmund has betrayed his mother but confident he has.

Gregory tugs Miles closer to him; Miles squeals. “I’m not that fragile.”

“Again,” Benedict says, “I’m afraid for Gregory to get back out there. No man will stand a chance.”

“Daddy will,” Belinda says confidently. 

Gregory tries to push away from Anthony’s children, peeking over at Daphne’s. Belinda, Caroline, and David look like they want to run over to him, just as joyously as Edmund and Miles. Amelia, on the other hand…

She is hiding behind Daphne’s legs.

Gregory starts to say her name, reaching out his arm to her, but Daphne slowly shakes her head. 

‘Later’ she seems to mouth, and a flare of annoyance settles in his chest because he has waited and waited. He understands why Amelia wants space from him—he understands he might not be the easiest to look at—but he doesn’t want his niece scared of him. He doesn’t like the way she looks so pale, her face shoved against the back of Daphne’s leg. He doesn’t like the way she shakes.

Can’t he say something?

Can’t he make it better?

It’s Gregory. Gregory Bridgerton. He knows how to cheer people up; he knows how to goof around the right amount to get everyone in the room smiling. Even in the hospital, he did a decent enough job keeping the mood light.

‘Later’ Daphne mouths, though, and Miles reaches up to pull at his hair, commenting how ‘gross’ it looks.

Later, Gregory guesses.

July 4th, 2019

They split up the family to drive out of the city; they cannot stay in Chicago if they want to see fireworks. Instead, they head at least forty-five minutes away to those country homes Violet keeps talking about buying. The moment she starts empty-nesting, Gregory thinks there is a good chance she abandons civilization entirely.

He ends up in the back of Colin’s car.

“I feel like a little kid,” Gregory says, pressing his overheated forehead against the cool glass, “and you’re driving me around to get me to fall asleep.”

“Please,” Colin says, letting out a loud mock-scoff. “If you wouldn’t sleep as a kid, I would just microdose you with Benadryl.”

“Colin,” Penelope says, trying to hide her giggle by flattening her palm against her mouth. 

Eloise, who sits in the backseat with him, trying her best to pretend she is listening to her audiobook, pops out an AirPod. “I wish we could still do that.”

“You can’t keep up with me in your old age,” he says, sagely. “I understand.” 

“I’m sure that’s it.”

“Play nice back there,” Colin says. “I’ll turn this car around.”

Eloise snorts. “Now, he’s the one who’s gotten old. Penn, I’ll never understand why you married such a geezer.”

“Life insurance money.”

Colin groans while the two girls giggle. “That’s it. That’s the only reason.”

Penelope reaches over, and Colin switches which hand he has on the wheel immediately. He lets her take his right hand as he steers with the left, and Gregory can’t help but be a little jealous. He would like that soon, actually.

“There are more reasons than just that,” Penelope says, softly, “but you’re going to have to work harder for a compliment.”

“I know exactly how to work you—”

“Ew! No!” Eloise says. “We’re not doing that. Gregory is a minor—”

“I’m eighteen, actually—”

“—and I simply don’t want to hear that coming from my best friend and my older brother.” Eloise pretends to gag as much as possible. When it gets a laugh out of Gregory, she looks over at him before rolling down the window and pretending to puke onto the road.

“Okay, okay,” Penelope says. “We get it, El.”

“When did El get funny?” Gregory asks.

Eloise reaches over and shoves his knee. “Okay, now I regret everything I just did for you.”

“You love me,” Gregory says, sticking out his tongue.

Eloise’s face softens for only a moment, and he thinks she might say something sweet back. He can’t decide whether or not it would freak him out. He knows Eloise can be sappy and sentimental—he remembers Eloise reading to him, sitting with him, staying with him—but that’s not their usual dynamic.

Then, she turns her face away from him. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Don’t be offended,” Colin says. “Eloise hates all her brothers, which is why it’s our solemn mission to make her life as miserable as possible.”

“And that’s why you married my best friend?” she shoots back. “Greg, I hope you never have to find out how truly disgusting they are. We can barely go out to bars anymore because the moment Penn gets a few drinks in—”

“Oh, I don’t think we need to talk about that with Gregory,” Penelope says as fast as possible.

“Gregory is a grown man who has heard all of these things,” Gregory says. “If anything, I would assume Eloise hasn’t heard these things.”

“Why would you assume that?” Eloise says. “Homophobe.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Gregory says, throwing up his hand. “That’s not fair.”

“The one lesbian in the car, and you assume she doesn’t know anything about sex?” Eloise wrinkles her nose. “I don’t know, Gregory. I think your political career might be over before it starts.”

“You can’t say that to me right after I got hit by a car,” Gregory says.

Eloise freezes, unsure what to say.

For a second, Gregory thinks it might be too soon to joke about that.

Then, he hears Colin crack up. “Well, I guess Greg can use that one against you for the rest of your life, so you better start cooking up comebacks, El!”

July 21st, 2019

By accident, he finds Amelia hiding in a hallway.

He almost turns around. He almost does. Again, Gregory understands people need space to reflect on their actions; he knows how hard it can be to process guilt, especially at such a young age. Gregory has been the meddling little sibling a lot in his life. He vividly remembers thinking he ruined Francesca’s life as a child because he accidentally hit her wrist during Pall Mall, and it got sprained.

But Amelia is only four.

“Hey, Mel,” Gregory says, crouching down in front of her so he can meet her, eye-to-eye. “What’s up?”

Amelia stares at him, wide-eyed, and she doesn’t say anything.

“Is it too loud out there for you? I get that. Bridgerton Sunday brunches are the worst.” Then, he pretends to think about it, going as far as stroking his chin and musing like that one thinking statue, whatever its name is. “Maybe not the worst thing ever, but—”

Amelia bursts out crying.

Like.

Immediately.

Gregory reaches out, going to put his hand on her shoulder, before thinking better of it. He curls his fingers in the open air, and he tries to lower his voice. “Hey, hey, what’s wrong?”

Amelia’s whole body shakes from the force of the crying, her tiny shoulders wobbling and her face screwed up. He, again, wants to reach out to her, but he doesn’t want to make it worse. He doesn’t know what set it off.

He has a theory, of course. It will be related to the whole ‘getting-hit-by-a-car’ incident, and in Amelia’s defense, Gregory thinks he might need to have a breakdown about that one further down the line. And he’s eighteen. He’s practically at the age where they expect you to be well-adjusted. At four, you don’t have to be well-adjusted at all.

“Can you breathe with me, Mel?” Gregory asks. He curls his fingers in the air with every breath, and since his other hand stays strapped to his chest through the cast and the sling, he drums his fingers against his chest to the same rhythm. 

After a few seconds of counting out loud, Amelia lurches forward, clasping her hands around his. Slowly, she lines up her breathing with his. Slowly, she stops sobbing and instead starts just gently crying.

Okay. He’ll take it. 

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” Gregory whispers. “Or do you want me to—”

“You almost died,” Amelia gasps out, “because of me.” 

Gregory shifts forward, trying to inch closer to her without scaring her away. “It’s okay—”

“You almost died,” she says again.

“It’s okay.” 

But she stares at him with those wide eyes, and he knows it doesn’t make any sense to say that because she is actually looking at him. She is seeing the two casts still; she is seeing the sling still. If she saw any photos of him at the hospital, she might be thinking of the scarier things like the chest tube or the facial bruises.

“It was an accident,” he says.

“Mommy says I shouldn’t run off,” Amelia says. “And I shouldn’t run into the streets unless I look both ways. So I… I shouldn’t… Uncle Gregory…”

“Hey, hey,” Gregory says, lapsing immediately, “let’s remember to breathe, okay?”

He walks them through a few rounds of breathing again. 

Then, he shifts, trying to catch her eyes. He doesn’t start talking until she does. “Did you mean to?”

“No! Of course I didn’t!”

“Of course you didn’t,” he repeats. “You didn’t mean to. It was an accident.”

“But—”

“But nothing,” he says. “I don’t blame you, Melly Belly, because you didn’t mean to, and it was an accident.”

“But—”

“But,” Gregory says, cutting her off again, “I want you to say that to me, okay? Repeat that back to me. I didn’t mean to. It was an accident.”

“Uncle Gregory…”

“Say ‘I didn’t mean to. It was an accident.’”

Amelia bites down on her lip, hesitating. Then, she says, shakily, “I didn’t mean to. It was an accident.”

“You didn’t mean to,” he says. “It was an accident.”

“I didn’t mean to,” she says. “It was an accident.”

They loop it a few times, and he can tell it won’t fix everything, and he knows he will need to have a conversation with Daphne and Simon about it, and maybe he will even want a conversation with Violet after it, but she stops crying.

When Amelia folds herself into Gregory, giving the smallest hug possible, a hug that says just how afraid she still is that Gregory will break, he holds her tight.

He doesn’t let go until she lets him go.

August 16th, 2019

Gregory needs to get up.

He lies in his bed, the blankets pulled over his head, and his whole body aches from the effort of lying down. Every bone in his body vibrates within his skin. The very marrow of it wants to eat itself and wants to turn inside out.

Early August, they told him he could stop wearing the slings. Then, the doctors looked at the bones in his forearm, tsked in that doctor way of theirs, and readjusted the pins and casts for another month. Apparently, the bones are protesting against the pins. He didn’t realize bones could have feelings like that.

Then again, right now? 

He thinks he believes bones have feelings like that.

His phone buzzes beneath his pillow, and he knows it must be Violet or Hyacinth, wanting to know when he’ll come bounding down the stairs. They wanted to drive over to Benedict’s in the early afternoon. That way, Violet can help Sophie bake the cake for the birthday party, and Hyacinth can play with the little kids.

It’s Benedict’s birthday.

Didn’t he just throw a fit about not being able to go to Charlie’s birthday party? He would have given anything to leave the hospital.

Shake it off, Gregory thinks.

And somehow, that thought makes him feel even worse. He almost feels nauseous as he mashes his face into his pillow, trying to breathe through the sudden bout. He isn’t the runner he used to be. He isn’t the star athlete. Instead, he’s a wimp who can’t figure out how to crawl out of this bed.

There’s a knock on his door. 

Then, it gets thrown open.

“Gregory, get off your ass and—whoa. Are you asleep?”

He takes a deep breath.

And he pulls the comforter down. “Hi, Hy—”

“You don’t look good,” Hyacinth says, plopping down immediately. Gregory whines as he shifts away, moving away from her sudden weight on top of his leg. “What’s going on with you right now?”

“I’m about to get up—”

“You look like a wet rat,” Hyacinth says without hesitation.

Gregory tries for a smile.

Then, his lips tremble, and he bites down on it before he can give anything away.

Hyacinth sees through it immediately.

Stupid detective abilities.

“You know, I didn’t want to see Benedict either,” she says. “He’s gotten super snobby lately, and if I have to hear about his new charcoal collection one more time, I’m going to scream. Like literally scream my lungs out.”

“Hy,” he says, softly.

“I’ll send him a happy birthday text… from both of us.” She goes for her phone while he still tries to protest, and she holds up a hand. “I know, I know. It won’t be a happy birthday selfie if that’s what you’re concerned about. I’ll keep your reputation intact.”

“Hy.”

She ignores him, getting up to fish around in his drawers. He watches her, not quite sure what to say, when she yanks out his heating pad, its long cord still tangled around its body. “Okay, does this work through the cast? Or does it make it worse? I know you said it helped when you still had chest pain.”

“When did I say that?”

“In the hospital. When you were doped up,” she says. “It’s worth a shot, don’t you think?”

So, he just marvels at his little sister as she bustles around him. She must have sent a text to Violet too because while she goes to her bedroom to grab her laptop, he hears the garage door go up and the car drives away. 

When she returns, she also comes bearing an armful of pillows.

“It’s time to watch romcoms,” she announces. “So, scoot over, and I hope you don’t smell too bad.”

“I thought you hate romcoms,” he says, already adjusting, keeping the heating pad curled against his chest (it’s like his chest heard that it could be in pain and decided to add to the symphony of discomfort going through him). 

“That’s why you’re going to pick out the best ones on Netflix. Not the Kissing Booth again please,” she says. She squeezes in next to him, and she leans forward, ready to type in.

“Thank you,” he says instead.

She starts typing that.

“No,” Gregory says. “Thank you.”

