Find A Way Or Make One by E. C. Kelley Read Free Book Online Page A

all of us at the pub down from the townhouse my brothers and I lived in during our days at Oxford. The place had always been filled with our friends, and the members of Jagged Pill had definitely been that. Rashid and Murad aren’t technically my brothers, but they have been my brothers in heart since I was two years old.
    When I was two years old, my mother and I had been in D.C. while my…sperm donor had been doing, well whatever it was he did when we were out of town. Mom’s uncle that lived in D.C. had brain cancer, and wasn’t expected to live very long , so she wanted to see him one more time before he passed.
    I was only two, so of course I don’t remember any of it, but Mom said it was pretty rough seeing him like that. After we had seen him one day, Mom took me to the Washington Mall so I could run and play outdoors. While we were there, I noticed two boys, twins, a year or two older than me. As I started to approach them to ask if they wanted to play tag, two big burly men wearing robes came rushing over to sto p me from talking to them. Being the stubborn individual that I have always been, I refused.
    Stomping my foot I started screaming, “I wanna pay wif ‘em . I wanna pay wif’em.” While, Mom was trying to make the men understand that I meant no harm, a big dark skinned man came over and hunched down, smiled at me and asked me if I wanted to play with his sons. When I nodded, he got up and said something to the two men and went to talk to my mother.
    I was later told that the man, Sameer, offered my mother $1,000,000 to let him take me home and raise me as his own. He had no daughters; and had decided that I would make a grea t one. Mom turned him down but continued to bring me to the Mall every day at the same time so that I could play with Rashid and Murad . When Mom and I had to return to Hiawassee, Mom gave him our contact information so that I could possibly keep in touch with the boys. We never heard from them, so Mom figured that was that, but come to find out the story didn’t end there.
    When Mom divorced three years later, she was rummaging through some papers and found that three or four letters from Sameer that the donor had never given her. Mom wrote back to him and explained the situation and Sameer sent tickets to come visit him and his family. Throughout my childhood I spent a month each summer in Yemen, and would go to see Sameer and his sons in D. C. if they were there.
    Sameer was a Bani Ark sheikh in Yemen . His first wife had died leaving him with six sons but no daughters. While I came to consider each of Sameer’s sons my brothers, I am closest to Rashid and Murad. When it all went to hell with Travis, the boy I dated in high school, it was Rashid and Murad that came to get me and took me and my mom back to Yemen. A year later, Mom married Daddy Samee and Rashid, Murad and I went to study at Oxford.
    While we were in school, we formed a tight bond with about ten other students.Since we all were all from prestigious backgrounds (or in my case been adopted by those with prestigious backgrounds), and were known to do some crazy things, we became known as the RRP, or Royal Rat Pack. We had a lot of fun, and Ethan , Mitch, Chris, and Tucker were there through it all. Hell, they were even with us when we decided to get RRP tattoos. Since Daddy Samee had called me princess for as long as I could remember, I was the princess of the pack so I got a dainty little princess tiara on my lower left back. Getting a tattoo there covered the scar that I had gotten when my ex Travis decided to sale me to Zandoville in order to cover the debt that he had accrued. Being able to get that scar covered had meant a lot to me.
    Yeah, the guys from Jagged Pill had been there for a lot of good times, so you could definitely say that I was happy to see them. Eth an looked at me and grinned. “So L ovey, are you going to sing a few with us tonight? You know it’s been ages since you jammed with us.”
    I