“Gregory,” she says. “We are not having a moment. But if we were, I’d say something about recovery processes and good days bad days and all that good, holistic crap I learned at the hospital when I wandered the hallways while you slept. It’s okay, you know, if you need to take a day slower. The doctors said this was going to take awhile to bounce back from.”

“I know,” he says.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He nudges her. “Nah. I want to watch The Kissing Booth again.”

“I hate you,” she says.

“I love you,” he says back.

She snuggles into him. “Okay.”

August 20th, 2019

Sometimes, Gregory thinks he cannot love his family more.

He knows he wouldn’t be the person he is today without them. He knows he is a mini model of his older brothers and sisters’ best qualities; they paved the way for him, and he will never stop being grateful. They showed him love from day one. He cannot remember a day where he feared being alone.

When he talked about them at school, it used to win him admirers. Hyacinth and Felicity Featherington once told him, reluctantly, people liked how sentimental he got about his family. It proved how big his heart is.

Sometimes, he thinks it cannot grow anymore.

Then, Benedict angles his new baby toward Gregory, his brother’s face splotchy with tears he never sheds around Gregory, and Gregory thinks he might explode from how much he adores everyone in his family.

“He’s beautiful,” Gregory whispers, reaching out to touch the baby’s cheeks with the tips of his fingertips. He’s grateful, in a strange way, he will not be holding the baby today. One: Benedict and Sophie seem reluctant to let anyone hold him, even Violet. Two: the baby looks so small, so fragile, so new to life.

“He is,” Benedict says back, his voice just as breathy and light. He tries to clear his throat, but it comes back phlegmy, the tears threatening to sink him into a fit of sobbing. He turns his face toward the ceiling, taking a deep breath to steady himself. “He looks just like Sophie, doesn’t he?”

“About time,” Sophie breathes out. She lies in the bed, still a little red from the exertion, her dark hair gathered in a haphazard bun atop her head, but she looks angelic. 

Gregory, though he’s afraid to ruin the moment, tells her that.

Sophie grins. “Why do I think you’re lying?”

“No, you do,” Benedict says. 

“Ben,” she says.

“Soph,” he says back, and it sounds almost too intimate for Gregory, like he should leave the room to leave the new parents with their new baby.

Benedict takes to fatherhood in a way Gregory didn’t expect. To Gregory, Benedict was always too cool to have children. His only models—Anthony and Violet—always seemed more serious, stoic, committed to what it meant to have a duty. Benedict could never be tied down, even when they were younger.

But as Gregory takes in Benedict and Sophie, both of them angling themselves toward each other almost subconsciously, as if there is some invisible force pulling them closer, closer, closer, Gregory thinks that child will grow up so loved and so lucky.

Gregory will only be a fraction of the love the new baby gets.

“What’s his name?” Gregory asks. When neither of them responds right away, he peeks at them, grinning. “Gregory Junior?”

“I’ll name a son after you when you name a son after me,” Benedict says.

And it leaves something warm in Gregory’s chest, something that makes him want to smile, but he resists it. He knows none of his siblings will entertain ideas of him having children, not right now. He’s too young; he hasn’t met the love of his life.

But Gregory thinks he will name every single child he has after his siblings. They are the greatest people he has ever known. If his children have even an ounce of Benedict’s creativity, of Benedict’s gentleness, of Benedict’s everything, Gregory will be very lucky in the future.

He’s been very lucky right now.

“Alejandro,” Sophie says. 

Gregory grins. “Hi, Alejandro. I’m your favorite uncle.”

“He will be one of them,” Benedict says, the softness in his voice unmistakable. “Especially when he babysits you all the time.”

“Hey now,” Gregory says, but he thinks he would. He thinks he would give up everything to spend another day in his nieces and nephews’ lives. Part of him misses those younger days, the Bridgerton house bursting full of his siblings. Sure, he was always young, so he didn’t spend enough time with Anthony and Benedict, but they were always close.

Then again, Gregory thinks as he looks at Benedict, who is still smiling down at his son, Gregory thinks he ended up spending the perfect amount of time with his older brother.

September 9th, 2019

“If this is too much for you,” Daphne says, not looking at him as she bustles around her house, trying to assemble everything she needs for her night out, “you’re allowed to tell me that. I don’t want you to feel like you have to. Or you’re obligated to this. Or—”

“Okay,” Gregory says from where he sits beneath her children. Amelia still keeps some distance—and it aches in a way he doesn’t know how to handle; he cannot fix this for her anymore than he can fix this for himself—but Belinda and Caroline have decided they didn’t get enough time with their uncle, so they both wrestled to sit on his lap.

“Okay?”

“Okay, I want to leave,” he deadpans. “Can I pack up my things?”

Daphne gapes at him for a second, clearly trying to decide if he’s joking or not. She has already done everything to be ready to leave; her hair sits in an elegant bun, only a few wisps falling down to frame her face, and her makeup is done in a—pardon his French here, but he hates describing it this way too; he just believes in the truth and supporting women—sexier way than usual.

“I’m kidding, Daff,” he says. “Have fun tonight.”

“I wanna go,” David announces from the floor. He doesn’t look up from the floor, though, where he seems to be building the most elaborate retelling of Cars possible. From this angle, Gregory can see where Lightning McQueen has apparently attacked Mater and forced him under the couch.

(Gregory knows, later, David will beg Amelia to fish him out. These storylines always end up with Lightning McQueen and Mater having to race again. They just have to.)

“Sorry, kiddo,” Gregory says. “You’re stuck with me tonight.”

“They’re not stuck with you,” Daphne says before brightening considerably. “There’s my other heel!”

“Don’t grow up to become your mommy,” he stagewhispers to Belinda, who giggles. “She can’t even keep track of her shoes.”

“When you have a partner, I’m going to make you eat those words,” Daphne calls as she tugs it on. “I’m playing the long game right now, Gregs. I’m going to embarrass you in front of them all the time.”

“Nice try,” Gregory says. “I’m impossible to embarrass. I’ve been told it’s one of my most annoying qualities.”

“That’s not very nice,” Belinda says sagely.

Gregory nods. “Aunt Hyacinth isn’t, is she?”

He entertains the kids a little longer as Daphne finds her purse, her lipstick, and whatever else she might need. Still, when she starts talking about how she might need to bring some eyeshadow, just in case she needs to reapply it, Gregory starts suspecting—and he’s pretty sure he’s right; he’s great at reading people—she might be stalling.

And Gregory, who isn’t great at patience, calls her on it immediately.

“Are you stalling because of me,” he asks, “or because there’s trouble in paradise?”

“Gregory,” she hisses, her gaze bouncing over to her kids.

He sets them loose upon the world of the cars, though, so they have solidly stopped paying attention to grownup talk. The only one he would be cautious of is Amelia, who is pretending not to watch Gregory, but is so clearly watching Gregory.

“Well?” he prompts.

She bites on her lip, debating what to say.

“Probably the second one, right?” he says, just to catch her off guard.

Daphne blinks.

Score. She’s been caught off-guard.

“You know,” he says, “because you haven’t produced the E of the alphabet yet? You had a good run of years.”

“Oh, stop it,” she says, but she blushes just a little. “Don’t you think four is enough?”

“I don’t know,” Gregory says. “I’m feeling nine. Just to prove myself.”

“You would,” she says. “You have more energy than anyone should.”

“It’s because I’m still young.”

“Hey now.”

“Hey,” he says, “it’s your twenty-seventh birthday. That officially marks you as a spinster.”

Daphne groans. “So, we understand I’m married, right? I can’t be a spinster?”

“Where’s Simon?”

“He’s already at the rest—”

“Which means,” he says, hurrying to cut her off, “you should probably join him soon, yes? Otherwise, he might think you’re avoiding him.”

Daphne rolls her eyes. 

Then, she softens, just a little. “Are you sure you can watch them tonight?”

“If I wasn’t,” he says, “I have so many siblings I can pawn this off on. I even have a mother I could ask.”

“But—”

“No buts,” he says. “I’m excited. I haven’t watched a good Disney movie in so long. I think we’re going to make a bracket and vote on what we’re going to watch.”

“And you’re going to rig it?”

“Yup,” he says. “Now, go have fun, you crazy kid. I’ve got this.”

September 17th, 2019

He’s got this.

There is a strange undercurrent of anxiety cutting through the air today. Nobody else comments on it because his family believes in tact and being emotionally repressed, and for the first time, Gregory thinks he might ascribe to that mentality too. 

So, he grabs another slice of cake, and he goes to sit in the grass. There are perks of being a teenager, after all. Gregory wanting to be on his phone? 100% believable. There might be a few pot shots about his generation, and about how kids these days aren’t socialized well, but he thinks he can live with that to get out of his head.

He texts Gareth ‘i think i’m having an existential crisis.’

Gareth responds right away with ‘about time dude. i have one every day.’

Gregory snorts at that. ‘isn’t it weird to think we should be in college right now?’

‘nah,’ Gareth sends back. ‘we can sneak into bars tonight if you’d like.’

‘i don’t have a fake.’

‘you have five billion brothers. take one of theirs.’

‘colin is ten years older. nobody would buy it.’

‘they probably would. you’re kinda ugly.’

Gregory rolls his eyes before smiling as sunnily as possible into his phone, getting one of the best selfies known to mankind. What? Gregory knows how to take a good photo, and he’s not going to deny that. He understands there is a time and place to be humble; he just thinks confidence is usually sexier.

Then, a shadow falls over him. “Mind if I sit with you?”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to be hiding out, birthday boy,” Gregory says immediately. Even if he couldn’t tell by tone of voice, he sensed this was coming. Anthony can always read Gregory’s vibes a little too well. His biggest fear is that he will go to college, get laid for the first time, and Anthony will immediately tell he’s not a virgin.

Okay, maybe not his biggest fear.

He thinks that is probably pretty high, though.

“Maybe I wanted to check on my little brother,” Anthony says, sitting down next to him with a shocking amount of fanfare.

Gregory knocks their knees together. “Your joints aching, old man?”

“Something like that,” Anthony says with an eye roll. 

Neither of them say anything for a second. Gregory literally cannot think of a single thing to say. Most of the family knows his life now. It’s not like he’s sneaking out and experiencing all these crazy adventures now. Actually, Gregory spends a lot of time at Anthony and Daphne’s houses these days, babysitting their children because what else would he be doing?

God, he needs a job.

“I think you should throw bigger parties,” Gregory says.

Anthony groans. “You and Kate both.”

“They’re fun,” he says. “Like… a total rager. With kegs and all that.”

“I’m too old for kegs.”

“So you’re not denying you’ve done a keg stand.”

Anthony laughs at that. “Gregory.”

“I’m just saying. I’m trying to assemble a guide for myself, you know.” Oh no, he thinks distantly. He doesn’t want to talk about this, but he’s committed to this joke; it’d be weird if he bailed out abruptly. Fuck. “Which alcohols to drink, best places to get a fake ID, all that stuff. You know. Essentials for college.”

Fuck.

There’s that undercurrent of anxiety.

“Don’t do shots of pure Everclear vodka,” Anthony says. 

He scrunches his nose. “Why? You don’t think I could do a shot well.”

Anthony shoves his face away, ignoring Gregory’s surprised giggle. “Don’t make that face at me. It reminds me how small you used to be.”

“But I’m not small anymore. That’s what you’re saying.”

“I wish,” Anthony says, “you were a little smaller.”

“You have your hands full of your children,” he reminds Anthony.

“Not too full,” Anthony says. “Have you thought about where you’re—”

“Nope!” Gregory says cheerfully. “We’re not talking about this today.”

“You have to talk about it at some point,” Anthony points out. “Are you going to see if you can go to UW in the spring? I know they wouldn’t give you the track and field scholarship, but we could help you pay tuition if needed.”

“Again,” Gregory says, “I don’t think we have to talk about this today.”

“Gregory—”

Gregory flees, though, racing over to the cake, and he knows it will leave Anthony seething, just a little, but his older brother won’t yell at him in front of all their siblings.

At least, not anymore.

He needs to thank Kate for leveling out his older brother in that sense. Then, he needs to tell Kate to work a little harder because only Anthony would confront him with hard truths at his own birthday party.

Gregory has his breakdown penciled in for next week, anyway. He keeps postponing it, but he thinks he can handle the thoughts of the future next week. Just give him one more week.

September 19th, 2019

It’s crazy, Gregory thinks, how popular September is in their family for birthdays. Last year, he pointed out that means people were fucking like crazy around Christmastime and absolutely nobody in the family appreciated that math. He then pointed out it’s because he was right, so maybe they should think about being less obvious, and he got banished to wash the dishes. There weren’t even any little kids at the table! He thinks it was fair game, actually!

This year, he thinks the universe must be conspiring against him. There are too many events in September for this.

One: he should have moved into UW. His entire Snapchat feed is friends from high school experiencing college life for the first time, and because Gregory is friendly enough, he’s on so many private stories where he watches them make bad decisions in their orientation week.

He wants to be making bad decisions in his orientation week, goddamnit!

Two: Daphne’s birthday, and he loves Daphne, but Daphne always does make him feel a little younger, a little more eager for her approval. He doesn’t get it. But he remembers being small and being taken care of by her, and sometimes, he looks at photos of him post-jumping-in-a-lake-to-set-up-Daphne-and-Simon and even Gregory can’t believe how small he is.

Three: it was Anthony’s birthday, and here is yet another person who makes him feel small. Not in a bad way, necessarily, but he cannot help but look at Anthony like a father. He doesn’t want to disappoint him. He doesn’t want to be less than what Anthony can think he can become. So, the idea of going to a party, knowing Anthony wants to talk to him about something that he doesn’t want to talk about? That was too much.

Four: now, today, it’s Caroline’s birthday.

On the bright side, nobody stops him as he chases his nieces and nephews about Daphne’s house. In the middle of a school week. Because all of them have jobs. And school. And Gregory has an aching abyss of free time, and even he cannot justify spending all of it on Instagram.

Those who took today off are having grown up conversations in the kitchen, all of them swilling their wine in shockingly fancy wine glasses. He knows Simon’s family is loaded—come on, he’s a Bassett; Gregory read up on all their Wikipedia pages before he allowed Daphne to date him—but he didn’t realize they could splurge on the crystal-lined-whatever wine glasses.

“You’re too fast!” Edmund announces as Gregory catches up with him again, grabbing him in the middle and pulling him backward.

Gregory chooses not to answer. Instead, he makes the loudest monster noises he can, and Edmund squeals.

Miles, from across the room, gasps. “I’ll save you!”

“Nice tr—”

Miles, from a higher vantage point that any child should be able to reach, launches himself at Gregory. He lands between Gregory’s shoulderblades, and while Gregory fights that good fight to stay upright, they both go crashing to the floor with an almost comically loud bang.

And then, he feels his casted arm strike the hardwood, and the spike of pain rips through him fast enough he almost shouts out. Instead, he bites down on his lip as hard as he can—no freaking out the kids, Gregory!—which breaks the skin.

And now, he’s bleeding onto the hardwood floor from the mouth.

Amelia screams.

And the grownup talks stop.

Anthony and Simon are the first to sprint around the corner, already in dad mode.

“What happened?” Anthony demands.

Amelia darts to her father, shoving her face in his legs. She mumbles something, frantically, about Gregory and accidents and hurts.

Gregory forces himself to his knees, and he flashes a smile. “It’s all good. We just—”

“Gregory,” Anthony says, cutting him off. “You’re bleeding.”

“But in a cool, casual, respectful way,” Gregory says, running his tongue over his bottom lip. Yup. Definitely bleeding there.

“Get up,” Anthony says. “Playtime’s over.”

“We’re fine,” Gregory says, trying to communicate everything in a single glance. If he gets up, the children will stay freaked out, and he would really rather they stopped being freaked out. 

Anthony makes an impatient sound, though.

And Gregory almost shouts at him.

Which would not be very cool or casual or respectful.

So, instead, he pulls Miles into a hug, hides his face for two seconds to regain his composure, and lets out a long breath. “Ant, I’ve got this. Miles, we’re all good. Right, bud?”

Miles sniffles, clearly also about to cry. “Did I do bad?”

“Nope! Nobody did bad!”

“Miles jumped from the bookcase,” Belinda says. The traitor to the cause.

“Miles,” Anthony says.

“Gregory,” Simon says, striding up to him in that swift Simon way of his, despite his daughter still clinging to his legs. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“I,” Gregory says through a mouthful of blood, so he does understand, fundamentally, that he’s hurting his cause, “have never been better, actually.”

“Are you sure?” Simon asks again.

Gregory’s smile gets a little more strained, but hopefully, nobody can tell. There are a lot of distracting factors after all. Like the copious amount of blood from his torn lip. Damn, did lips bleed a lot more than he expected. “Never been better. Right, Miles? I’m still the coolest uncle you have?”

“Gregory,” Anthony says. “Get up. Let me check this out.”

“You’re not a doctor.”

“Gregory.”

“Okay!” Gregory says, pushing away from the herd of nieces and nephews he’s almost swallowed in. “That’s all from me, folks! I’ll be back as soon as your father stops being a hardass!”

He knows he shouldn’t say it like that.

But he might be a little frustrated.

September 20th, 2019

“I heard you were in here.”

Gregory throws a pillow in the direction of the doorway. It almost snags on the corner of the discarded Care Bears blanket, but it only ruffles it before skidding across the few inches of hardwood remaining. It stands in sharp contrast to the nice gleam of Anthony’s leather dress shoes. He came straight from the firm then.

Whatever.

“If you want to talk,” Gregory says, grabbing another pillow with reckless abandon, “you have to help.”

Anthony plucks up the other pillow, humming as he turns it over in his hands. “Hy told me you’re in a bad mood. Apparently, there’s been a lot of pillows to the face.”

“Well, she’s the worst at this stuff. Don’t bother denying it; we both remember,” Gregory says, still not looking at him as he wedges his pillow into a corner to give it extra height. Then, he crab-walks backward to grab a blanket to drape on top. “Besides, I don’t need her laughing at me. She thinks I’m having a breakdown.”

“Are you?” Anthony crawls into the entrance of the blanket fort Gregory constructs when he receives Gregory’s best glare. He ignores it by creating a pillar for the draped blankets, straightening it to make it more load-bearing. Or, at least, more successfully load-bearing. “Should I be more worried about you?”

“Thanks for implying you’re always worried about me.” With that section of the fort fortified, he continues his work on the tunnel leading into the nursery’s small closet. 

“I am.”

“Don’t be.”

“It’s not that easy.” He eases the rest of the way into the fort, and he starts fixing the precarious spots with a single touch, reinforcing it with the pile of resources still stacked in the middle. A stuffed bunny goes here; a headless doll slides in there. “I watched you grow up, Greg. Sorry if I’m a little protective.”

Gregory snorts. “You watched literally everyone grow up.”

“And everyone tells me I should stop worrying about them too. Unfortunately, it might be one of my fatal flaws.” Anthony smiles at him. Then, he snags one of the remaining pillows—ironically, it’s from the guest room where Anthony and Kate tend to stay, and Gregory did sniff it, and it does smell like Kate—and plops down, staring up at the ceiling. “You’ve gotten good at this. Do you practice?”

“Why should the kids have all the fun?” Gregory says stiffly.

Anthony lets Gregory dick around a little longer, and Gregory tries his best to pretend he is actually doing something productive in this fort. He doesn’t want to have this conversation. In fact, he fled from this conversation yesterday by siccing Kate on Anthony when Anthony started yelling about being more careful and understanding his limits.

Because Gregory is pretty sure he does understand his limits.

It’s just that he doesn’t respect them. Or he didn’t choose them. Or that they’re so painfully unfair he wants to scream most of the time.

“Are you going to take a break with me?” Anthony asks after a few minutes. “I can see you’re struggling.”

“Rude,” Gregory says, even as he watches his tunnel completely deflate. Then, he sighs and eases himself down, lying near enough to Anthony he might get a hug toward the end but far enough it doesn’t seem like he’s desperate. “You’re supposed to be helping.”

“This is beyond my capabilities,” Anthony says.

“I don’t believe you.”

“I’m serious, Greggy. I think this is better than any blanket fort I ever made you.”

He misses those days. There is a hazy space of time where Anthony still lived at home and Gregory was old enough to remember everything his older brother did for him. It felt like Hyacinth and him could convince Anthony to do anything with them. If they wanted his attention, they didn’t have to call him.

Their mom didn’t have to call him; he has to think Violet is the one who said someone had to coax Gregory out of his bad mood.

‘Bad mood’ seems like an exaggeration. Gregory’s bad moods never look bad enough to the rest of the family. He doesn’t explode like the rest of his siblings. He implodes, and he looks manic, and he runs around without a single thought in his head, and even when he fights back, he does so in the fastest way possible.

It makes him make blanket forts in the childhood nursery on a random Friday and refuse to talk to the two other people who live at home.

Gregory sighs.

“I’m not supposed to be the center of attention unless I put a fish in someone’s bed,” he says. “This is unnatural.”

“I remember saying something very similar when Kate and I got into a car crash after we got engaged,” Anthony says. “If I remember right, you and Hy were the people who visited us the most.”

“That’s because Hy and I have endless free time.”

“That’s not true.”

“That’s because I have endless free time because I’m ‘directionless,’” he says, quoting Anthony from yesterday.

Anthony winces, just a little at that. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“I actually do have a direction,” he says.

“I know.”

“It was the direction I flew in after getting hit by a car.”

And Gregory knows it might be going too far because nobody likes when he references the car accident. Sometimes, he can get a giggle or two, but for everyone, it’s too soon, it’s too raw. And Gregory thinks that’s fine, that’s okay, except he would feel better if it was a joke. If people didn’t take it seriously. If it didn’t define him.

Anthony doesn’t say anything.

Gregory can feel the tears building all at once, the pressure against the back of his skull, so he balls up his fists and presses them against his eyes. “Fuck.”

“Hey,” Anthony says, half-joking, half-consoling. “It’s okay.”

Gregory peeks at him out of the corner of his eye, and he looks impossibly soft. Not the stern older brother-father he tends to be. Gregory suddenly cannot—no, he will not —look at him because he doesn’t want to break open and expose all his wounds. Not to Anthony. Not to anyone, but especially not to Anthony.

He takes a breath, and he lowers his hands. Then, he stares up at the starry sheets above them, pressing his lips together to resist talking. Anthony waits, though, as the silence hangs between them. Anthony has always been more comfortable waiting than Gregory; he wields his silence like a weapon in their arguments more often than not.

Still, when Gregory sighs, it feels like a defeat. “I don’t know what to do anymore.”

He expects a dramatic reaction. Anthony should jolt upright and gape at him. There should be some desperation, reaching out to him as if to ground him in the present moment.

Instead, Anthony nods and waits for him to keep speaking.

“I had it all figured out,” Gregory confesses. “I was at the top of my game—literally. I was the kind of person you put on billboards, and give full rides to, and mock in YikYak about not having to pay tuition, and everyone loved me, and now…”

“We love you,” Anthony says.

Gregory shakes his head, biting on his still sore, still fragile bottom lip. “That’s not… it’s mean. But that’s not enough, Ant. Everyone else gets to keep going with their lives. And I’m just… I’m just me. I’m just Gregory.”

“Greg,” Anthony says. “Gregory.”

“I had it all figured out,” he says, and his voice breaks pathetically, “and I was going to be loved, not in an obligatory way but in a… in a way where people loved and respected me and saw me as a grownup and my own person. I was going to college on my own terms. I didn’t… and now, I’m just the biggest letdown of the family.”

He’s crying in earnest now.

That gets Anthony moving. He sits up and scoots closer to Gregory. “You’re not a letdown, Gregory.”

“You said it yourself. I don’t have a direction. I don’t have a thing anymore. I’m just… rotting on that couch. And babysitting all your kids. And I can’t even get a job because I’m so fucked up from the accident still, and I don’t even know if I’ll end up at UW anymore because I’m so fucked up from getting hit by a fucking car.”

When Anthony opens his arms, Gregory moves and collapses in them.

“What if I messed everything up?” he sobs against his brother’s shoulder. “What if I don’t get anything now?”

“It’s going to work out. It doesn’t seem like it, but it will. And I love you,” Anthony promises. “There is nothing you could do that would make me not love you, and there is nothing you could do that would make me not proud of you. You’re hard not to love, Gregory.”

Gregory can’t respond; he’s too busy choking on his sobs.

Whatever else Anthony wants to say gets drowned out by Gregory’s crying. So, Anthony dips his head and starts whispering into Gregory’s hair, telling him how amazing he is, telling him how much he has loved Gregory, telling him all the little things Gregory would have enjoyed any other day.

But today is the first day he truly let himself fall apart since it happened.

September 21st, 2019

When he goes downstairs, he can smell the pancakes wafting toward him, and he knows he will escape this breakfast without crying. 

He knows Hyacinth already took off for the morning. Both Hyacinth and Felicity decided they needed to go shopping for the perfect homecoming dresses, and no matter how much Gregory teases them, Hyacinth refuses to disclose whether or not she has a date. He honestly hopes she doesn’t. There is something horrifying about his little sister being able to date someone. It just doesn’t seem right to him.

Gregory, still in his pajamas and his bedhead, tries for a smile. “Any chance you’ll believe I have a breakfast date today?”

“Nope,” Violet says cheerfully. “I made you favorites, too.”

“Well, when you put it like that.” He plops down in his favorite seat, and, immediately, PRIC goes strolling up and weaves around Gregory’s leg, purring in delight. He reaches down, almost absently, to scratch the top of the cat’s head. Gregory thinks if everyone adored him as much as this cat, his life would be in great shape. 

As an added bonus, PRIC is decidedly not Hyacinth’s cat. He struts away, his furry behind swaying, whenever he so much as sees Hyacinth. When they have movie night, PRIC goes to Gregory without fail.

What can Gregory say? He’s a cat whisperer.

“I talked a little with Anthony last night,” Violet says. “Nothing specific, but he said you’re… struggling. A little bit.”

“To be fair,” Gregory says, “I’ve come to terms with the fact it’s really fair and valid of me to be struggling.”

Violet blinks. “What?”

“I thought about it, and I think getting hit by a car is good grounds to struggle,” he says.

Violet stares at him for a long second. Then, she slides a chocolate chip pancake onto his plate, and she grabs the whipped cream to make it a smiley face. “Okay. I’m glad you’ve decided that over the night.”

“I…” He has another witty joke on the tip of his tongue. He could make her laugh, and maybe, this whole thing would be dismissed.

Instead, he says, “it was really scary, wasn’t it?”

Violet sits down opposite him. “It was.”

“I… I don’t think I think about that enough,” Gregory says, his voice shockingly tight. He didn’t think he would actually get emotional about this. He thought… well, whatever. He has thought about a lot of things in the wrong way lately. “It was scary. I almost died. And it hurt.”

“I know, baby.” Violet reaches across the table and takes his hand.

He blinks against the sudden onslaught of tears—God, could he have a conversation with his family without crying? That would be a new challenge mode, wouldn’t it? “It sucked. It really sucked. And it’s not, like… I can’t just move on, you know?”

She nods, soundlessly.

Gregory shakes his hand, pulls his hands away, and fumbles with his silverware and eat some of his pancake instead of continue.

“I think you were really brave about it,” Violet says softly.

He snorts. It sounds pathetically wet. “That was the painkillers.”

She shakes her head. “That was all you, Gregory. I think you put on a brave face every single day you could, and you never wanted any of us in the family to feel overwhelmed about what happened to you. You were always trying to comfort us. Don’t think I didn’t notice that.”

“I—”

“But,” she says softly. “I’m sorry you felt like you had to.”

“I don’t like being the sad one in the family,” he says, honestly. “I like being the one to help.”

“I know you do. I think it’s one of your best qualities. You are always thinking about other people. It gets disguised, a little, when you start pulling your pranks.” And here, she nudges him under the table, and he does giggle, just a little, at it. “And sometimes, we forget because it’s a little frustrating that you managed to bleach your little sister’s hair on April Fools’ Day.”

“It’s a national holiday,” he says solemnly.

“We both know that’s not true,” Violet says. “I know this isn’t a role you wanted to fill, not in your senior year. Not in the year of Gregory. But I’d like to think… tell me how we can still make this your year. That you can still look back on this year and smile.”

“Really?” he asks. 

“Really,” she says. “I know it might seem impossible, and I don’t blame you. It was scary… it was scarier than almost anything I’ve lived through, Gregory, seeing you on the pavement after saving Amelia. But you saved her.”

And that’s when the tears start falling.

“You saved her,” Violet says, getting up to embrace him. “You saved her.”

September 22nd, 2019

“It’s getting too heavy,” Gregory announces with what he would like to call wet-cat-rizz, “in my personal life, so I’ve come here. For an interlude.”

Gareth snorts on the other side of his shoebox apartment’s front door, but he opens it wide for him. “Good to know you don’t think I’d have a serious conversation with you.”

“I don’t think you’d want to.”

“No, probably not.”

“See?” Gregory says. “Problem solved.”

Gregory has gotten to know Gareth’s apartment like the back of his hand. It’s not especially hard since the entire apartment is composed of, fundamentally, two rooms: a bathroom and then an everything-else room. Gareth got one of those fancy Murphy beds that swings down, and when it isn’t a Murphy bed, it acts as the couch and the dining table and any chairs he might want. There is a small nightstand where he keeps his laptop set up, perpetually, to serve as the TV. 

The kitchen has almost nothing.

“I’m telling you, I know you must have grown up as a rich kid,” Gregory says as he unpacks the groceries he bought for the night. “You should know how to cook.”

“I do know how to cook,” Gareth says. “I just choose not to cook.”

“I can fix you,” Gregory says. He lays out all his supplies for the best goddamn salad known to man. 

“So, you’ve come over to my house to avoid your family and cook for me?” Gareth says.

Gregory nods cheerfully. 

Gareth grins and flops down on his couch. “You need to have family issues more often.”

“You,” Gregory says, “need to actually meet my family. I think they’re starting to think you’re my imaginary friend.”

“They saw me with you at the hospital.”

“You’re right. They probably think you’re a ghost.”

“And I chose to haunt you? There was nobody better to haunt?”

“Right? I personally would have haunted, like, Taylor Swift or Olivia Rodrigo, but.”

“Olivia Rodrigo?”

“She’s on Disney Channel.” Gregory has watched an embarrassing amount of Disney Channel these days. He personally thinks it used to be better, of course, but every time there is a rerun of Descendants, he does settle in for the long run. “I think she’s going to make it big one day. I’d bet money on it.”

“You’d… what’s the timeline on that?” Gareth asks, bemused.

Gregory thinks about it.

Then, he points at Gareth. “By the time we graduate, if Olivia Rodrigo is big, you owe me concert tickets to her.”

“By the… what?” Gareth shakes his head, laughing as he deflates back onto his couch. “When we graduate?”

“I’ve bounced back, actually, and I’ve been thinking about college again.”

“Oh. Your favorite topic.”

“It only sometimes sends me into a shame spiral.”

“I have five million texts from you that say otherwise.”

Gregory cocks his head. “Sorry, is someone talking? I don’t listen to haters.”

“Can you just…”

“Right. I think we should go to college together. And be roommates. And we’ll be, like, tragic in a fun way, right? We met at a hospital. We both were fucked up. I was hit by a car. You were stabbed. It’ll get us all the girls.”

Gareth pretends to think about it, his hand subconsciously going down to ghost over his healed stab wound. “We do have photos of us at the hospital. We could hang those up.”

“The sympathy card,” Gregory says.

“Because we don’t have stunning personalities.”

“Oh no, I have to imagine women would run screaming from us.”

“Probably.”

Gareth laughs then, cutting off the conversation briefly, and Gregory goes back to assembling his salad. He grabs Gareth’s one pot—he only has one pot and one pan; Gregory already knows what he’ll get him for Christmas—and starts hard boiling the eggs for the salad. He had to buy a carton because somehow, Gareth never has any eggs.

Gregory waits until the mood has ebbed again.

Then, he clears his throat. “I don’t think I’ll go to UW after all.”

“What?” Gareth straightens at that. “But I thought…”

“I’ll have to do check-ins at the hospital, like, a lot. Secretly.”

“Secretly,” Gareth echoes, still disbelieving.

“So, I think we both pick an Illinois school and apply there. And I’ll be the best track star they’ve ever had, and you can be just, like, a cool guy who rides my coattails.”

“Gregory—”

“But,” Gregory says as he starts pouring a copious amount of lettuce into Gareth’s one bowl large enough to make a quality salad—please, can someone get this boy some dishware?, “we’re not talking about that in detail today. I just want you thinking about it. Now, put on a Netflix romcom—I know you stole my password, you jerk—and we’re done having serious conversations for the rest of our lives, probably.”

September 30th, 2019

“Like, I just think it’s a little disturbing how much I know you banged in December—”

Simon chokes on his drink while Daphne goes bright red.

“Two children in September? I guess the mistletoe really got you in the mood,” Gregory says mischievously. 

“I’m going to kill you,” Daphne says softly. “I’m actually going to kill you.”

Gregory blinks, innocent.

Then, he looks over at Kate. “See, with you, it would make sense—”

“I hope,” Kate says lightly, “you’re not about to bring me into this conversation, Gregory Bridgerton.”

Gregory thinks about it.

Then, he shrugs and settles back. “Okay, I’ll let it drop. I think all of us are sufficiently uncomfortable.”

“I am confused,” Anthony says, “why you feel the need to make these dinners uncomfortable as much as possible.”

“I’d like to think it’s revenge for all the dinners I sat at where I had no context to what we were arguing about,” Gregory says.

Hyacinth snorts. When people look at her, she throws up her hands. “Look, I don’t usually agree with Greg, but, like… I think he might be spitting facts here. There were so many of those dinners.”

“There were not,” Anthony protests.

“When Colin first said he was going to Cambridge for college, every dinner used to be so loaded. I’m pretty sure one time you called him a virgin at dinner, and when I asked Mom what that meant afterwards, she made me clean my mouth out with soap,” Gregory says.

Penelope snorts and tries to cover it up with a cough instead.

“That’s not—”

“They got you there,” Colin says. “I also remember that slight on my honor.”

“You’re not one to talk,” Hyacinth says, a little gleefully. “There was that one time you and Benedict were fighting over something, and you told him to go suck a dick, and Benedict said okay maybe I will, and then, you choked on your bread, and it took an embarrassingly long time for you to recover.”

“I consider it a win for bisexuals everywhere that Colin has never told me to suck a dick again,” Benedict adds. He holds up his hand for Sophie to high-five, and she rolls her eyes but obliges.

At that moment, Belinda comes back to the table, her hand tight in Violet’s, and all of them promptly pretend they were not having that kind of conversation.

Belinda, for her fourth birthday, said she wanted lunch with all her aunts and uncles—and no other children allowed at the table. Gregory can only imagine the kind of chaos that was unleashed, but he respects it. She’s the second born child of Daphne and Simon; she has to be a little chaotic.

“What were you talking about?” Belinda asks, suspiciously.

“Take it away, Benedict,” Hyacinth says like the little shit she is.

But this time, he does appreciate it.

“We were talking about how Gregory and Hyacinth apparently have kept a log of things to bring up against us,” Anthony says.

Belinda scrunches her nose. “A log?”

“Nothing, dear,” Daphne says, giving Anthony a long look. Then, for good measure, she gives everyone a long look as if warning them no more talk of cocks or virgins will be allowed at the lunch table. “Why don’t you tell them what else you want to do for your birthday?”

“Trampoline park,” Belinda says with her whole chest.

“And I was saying,” Simon says in his best sports voice, which is always a sign something is going to be horribly false, “it seemed unfair to go to a trampoline park when Gregory wouldn’t be able to play.”

He looks over at Gregory like he didn’t throw him under the bus.

Gregory slips his phone out of his pocket, finds Simon’s contact, and types ‘you owe me.’

“Uncle Greg can go next year,” Belinda says with a pout.

“No, no,” Daphne says. “He’d feel left out if we went this year, don’t you think, Gregory?”

He adds Daphne to the text thread and hits send.

“I would,” Gregory says with the fakest pout I can manage. He even flutters his eyelashes, pretending that he’s near tears. “Maybe when I get the casts off, we can go to the trampoline park then.”

“But I want to go today,” Belinda says.

“Oh, but it’d be mean to leave Uncle Gregory out, especially after he said it so nicely.”

“That’s true,” Gregory says. “I’m the model of expressing your emotions.”

Both Violet and Anthony give him a long look at that.

But Gregory has committed.

“Next time,” Gregory promises on behalf of his older sister, “trampoline park. Tonight? Maybe something else.”

October 31st, 2019

Gregory drops his phone when the pillow smacks his forehead. It lands with a sickening smack (though what smacks aren’t sickening?). As he scoops it up, hoping there won’t be a new crack to add to the overall mosaic, he looks over and glares. “What the hell, dude?”

“You,” Gareth says with all his usual wisdom (i.e., none), “need to get out of your own head. You’re thinking way too hard, and we both know that just stresses you out. You’re not meant for those conditions.”

“I think more than you,” Gregory says, sticking out his tongue.

“And that is my point!” Gareth grins at him. Then, he pulls his Walmart bag into view and starts pulling things out. 

“What did you buy?”

“You,” and with the same ferocity of the pillow, Gareth chucks wadded up fabric in his direction, “are going as a skeleton. I’m going as a pirate.”

“I’m not going as a skeleton. I’m not—”

“If you say you’re not going out for Halloween, I’ll disown you as a future roommate,” Gareth says without skipping a beat.

There is a brief spark of glee at the idea he convinced Gareth to come to college with him.

Then, he chooses to cross his arms and huff instead. “Then, disown me.”

Neither of them speak for a moment, choosing instead to stare each other down.

Then, Gareth gives in first, just a tremble of a smile, and Gregory explodes into cheers. No matter how hard Gareth tries, he cannot win against the Bridgerton stubbornness. Gregory knew having seven siblings would come in handy eventually; apparently, it trained him to be the best/worst roommate for Gareth St. Clair.

“Everyone goes out for Halloween,” Gareth says. “And we got invited to the Abernathy party, so we have to go.”

“I don’t even know the Abernathy family.”

“You will after today. C’mon. Where’s all that…” He makes a vague waving motion. “Socializing, forever-social-battery going right now? What’s so important?”

Gregory glances at his definitely-now-cracked phone, and he considers telling Gareth the truth. It’s Miles’ 2nd birthday today—and how baller is it that his nephew was born on Halloween?—and Gregory should be doing the responsible uncle thing of calling.

But…

“Fuck it,” Gregory says. “I can be a skeleton for Halloween.”

“Yeah, you can! Imagine the lines you can use.” And, upon Greg’s blank look, Gareth wiggles his eyebrows. “C’mon. Something about boning.”

“That line wouldn’t work on anyone,” Gregory says as he slides out of his sweats and pulls out the skeleton onesie. “I’m going to get them the old-fashioned way. I’ll be super charming, and they’ll fall in love, and—”

“You’re boring,” Gareth says, yawning loudly to interrupt him.

Gregory shakes his head. “No, I’m classy. Maybe try to find some?”

“It’s too much fun not to be.” And Gareth flips around, switching into his pirate get-up that definitely is more flattering than Gregory’s. 

Gregory, as he pulls on the legs of the onesie, unlocks his phone one last time to see if Anthony, or Kate because he’s not above contacting Kate, have asked him to do something with their family.

No texts.

Okay, that seems like a sign of the universe he should go get drunk for the first time.

It’s more fun when Gareth practically jumps on his back the moment Gregory finishes zipping it up. Gareth cackles with glee, pulling Gregory’s shoulders around to point them to the entrance of the dorm. “Let’s do it!”

And then, he pulls out his phone and tries to aim a selfie, but Gregory is trying too hard to balance, and it ends up a blurry mess of smiles and out-of-focus faces.

It will be one of Gregory’s favorites, he can sense it.

“Let’s go get wasted!” Gareth says like a war cry.

And, like a good soldier, Gregory cheers along with him.

November 1st, 2019

The world is out to get Gregory.

He groans as he buries his head further into his pillow, clamping it over his ears. The noise is a mess of colors in his brain, and it makes something revolt in his stomach, which is crazy because Gregory already spent an hour in front of his toilet, dry-heaving the rest of the Skeleton Juice (“a seasonal variant of Jungle Juice,” Lucy Abernathy told him, hiding a smile of her own) in his system.

He can’t quite tell what this is. He hasn’t really been anything before—the thing about being so much younger than his siblings is that they did not let him drink with them before—so he could be a little drunk still, or hungover, or something in between. Right now, he just knows he’s in crippling pain.

And his phone won’t stop ringing.

He practically falls out of bed in his effort to get it off the charger, and he fumbles before answering it. 

Immediately, his brother’s too loud voice blares in his ear. “Good morning, sunshine!”

Gregory almost projectile-vomits at that one. No, this has to be what a hangover is. Being tipsy and drunk was fun and giggly, and he lost an hour somehow fantasizing about Hermione Watson. 

“Is poor little baby nauseous?” Benedict coos into his phone. “Some bad Halloween candy then?”

“You’re the worst,” Gregory groans as he slumps against the wall. As he settles into the corner of Gareth’s tiny apartment—and he lives here now; he will never leave again; he will never move again—he does a quick lookaround.

He doesn’t remember getting back here.

He doesn’t remember where Gareth is right now because he could’ve sworn he stayed with him for most of the night, if not all of it. 

At some point, he crumpled up the skeleton costume in Gareth’s laundry bin—win that it made it that far!—but he also acquired a sparkly pink cowboy hat and a rainbow boa to complete the look. Those he also doesn’t remember, but he thinks Lucy Abernathy had maybe been going as a cowboy? Or Bo Beep? Or something that went over his head, but he nodded along because he is polite and cool like that.

“Anyway,” Benedict chirps, a little too brightly, a little too loudly, “I wanted to know if I should expect you for Sophie’s birthday, or if you’re going the whole nine yards for Halloweekend.”

“If this was one yard,” Gregory says, “I’m not making it the other eight.”

“Hey, don’t be a quitter. My first Halloweekend, I was drunk or high every night,” he says with impossible fondness, but Gregory can imagine it easily enough. Benedict always seemed like he had more fun at college than Anthony did (though, to be fair, Anthony was in college when Gregory was a baby). 

There’s a muffled conversation.

Then, sheepishly, Benedict adds, “but Sophie wants me to remind you that I don’t endorse underage drinking.”

“It’s not underage in the UK,” Gregory says.

“That’s true.”

“Seems unfair Colin was drinking legally at eighteen, but I’m not allowed to.”

“I think you have to bring that up to the law, Greg.”

“I will.”

Benedict laughs on the other end, and despite the raging headache, Gregory grins to himself, a brief spot of warmth growing in his chest. Benedict is the brother he knows the least, so any laugh from him is golden. 

Then, Benedict drops his voice to a blessed whisper for the first time all night. “You don’t have to come by for Sophie’s birthday, you know. You can go out.”

“Sophie’s birthday is a Sunday,” Greg says.

“You underestimate college partying,” Benedict tells him. “And judging by the Snap you sent me last night, it seems like you might get invited to more places.”

Gregory buries his face in his hands immediately. “I did not Snap you.”

“You did,” Benedict says gleefully. “I screenshotted it and everything.”

“You don’t even use Snapchat. You’re too old for it.”

“First, hey. Second, true.” Benedict pauses. Then, he laughs. “But I’m willing to open it on Halloween night to see what my baby brother—my baby, baby brother— is doing. And apparently, it was jello shots.”

“I don’t even remember the jello shots.”

“I didn’t think you would,” Benedict says. “Anyway, if you want to come, text Sunday. No commitments needed yet, you party animal.”

Then, just to fuck with Gregory, he screams into the phone.

Gregory decides Benedict is his least favorite brother.

November 3rd, 2019

“Shh, shh,” Gregory slurs out, cupping his hand over the phone and looking towards a decidedly fuzzy looking Gareth. Fuzzy, not in gross and hairy (though the way he always leaves his produce out to rot in his apartment might say otherwise), but in the way his face keeps bobbing and weaving in his field of vision.

Gareth, who has one arm slung around their new best friend Haselby—who definitely has a first name, but they haven’t figured it out—and the other around Richard Abernathy, squints at him. He is red-cheeked, too; his hair is slicked back to be Danny Zuko, but the sweat really completes the look at this point. “What?”

“My brother’s calling me! So shush!”

“Which one?” Gareth asks.

Gregory squints down at his phone. The letters swirl together on the page—more than usual, to be honest—so he gives up. He knows he should be calling one of them right now anyway. He can’t remember why, and he can’t remember which one, but hey. Isn’t the point of the Bridgerton brothers that he can just… guess and get it right?

So, he picks up, and he puts on his best I’m-not-drunk voice. “Hey.”

“Hi,” a decidedly not male voice says.

Gareth, who has long lost his filter, giggles. “Your brother sounds hot!”

“Seconded,” Richard Abernathy says, extracting himself from Gareth to go swagger over to someone else. He is a senior, so it makes some sense. 

Still, Gareth jeers at him, and Gregory joins in until he jumps at the voice from his phone. Shit. He forgot about that part.

“Are you having a good night?” his not brother asks. 

He does the mental rundown. It’s not one of his sisters, he doesn’t think. He wouldn’t have gotten that mixed up. So, it’s someone brother-adjacent. Someone brother-related. Kate? Penelope? Sophie? Damn, he has a lot of sisters-in-law at this point. Maybe too many, but he guesses he tapped out. He can’t have anymore—

Wait, fuck, Eloise is a lesbian; is he a homophobe?

“What?” Kate-Penelope-Sophie says. “Is who homophobic?”

“Nobody,” Gregory says. He looks over at Gareth and sticks his thumb up. “Saved it.”

“I…” Kate-Penelope-Sophie hesitates. Then, she lets out a soft giggle. “Okay. I’m glad you’re having fun, Greg.”

“Thank you. I’m glad you’re having a good birthday.” Oh, score! He figured it out through muscle memory. He grins down at his phone, knowing he’s talking to one of his favorite sisters. In fact, he should tell her that.

Sophie is laughing at the end of his garbled, long love confession, and there is the sound of movement, and then, he hears his brother.

“I thought you wanted to steal Colin’s wife,” Benedict says, amused. Then, the phone buzzes in Gregory’s hand, and Gregory gapes at it for a second before accepting the video call.

Benedict pops up on the screen, Sophie over his shoulder. He grins at Gregory, and Gregory, in the back of his mind, can sense that he will be hearing about this night for the rest of his life.

“You’re so drunk,” Benedict says, a little delighted.

“Drink water,” Sophie says. Then, she lowers her voice. “Have fun, too, but drink water.” 

He salutes. “Just for you.”

“Not for me?” Benedict asks.

Gregory shakes his head, ignoring how it makes the screen burn into his retinas. He staggers away from the group, letting Gareth go back to flip cup, and he heads towards the kitchen of whoever’s party this is. He distantly remembers the host was concerned nobody would come, but at this point, the party has been full, overly so, and raging for the better part of three hours, so the host should be happy somewhere.

He bangs against a wall.

He giggles.

“That’s going to bruise,” Benedict tells him sagely.

“I’ll name it after you,” he tells Benedict.

“Flatterer.”

“Flatterer,” Gregory parrots back, enjoying how many ers are in the word. In fact, it could have even more ers. Flatter ererererer—

“We’re going to let you get back to your night,” Sophie says, stealing the phone away from Benedict for a moment, and it’s so shockingly domestic and cute Gregory blinks, startled, “but we wanted to say we love you, and we wanted to make sure you were a part of tonight.”

“Because I’m responsible for your marriage,” Gregory says.

Benedict snorts. “You are not—”

“I am too,” Gregory says, but right before he can launch into his speech on why exactly, Sophie cuts him off with a laugh.

“We love you, Greggy,” she says.

“I love you too, Soph,” he says without skipping a beat. 

And he thinks, as he finds his way into the kitchen, that tonight was a pretty baller night.

November 12th, 2019

In the middle of the day—when Violet goes to a book club in the neighborhood and Felicity battles the battle of high school—Gregory sneaks into the attic to do some spring cleaning. Spring might be an exaggeration; he wears a sweatshirt and a winter coat to keep himself from shivering too intensely. Cleaning might also be an exaggeration because he has made the executive call that everything must go.

He loves his mother—he does! he would die for Violet, he would fight a million suitors, he would even fight his siblings sometimes—but she doesn't know how to let some things go. He thinks some of these boxes have sat up here, pretty much forgotten, for years on end.

Case in point, Gregory scoots down and blows the layers and layers of dust on the crate.

AB Elementary School, it reads.

“Gold mine,” Gregory whispers to himself, delighted. He pries off the crate’s cover, and he turns his phone flashlight on to peek inside.

And there it is.

The blackmail material of the century.

Gregory pulls out a poem from Benedict, which rhymes brother with brother and then, one final time, with brother. There are bad doodles of family around the rim, too. He finds an old report card from Anthony—all As, of course, but there is also a side note that ‘he needs to keep his hands to himself.’

That is getting sent to Kate.

In fact, he’s taking a photo and sending it to Kate right now.

After taking photos of everything he might want to keep to mock his siblings, he moves onto the next box.

Which just reads photos.

He sorts through all those loose photos, flipping through them, understanding there is no way he can throw any of this away without having Violet in the room, but when he finds a photo of Colin wearing crocs and crossing a bridge as a tiny child, waddling and grinning up at the camera, he knows he needs to send that to Penelope.

He opens his phone, about to take the photo, when his finger slips—in his defense! he got the casts off, but his hands are still a little shaky, and his palms are a little uncontrolled—and he calls her instead.

The phone rings once, twice, and he debates trying to shut this down.

Then, Penelope picks up with a bright laugh, strangely out of breath. “Hello?”

“You did not pick up,” Colin says, also out of breath, in the background. He sounds a little dazed, and Gregory can picture him with the dumbest look on his face, and it gets a small smile out of Greg.

“Is everything alright?” Penelope asks, still breathy.

“Yeah, I was just trying to send you a photo,” Gregory says. “Can I Face—”

“No!” Colin says frantically.

Penelope giggles.

She giggles.

“Holy shit,” Gregory blurts out. “Are you having sex?”

There is a beat.

“No?” Penelope says without any conviction. Every day, he wonders how she kept the biggest secret he ever heard (that she was Lady Whistledown). 

Gregory, probably on the verge of vomiting, groans. “Why did you pick up the phone?”

“He has a point,” Colin says, a little too huskily for Gregory.

Oh, God, he doesn’t have nearly enough bleach to fix this.

“We gave Gregory a special ringtone, remember? Because we wanted to be there for him if something happened!”

“That’s… nice,” Gregory says, slowly. “But I don’t think any part of this was worth it, and I need you to know I’ve been scarred for life.”

“I think this conversation should be done,” Colin says loudly.

“If there’s a kid in August, I know exactly what happened.”

“Why would you say that?”

Gregory, who now knows he needs to bleach his entire brain, groans. “You know what, I regret that too. Let’s… let’s never speak of this again.”

“Deal.”

“Deal.”

“Deal,” he says, hanging up and gagging.

November 28th, 2019

“You didn’t get out of helping this time around,” Francesca notes as she takes her shift in the kitchen.

That’s right.

Gregory made shifts because he was tired of this shit.

Every Thanksgiving, they overcrowd the kitchen. Every Thanksgiving, even though a lot of them have their own homes at this point, they refuse to bring their own dishes and instead try to use Violet’s kitchen.

So, Gregory sent out a Google spreadsheet with time slots.

And any time someone tries to break the rules—because they’re his ‘favorite sibling’ or because they ‘didn’t realize they lived in a dictatorship now’—he has set PRIC on them, and PRIC now holds power over his solitary countertop, purring away as he gnaws on the catnip toy Gregory got him for a job well done.

“I like helping,” Gregory says.

“You didn’t want to help last year.”

“No, correction, I did want to help last year, but I got stampeded out of the kitchen.”

Francesca nods sagely as she grabs the bag of potatoes to make her grand contribution: mashed potatoes. Whether or not she might have become a better chef in college—Gregory thinks she must because she has her own kitchen now—she never does anything more challenging than mashed potatoes.

In some ways, Gregory does respect that particular hustle, though. Nobody expects Francesca to go above and beyond, and everyone knows she will deliver a staple to all of them.

“I was surprised you didn’t bring John this time,” Gregory says. 

She almost drops the paring knife.

Then, she sighs and puts aside the potato. “Gregory, I think this might be the last Thanksgiving John and I spend apart.”

“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?” he asks.

Francesca stares out the window, looking exactly like Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice. “Gregory. It’ll be the last Thanksgiving. Because I think he’s going to—you can’t tell anyone about this. You have to promise me that this stays between the two of us.”

“It’ll stay between the two of us.” This is juicy enough he puts down his own dish, and he hops up onto the counter next to PRIC. PRIC glares at him for a few seconds. Then, he clambers into Gregory’s lap and starts kneading his upper thigh.

“Pinky promise?” Francesca says.

“Pinky promise,” Gregory says.

“I think he’s going to propose at Christmas,” Francesca says.

“What?”

“Keep your voice down!” She glances toward the entrance of the kitchen, eying it like one of their older siblings might walk through any moment. Hell, maybe she thinks Hyacinth or Violet might walk in. “You’re going to give it away!”

“Why do you think he will? Has he said that? Is he going to propose in front of the whole family? Oh, are you going to be with us? You have to be, right? What are you going to say?”

Francesca stares at him. “That was too many questions.”

“What are you going to say?” he settles on. It’s the most important question; all of the other ones stop mattering the moment she gives an answer.

Francesca stares down at her shoes. “Do you think… is it too early? To marry John?”

“Too early?”

“Well, I just—” She cuts herself off again. “I told him I wanted to wait until we were out of undergrad, you know? And we both graduated in May, so he doesn’t have to wait for that anymore, and I—Gregory, I feel like I’m too young. I don’t know how to describe it.”

“But you love him?”

Francesca nods.

“Like, really?”

“Like, really,” she says. “I… I don’t know why I told you this. I just needed someone to know, I guess.”

“I think you should say yes if you love him,” Gregory advises because he is really wise when it comes to love. “And you can always wait to get married.”

“If I say yes,” Francesca says, “then we will elope by next summer. I guarantee it.”

“Mom’s going to be pissed if you elope.”

“Small ceremony by next summer,” she amends. “I guess I saw what happened when Colin and Penn tried to elope. I just—”

The rest of what she wants to say gets drowned out by Gregory launching himself off the counter and tackling her into a hug, ignoring the way PRIC squeals from the sudden momentum.

“If you elope,” he whispers to her, “you have to let me come. Okay? Even if nobody else can go, you have to let me go.”

“So you can cry,” she whispers back, but she’s smiling.

“So I can cry,” he confirms.

December 15th, 2019

Gregory shows up in a full tux.

It is one of Colin’s old suits, similar to his actual size if a little snug in the shoulders. When he tried on Anthony’s old suit, it was actually too loose because Anthony, apparently, was not ‘built like a runner’ (as Violet likes to say). When he tried on Benedict’s suit, he remembered Benedict was always a behemoth and towered over the rest of them. 

Hyacinth committed to the bit as well. She dug through the clothes in the attic and found one of Eloise’s old dresses (she could tell it was Eloise because it had only been worn a handful of times, if more than once), and then, she did her hair up in the most elaborate way possible. Like, truly the most elaborate way possible. Like, multiple YouTube videos elaborate.

The moment Simon sees him, he laughs and claps his shoulder. “You are going to make the rest of us look bad. You too, Hy.”

“‘You too, Hy,’” Hyacinth parrots. “You know, it actually took me longer to get ready. Because men just have to put on suits. I had to do my makeup. And my hair. And make sure the dress was pressed.”

“She sounds more and more like Eloise every day,” Gregory says. “It’s very problematic.”

“Or,” Hyacinth says, “it’s very progressive, and we’re about to start breaking down gender barriers—”

“Oh, mademoiselle!” Gregory calls, trying his best to sound as French as humanly possible. “Ve have arrived!”

“That just set back the movement five hundred years,” Hyacinth tells him.

Gregory rolls his eyes. 

Amelia comes bounding around the corner, grinning at the two of them. She still hesitates before she hugs Gregory, and when he hugs her back—castfree, baby! it took a long time to say it, but look at him now!—she still acts like one of them might explode from the interaction. She all but tackles Hyacinth.

Gregory… does not love that.

He doesn’t love the idea that she will always remember this moment. He could say very little about his fourth year of life. He definitely didn’t have a trauma that defined the rest of his life.

Okay, he guesses he doesn’t know this will define the rest of her life.

Gregory swallows that thought down—he can work on it at therapy, that’s right, folks, he got a licensed therapist and everything after talking about it with Violet; now, he wonders how he can get the rest of his family enrolled in therapy because frankly? everyone needs it—and holds out his hand. “Will you escort us to the ballroom, mademoiselle?”

“Yes!” Amelia says.

Hyacinth stares at him. “It’s not a French party.”

“No, but it’s a fancy party,” he tells her. “That makes me think of France.”

“There are fancy places outside of France.”

“Yeah? Name one.”

“Italy?”

“Okay, that’s on me, I realize I set the bar too long.”

“You have to be quiet when you enter my party,” Amelia announces to them as she holds both of their hands.

“Amelia,” Simon chides, clearly biting back a laugh.

“Please be quiet,” she says, not softening her tone at all.

“She really is Daphne’s daughter,” Hyacinth says at the same time Gregory calls her a “Mini Daphne.” The two of them exchange looks over Amelia’s head, trying to bite back smiles, and they ignore Simon’s mock-stern look. They both know Simon would never snitch at them. They’re his favorite Bridgerton in-laws.

Take that, Anthony!

When they enter Daphne’s living room, Gregory wonders immediately how long this took Daphne to set up. She was telling him, earlier, that she is starting to feel antsy, like she cannot balance being both a mother and a working woman, but the elaborate streamer art and the decorations that would put a Pinterest board to shame says otherwise.

He tries to catch her eye when he enters the room, but she’s too busy yapping to Sophie. Typical.

“You have to sit here,” Amelia says, directing them to the couch, “because we’re going to play Monopoly, and you two have to be on my team.”

“I didn’t realize Monopoly was a fancy game,” Hyacinth notes.

“I didn’t realize it was a team game,” Gregory says.

Amelia pouts. “It’s my birthday, and I want to win Monopoly. Daddy always wins.”

“Well, don’t worry,” Gregory says, leaning forward like he’s about to tell her the biggest, best conspiracy ever (like the birds and the government). “We’re going to take down the Bassett empire once and for all.”

December 22nd, 2019

“Gregory,” Kate says, “I want you to think about what you just did and decide whether or not you should apologize.”

Gregory pretends to think through his actions. Then, he gives his most innocent smile—no, his second most innocent smile; this smile is the one he thinks makes him look the most like Anthony—and shakes his head. 

“Well, Kathani,” Anthony drawls from the comfort of his back porch. “How are you going to respond to that?”

Gregory yanks the Pall Mall mallet up and points it at Anthony. “No flirting in front of me.”

“That was not flirting,” Anthony protests. 

“It is because you guys flirt like wild animals,” he says. 

Anthony rolls his eyes. “I look forward to the day we can mock you for flirting.”

“Nothing to mock me about,” Gregory says, “because I’m a perfect, gallant gentleman. Ask Felicity Featherington.”

“Ask me,” Kate grits out. “You just yanked the entirety of that tree branch’s snow on me.”

“Weren’t you telling me about how you didn’t experience any snow in India?” he asks, still innocently. “I was just making sure you got the full experience. You know. To make up for any lacking memories.”

“I,” Kate says, “am going to tackle you and bring you to the ground, Gregory.”

“Try and catch me,” he sings, skipping backward in the snow. “I’ve been practicing again. I’m the fastest motherfucker around.”

“You’re practicing again?”

“Well,” Kate says, choosing to ignore Anthony, which is the correct move because Gregory also plans to ignore Anthony, “you’re going to let me pin you down and shovel snow into your coat because it’s my birthday, and you’re a perfect, gallant gentleman.”

Gregory pretends to think about it.

Then, he starts sprinting away.

He hears Kate huff seconds before the snow starts flying every which way, Kate just plowing into it with none of the grace she needs. When he pounces on their porch, he flips around just in time to watch her absolutely eat shit.

He feels a little bad.

Not that bad because the snow provides a soft cushion but—

“What the fuck?” he squeals as a sudden onslaught of snow finds its way down the back of his coat.

Anthony crushes another snowball against Gregory’s hair—which, rude, because Gregory did style it in Anthony’s style today, thank you very much—and the snowflakes go scattering across Gregory’s vision. “Sorry, Greg. I have to—”

Gregory flips around and tackles them both off the porch and into a snow drift.

They haven’t wrestled in a long time. At some point, Anthony became a father with ‘young, impressionable sons.’ Then, Gregory got ‘hit by a car’ (okay, so maybe the air quotes aren’t needed, but he will keep them for comedy purposes, actually). 

Anthony takes it easy on him.

Big mistake.

Gregory wrestles them both to the ground, and he starts absolutely covering his brother in snow. Just huge amounts. Like ‘will never be found’ amounts.

Then, someone yanks his hood back, and he chokes as Kate smashes another snowball against his face.

“That’s,” she breathes out, “what you get, perfect, gallant gentleman.”

Gregory tries to say something, but he only splutters snow. After he clears all of that out of his mouth, he pouts at her. “Why do I feel like you’re going to use that against me for the rest of my life?”

“Well,” Kate says, “that’s because I will. At least for the rest of the year because you chose to mistreat me on my birthday.”

“You wouldn’t want princess treatment,” he says.

“Do you mind getting off me?” Anthony says.

“No, I wouldn’t, but it wouldn’t hurt you to have some manners,” Kate says.

Gregory scrunches his nose, thinking about it. “I think I do. But, you know, sometimes, there is a declaration of war, so…”

“Again,” Anthony says, “I’m suffocating down here.”

“You’re killing my husband,” Kate says mildly.

Gregory nods. “I thought I’d do that for you. Since it’s your birthday.”

“Ah,” Kate says.

“I officially only have six siblings,” Anthony says.

“I’ll let Benedict know,” Gregory says at the same time Kate hums and says, “Eloise will be devastated.”

“I love you,” Gregory says. “You’re my wife now.”

Kate barks out a laugh.

Anthony groans. Louder.

December 24th, 2019

They meet in darkness (i.e. the nursery closet), and they meet when nobody would expect it (i.e. eight AM since both of them sleep in during winter break). Nobody would recognize them in their current attire (i.e. pajamas Violet bought specifically for today—she wanted to make this Christmas as special as possible because she has started empty-nesting again).

“Do you remember the plan?” Hyacinth whispers to him.

“I really think I should be the one sneaking around,” he whispers back. “I know this house better than you—I’ve been alive longer than you.”

“No,” Hyacinth says, shaking her head emphatically enough Gregory reaches up to grab ahold of a braid. He will not have any hair tricks giving them away. Not again. “No, you are not the one sneaking around. You’re going to give us away. Like usual.”

“I do not give us away,” Gregory protests.

Hyacinth scrunches her nose, and Gregory knows immediately what she will reference.

Six years ago, exactly, Gregory fucked up a little. He can admit that! He was twelve years old—almost thirteen, really, when you think about it—and he got cocky. He thought he could look through the guest rooms while the whole family had breakfast. After all, Hyacinth would be on distraction duty in the living room. 

He snuck into the guest room.

His confidence was high.

His heart was true.

He found Simon eating Daphne—

No, he will not be completing that thought, actually. Let people speculate why Simon’s face chose to be down there. He will not be elaborating.

It’s safe to say nobody ever recovered from that. He had to scamper away and try to wash that image out of his head. Daphne yelled at him for not knocking. Simon just looked humiliated and wanted to sink into the floor. Daphne’s yelling, of course, attracted the rest of the family, who rushed to see what Gregory had done to attract such negative buzz. On Christmas Eve of all days.

Ever since then, Hyacinth tries her best to keep him off sneaking around duty, but he thinks Hyacinth isn’t the greatest searcher either. Their siblings know of Hyacinth and Gregory’s little arrangement. They know they need to hide things. Last year, Hyacinth said she couldn’t figure out where Colin hid his gifts, and Colin ended up hiding them in a very obvious location Gregory knew he would have found. 

“You’re on distraction,” Hyacinth reinforces.

“I want to know what Colin got us this year. Him and Penelope are winning the game, and we both know it. We all know it.”

“Penelope knows too much about all of us,” Hyacinth says. “She knows exactly what all of us would want. And she’s the only one I would trust to go off-list.”

“And that’s why you need to figure theirs out. They are top priority.”

“Then, you need to distract them first and foremost,” Hyacinth says.

He grimaces. Colin is one of the trickier ones to distract; he always knows when someone is up to any mischief, and he always gets butthurt if he doesn’t get involved. It doesn’t matter there has been traditions between Gregory and Hyacinth for years (because, after all, they are the ones who commonly get left behind because they weren’t in college or they weren’t bringing dates home). He wants to be involved because he’s the king of mischief.

As if Colin.

As if.

“Colin is where the plan comes together or falls apart,” Gregory says at last.

Hyacinth nods. “I know. That’s why you’re going to distract them so well. Got it? No repeats of—”

“If you say what you’re about to say—”

“Don’t catch them during sex. That’s all I’m saying.”

Gregory scrunches up his nose. That rings a little too true with Penelope and Colin; no matter how hard he tries, he cannot forget about the time they chose to pick up the phone when they definitely, under-no-circumstances should have.

But that’s fine.

“Find Colin’s presents for us,” he says again. “And I’ll distract them.”

December 25th, 2019

“I’m glad I got the casts off by Christmas,” Gregory says, specifically trying to fuck with his siblings who never know the meaning of personal boundaries when this time comes, “because otherwise, this photo would have been a little tragic.”

“The sling too,” Francesca says sympathetically. 

He nods, trying his best to give wet-cat-rizz . 

Oh!

“Wait, can I grab PRIC?” Gregory starts to bound up the stairs, knowing his cat would be atop his bed, waiting like the king he is until Gregory returns from the war, but Anthony reaches out with shocking speed and snags his collar.

“If I’m not allowed to have my wife or my children in these photos,” Anthony says through a strained smile. Everyone watches them after all. All the in-laws hold back the floodgates of grandchildren; Violet watches them all with a bemused look as she keeps hold of her camera, “you are not allowed to have your damn cat.”

“The cat’s better behaved than your children,” Benedict says jovially.

Anthony shoots him a long look. “Need I remind you whose children puked at the Sunday brunch table last?”

“Honestly, I was shocked it wasn’t Col,” Benedict says.

Colin hums and shrugs. “That’s fair.”

“That’s probably the first way I’d murder Colin,” Benedict says. “I’d just put glass in his food—would he even notice?”

“Would that even stop him?” Daphne asks. “Somehow, he’d inhale the glass too. I haven’t met a single food that disagrees with him, which just seems wrong.”

“I feel like I’m being judged here,” Colin says. “What’s that thing you’ve started texting about the haters?”

“I’m not repeating that,” Gregory says. “You don’t deserve to talk about your haters.”

“I shouldn’t have haters.”

Gregory gives him a dubious look, but as he goes back to the step he should stand on, he squeezes Colin’s shoulder in solidarity. He never truly believes his brother deserves any bullying. Colin sends him a cheeky smile back. 

Every year, they line up on the steps to take a photo. How Edmund and Violet had the foresight to start this tradition was crazy (then again, they would have started thinking about having Benedict by the time they took the first photo of tiny, itty-bitty Anthony on the step, all alone). 

Violet created a slideshow the other day, and she sipped wine while she had a gentle cry. Gregory waited until she retreated back to her room before he investigated.

There were thirty-four of these photos.

Thirty-four photos of the Bridgerton siblings lined up on the steps. It started with Anthony, all alone. There were only two photos of that before Benedict came, but Gregory stared at them for so long, wondering about how it would feel to be an only child, and it left him with a strange sense of admiration. 

He was happy—no, he was ecstatic— he was never alone on the steps. He was the seventh.

It took an insane amount of photos for Gregory to appear, but then, he watched himself grow up on these steps. He found the exact moment he got equal with Francesca’s height despite her being one above him. He found the photos where his baby fat started to drop away; he found the moments where he seemed to lean more into a runner’s body than an aimless-middle-schooler body.

“You’re thinking too hard,” Hyacinth whispers as soon as he rejoins her on the steps.

Francesca nods. “You don’t want to burn yourself out, Greg.”

“First of all, hey,” he says. He leans in, and with his body blocking the new gap between the two of them, he pinches Francesca’s back. Then, he leans back to his position to glare toward Hyacinth. “Maybe I was just getting in the Christmas spirit.”

“You have too much Christmas spirit,” Eloise grouses. “Why were you waking people up that goddamn early with your Christmas carols?”

“Because I remember how late some people,” and he calls this loud enough to attract Benedict’s attention again, “used to sleep in on Christmas. And that isn’t right for the little kids.”

“Do you count yourself amongst them, Gregory?” Benedict says. His smile turns a little wicked. “Flattererer—”

Gregory sticks out his tongue.

Anthony eyes them suspiciously. “What are you referencing, and why don’t I know it?”

“What are you referencing, and why don’t I know it?” Hyacinth says. “I know Gregory best.”

“Wait—”

“Okay, okay,” Kate calls. “People are getting antsy down here. Can we take the photo?”

The thirty-fifth photo.

The thirty-fifth photo of the family on these steps on Christmas Day in pajamas Violet insisted on buying.

“Smile,” Violet says as she leans into Edmund’s old camera.

And Gregory smiles so hard he tears up.

December 31st, 2019

“Next year,” Gregory says as he yanks the Target bag from beneath the bed where he secretly stashed it the night before, “we have to throw a complete rager.”

Gareth, who lounges on the bed, lost in his own thoughts, rolls over and looks at Gregory for a moment too long. Then, he grins. “When the fuck did you start storing things at my house, Gregory?”

“It’s for both of us,” Gregory says sincerely.

He didn’t realize some people get so sincere when he gets high. Any time he smokes with Gareth, though, he always ends up seeing the world as the most beautiful place he ever lived, and he ends up thinking every relationship he ever had might be the most perfect relationship any one person could ever have.

Gareth snorts, nudging him with a socked foot. “That’s because you’re sappy sober.”

“I am not sober sappy,” he says. Then, he pauses, thinks through his words, and decides to flop back and giggle instead. Part of him wonders if he should start calling Benedict. Lately, any time he gets impaired with Gareth—God, how old is he? that he uses the word impaired ? but he doesn’t know how to say high-or-drunk at the same velocity as impaired?— he ends up calling Benedict.

Gareth gives him a long look. “Are you thinking about one of your siblings right now?”

Gregory crosses his eyes as he pretends to think about it. “No?”

“Real convincing, Bridgerton.”

“Coming from you, St. Clair,” Gregory says, sticking out his tongue. 

Neither of them say anything for a moment, Gregory’s fingers loosely wrapped around the toes of Gareth’s foot. On a normal day, he would find it gross, but right now, he cannot help but marvel at the gentle connection between people. He was watching a science video the other day—Eloise sent it to him because Eloise still thinks he’s smart enough to keep up, or she knows Gregory will watch any video she sends without discrimination—about how everyone is made of the same fundamental stuff, and they are made of stardust pretty much, and that makes everyone (secretly) stars.

Gareth shakes the Target bag. 

Gregory sits up. “When you’d get that?”

“Dude.”

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” Gregory says, pulling it out of Gareth’s hands and setting it in his lap. “They’re supplies for today.”

“What’s today?” Gareth asks.

“Now, you’re fucking with me.”

“‘I’m kidding, I’m kidding,’” Gareth says, mocking him perfectly. Gregory always thinks Gareth’s skill with that is a little eerie. Gregory makes fun of his siblings a lot by mimicking them, but he never gets close to any of their cadences or tones. 

“It’s New Year’s Eve,” Gregory explains, patiently, and he ignores the fact Gareth must know that because his grainy ass TV still shows a countdown from Houston, Texas.

He thinks they should drop something inherently Texan. Like a cowboy hat. Or hot sauce.

Gareth raises an eyebrow. “You’ve never been to Texas.”

“I’ve barely left Illinois,” he says completely sincerely. 

Then, he starts digging through the Target bag. 

“Oh, but you have been to a Party City,” Gareth notes.

“I live at Party City,” Gregory says with the same amount of sincerity as before. 

He slaps a bright red party hat onto Gareth’s head, fumbling as he tries to pull the string under his chin. He struggles with it, but Gareth giggles and sticks out his chin rather than doing anything helpful.

Then, Gareth grabs another party hat—a bright blue one. He eyes it. “Are you trying to say something?”

“You can read into things however you want,” he says, reaching for his hat. 

Gareth laughs and flicks it at him. “And what’s left? The little party blowers—nope, didn’t like how I phrased that. Party horns? And confetti. That we’re just about to toss into the air? Like… with our hands?”

“Sorry I’m not bougie enough for you,” Gregory says. “I didn’t grow up in a rich household—”

“Oh, shut up,” Gareth says, rolling his eyes. “You don’t have eight siblings and don’t have a ton of money.”

“Seven,” Gregory corrects. “I’m the eighth.”

Gareth knocks the hat akilter. “Whatever. Watch the ball drop with me, loser, so we can use the party horns.”

“Done,” Gregory says, wiggling toward the front of the bed. “Done.”

January 1st, 2020

“Happy, happy New Year!” Gregory sings as he throws open the front door. 

PRIC comes sprinting around the corner, and he practically throws himself at his leg. Gregory scoops up the cat, who purrs and starts dancing around his shoulders. As he nuzzles the bottom of Gregory’s chin, Gregory laughs. “Did you get turnt last night? Are you still high off catnip?”

“Are you still high off—”

“Gregory,” Violet says, cutting off Hyacinth as fast as she can. She throws open her arms.

He shifts, trying to nudge the cat to the ground, and when PRIC refuses to get the memo, he lets the cat come with him. He reaches out and hugs his mom. For the first time. All year! “Gotta start off strong, Ma!”

“Got to start off strong,” Violet agrees. “Next year, when you’re off at college—”

“When I’m off at college in town.”

“If you live at home,” Hyacinth says loudly, “I’m going to be so disappointed. I have big plans for your room. I’m going to turn it into a home office, set up a good clue board.”

“A clue board?” Gregory says, letting his mom go.

Violet rolls her eyes. “Don’t get Hyacinth started.”

“I’m going to start solving the unsolved mysteries of the world,” Hyacinth says. “You know. In my free time. I just think I could figure it all out.”

“Because the other detectives were just slackers?” Gregory asks.

“Yes,” she says.

He waits, patiently, by the front door. When his sister makes no move to approach, he cocks his head. He waits. Longer. He holds out his arms. Nothing.

“So much for picking up on clues,” Gregory says, unimpressed.

“It’s a new year,” Hyacinth says. “I’m not going to put up with anyone being sappy or—”

Gregory bounds forward, shaking off the cat, and tackles his little sister in a hug. She starts screaming and flailing her arms around, and he can hear Violet stifle a laugh. 

Gregory scoops her up.

Hyacinth’s scream breaks off into genuine terror. “Put me down!”

Gregory starts Godzilla-stomping instead, his little sister trying to wiggle free of his grip and hitting the ground. “I think this is how I’m going to spend the entire year! Hyacinth, I hope you get used to being tall. For the first time. Ever.”

“I’m tall enough!” Hyacinth says, still trying to scramble downward.

“Nope!” Gregory says. He stomps toward the kitchen, and he throws her a little higher. That gets yet another squeal from her, but when they get to the living room, he leans down and drops her onto the sofa. 

Then, she slides onto the ground, and she tilts her head back. “That used to be a lot scarier at the end when we were little.”

“I used to get in all sorts of trouble for throwing you around,” Gregory says.

Violet laughs as she leans against the counter, taking the two of them in. “I really did not understand your obsession with it.”

“It was so easy. And…” Gregory leans back, and he gives his sister an expectant look.

She pretends she does not notice.

Now, that is typical Hyacinth. So much for new year, new you.

“And Hyacinth used to like it.”

“I don’t think so.”

“She used to beg me to do it.”

“I don’t know.”

“Hyacinth,” Violet says, trying her best to be stern. “Is that true?”

Hyacinth pretends to think about it. Then, she stretches and flops back toward the couch. “That was so many years ago, I really can’t remember. Actually, it’s been another whole year since it happened.”

“She let me take the fall for that so many times,” Gregory says, sitting down on the other couch, hanging his head, trying his best to look filled with remorse. Like those photos of soccer players right after they lose a major game.

“I don’t remember you ever telling me this part,” Violet says.

Gregory and Hyacinth exchange eye contact.

Then, he shrugs. “I liked throwing Hyacinth. She liked being thrown. Why would I try to throw her under the bus?”

“Because you threw her under the bus for everything?”

“Sometimes,” Gregory says, “I can be a good brother.”

Hyacinth holds up a finger. “I’ll allow myself one sappy comment all year, so drink it up, Greg. But I actually think you’re a good brother a lot of the time.”

January 11th, 2020

“I know you want me to be Hermione,” Lucy Abernathy says the moment she sees Gregory, “but unfortunately, she couldn’t make it back to campus yet. She’s on a vacation in the Bahamas, so you’re stuck with me.”

“That’s crazy,” Gregory says. “Why didn’t she text me that?”

For a second, he almost thinks Lucy might be embarrassed. Then, she shoves her hands deep into the pockets of her puffy winter coat, and she looks away. “She’s a little embarrassed, I think. Of being filthy rich.”

“Oh.”

“You wouldn’t judge her for that. Right?”

He can sense a trap when someone sets one. And, again, Gregory has never been a man of tact. “Are you testing me, Lucy?”

“And you failed,” she says, tsking and shaking her head, but there is a ghost of a smile on her lips, so he’ll take it.

The last time he met Hermione and Lucy, it was a college Halloween party Gareth and Gregory snuck into. Both of them had gotten a little blasted—read a lot blasted; they drank a shocking amount—and he doesn’t fully remember their first interactions. 

Afterward, when he scrolled the Instagram posts, he was struck by how close he had gotten to both Hermione and Lucy. Hermione had been dressed as Bo Beep from Toy Story, Lucy as Jessie. 

He does remember how cute Hermione was.

So, when he found Hermione’s contact information as one of the tour guides, he reached out to arrange a tour. He included a skeleton joke because he’s adorable. Hermione reached out with an equal amount of flirting and general disinterest—which made it a little hard to read the room—but he was excited to tour the campus.

Never mind the fact Anthony went here.

He wanted a tour from the cute girl, sue him.

“Well?” Lucy asks. “What buildings should I be taking you to? Where should we go?”

“Uh, I’m going to be an open major.”

She tsks again. “Open major? Indecisive.”

“Judgy for a tour guide,” he tells her. “‘Sides, don’t people change their majors about six times?”

Lucy studies him for a moment. 

He grins and holds out his arms. “Impressed? I’ve read all those college prep books.”

She doesn’t say anything at first. Instead, she nods, slowly. “Okay, Gregory. What are you interested in?”

“I think I might do something in English,” he says, truthfully, and when she starts moving, he falls into step with her. 

“Men in English,” she says. “That’s a dangerous line to walk.”

“I’d like to think I’d be one of the good ones,” he says.

“That’s what they all say. What authors do you like?”

“Do you want, like, the bougie answer? Or the less-bougie answer?”

That gets a laugh out of her. It curls in front of her face from the cold, and Gregory can’t help but think he likes the sound of her laugh. “How about both?”

“I’m a sucker for a good love story, and my sister and I have been reading a lot of Jane Austen together. We’re on Emma right now.”

Lucy lets out a low whistle. “Not what I expected from you, I won’t lie.”

“We watched Clueless too. Before she went back to college.” He grins. “And less-bougie answer is going to be The Love That Split the World by Emily Henry.”

“Huh,” Lucy says. “Haven’t heard of her.”

“Well, how about you?” Gregory says, bounding to get a little ahead of her. He jumps onto the ledge next to her, getting a little higher, and he sticks out his arms to keep his balance.

She tries to stifle her gasp. “You’re going to fall. It’s icy.”

“Nah,” he says, glancing down at her and winking. “I’m an athlete too, you know. Track star.”

“Hurdles?” she guesses.

“Just running,” he says. He doesn’t want to get into the weeds of it, anyway, because he can sense the way Lucy has redirected the conversation. See? He is observant. “Tell me about you, Luce.”

“Luce,” she says. “Are we that close already?”

“Trying to get closer,” he says cheerfully.

She considers it for a few moments. He almost asks if she doesn’t know what she’s majoring in before taking a step back. Just because he thinks they can be close friends immediately—because Lucy is nice and has a nice laugh, so Gregory would do anything to keep that up—doesn’t mean he can just skip the step where they get to know each other.

“I’m pre-farm,” she says.

“Oh. Like animals?”

“Like drugs.”

“Oh.” Then, he wiggles his eyebrows at her. “Oh.”

“Not like that,” she says, but she’s biting back a giggle, and he decides he likes that laugh too. “I like the math of it.”

“You did not just say that,” he says. 

“I do!” she says. “You’re the one touring a college campus right now. Are you really going to tell me you’re not a little nerdy?”

“Ah, I sense another trap,” he says. “Are you trying to suss out if I’m good enough for Hermione?”

“I can tell you like her,” she says. “You’re not subtle.”

“Lucy, can I tell you a secret?”

“We’re back to Lucy?”

“I thought you’d like it that way,” he says, genuinely. Then, he pats his chest. “I’m the seventh child out of eight.”

“Wow,” Lucy says, and the way she looks at him fills him with a little pride. He can tell she’s changing her image of him, shifting it to the left just a little, and he likes being known as a Bridgerton. He likes being one of the eight. 

He nods. “Subtlety is not my strong suit.”

He hops down from the ledge and turns to face her. When he straightens, there is something unreadable in her gaze, and she bites her lower lip, only for a moment.

Then, she looks away and studies one of the trees like it’s the most fascinating thing she has ever seen. “No. I don’t think it is.”

January 24th, 2020

“Happy birthday to you!”

Gregory doesn’t believe in wasting birthday karma, so he leans in and blows out his candle before any other hijinks could occur. He knows his siblings; he knows his siblings-in-laws and his nieces and his nephews. He will not risk it.

This year, he wishes, I want to fall in love.

No, wait, shoot, he should have been more specific.

He thinks he might be in love with Hermione already. He was DMing with her on Instagram just last night. She asked him if he liked his tour with Lucy, and he said absolutely, and it spiraled from there.

Lucy also DMed him last night. 

She asked him what classes he wanted to take when the next school year started. It was a very practical question from someone he senses is very practical, but he tried his best to give her an honest answer. It might not be the most fun. But it was an answer.

“What did you wish for?” Daphne asks.

“For a better year than last year, I hope,” Violet says. 

Hyacinth shakes her head. “It’s okay. Gregory’s out of the Bridgerton curse.”

“The Bridgerton curse?”

“Things always go wrong when someone turns eighteen.”

“So,” Gregory says, “you should start getting scared.”

Hyacinth nods. “I’m trying my best to ward off your energy. What did you wish for?”

Gregory shakes his head, and from across the table, he finds Francesca’s eyes. “I’m not about to get my wish changed because someone wanted to know what it was.”

He winks at her.

She rolls her eyes.

She hasn’t been proposed to, not yet, but they can all sense it in the air. Gregory actually pulled John aside the other day to ask him what his intentions with Francesca were. Then, he gave John full permission to propose on his birthday. 

John had laughed.

Gregory didn’t love that response.

“Okay, you don’t have to tell us what you wished for,” Colin says, lowering the camera and inspecting the photo he took. He shows it off to Penelope, who laughs and sets her head on his shoulder.

Gregory wants that.

He wants that this year.

He understands he should be patient; everyone always tells him that. But he can see true love all around him. Daphne and Simon, then Kate and Anthony, then Benedict and Sophie, then Colin and Penelope, soon to be Francesca and John. He thinks he should be allowed to outrace Eloise if Francesca was allowed. 

He definitely should find love before Hyacinth.

But, on the other hand, he thinks there is a lot of love in his life already. He can see it all around this table. His family doesn’t have to gather every time it’s his birthday; they don’t have to listen to his tired joke about it being The Year of Gregory. He will say it again at the end of this, and his whole family will groan, but not one of them chose to be somewhere else. All of them wanted to celebrate his nineteenth with him.

He wants more.

He doesn’t think there can ever be enough.

But he’s in love with this city. Chicago was his prom date all those weeks ago, all those months ago, all those lifetimes ago. He gets to stay here. 

He’s in love with his best friend. Gareth will room with him next year, and they will become closer than brothers.

He’s in love with Hermione, and he’s in love with Hermione’s friend, Lucy, and he will only find more love as he keeps going through life.

It was a good wish.

It was the best wish there could be—love.

“It’s the year of Gregory,” he says at last, raising his single cup of champagne with a grin. “And this time, nothing will go wrong.”