Post by Charlie Parker on Aug 28, 2009 17:11:41 GMT -5
There weren't may friendships out there that managed to survive as long as the one between the three known as the "three stooges" around Pinewood. Sebastian and Charlie had been friends for the longest of the trio. Sebastian was about 11, and Charlie was about 8 when they met, and although it wasn't instant friendship, it only took a year or two before they started getting along, and very shortly after that, they became practically inseparable. By the time they reached high school they were practically one person. Everywhere Sebastian was, Charlie was also, and vice versa. They had a lot of disputes and disagreements, and they beat each other up on a regular basis... but somehow they always managed to get over their issues and still stuck together. When they graduated, Sebastian 18 and Charlie 16, they moved out of their parents homes, and got an apartment together.
Although they really took off in separate directions at that point, they were still best friends. About that same time, they met Anthony, the most recent addition to the stable's riders. Much the same way Charlie and Sebastian had taken a while to be friends, it was the same way with Anthony. Both of them were about 5'11" at the time they met Anthony, while Anthony was only just barely 5'1." Sebastian was a hardcore eventer, and Charlie was training to be a cop, while Anthony was a jockey's apprentice. None of them were very much alike... except for the part with Charlie and Sebastian being players with a knack for getting themselves into huge trouble, or some sort of fight... but somehow the three of them got along and managed to survive through all their differences.
Lately Charlie had been going through some very serious issues lately... most of them revolving around his engagement to Hayley Mathews. He really had loved her, and it was because he loved her so much that he put himself through hell for her. Between her drug addictions, alcoholism, breaking up with him, cheating, and the dozens of other things she did to make his life stressful, it was a miracle he had lasted as long as he had with her. When he finally called it off for good and she left, Charlie was loaded down with even more responsibility. He legally adopted Chuck, the son she'd had with Sebastian some six years earlier, and also had his daughter Melody whom he'd had with Hayley to take care of. On top of that, he was working over 90 hours a week as a policeman in Pinewood, and between trying to be a dad and being an overworked cop, he was definitely getting much more stressed out than was good for him.
Sebastian and Anthony were trying just about everything they knew to do to get Charlie to be more like the reckless 18 year old he had been a few years ago. He needed to figure out what it was that made him Charlie and start being just a little more like that instead of the depressed workaholic that he'd been lately. Melody was about nine months old when Sebastian came up with probably the best idea he'd come up with in a long time. He managed to convince Charlie that he needed to spend more time with his kid, and got him to take Melody out into the park. In the middle of this outing, Sebastian went to call Anthony and run something by him, and while Sebastian was off on the phone, Charlie happened to run into a certain Peyton Colburn, who also happened to be one of Sebastian's past flings who also happened to have a six year old son belonging to him.
Anyway, it seemed that Charlie had a thing for the girls Sebastian had children with from his past. He and Peyton hit it off fairly well. Charlie was definitely being more careful with his heart this time though, and being a bit overly cautious about himself. He started it off as friends, and slowly but surely it started to become a bit more than just friends. Charlie was still hesitant to make their relationship officially more than friends, but with a bit of prodding from Sebastian, he was talked into doing it. Of course he was still over worked and having a hard time managing his family, his job, and his relationship with Peyton, but he seemed quite a bit less stressed than he had been for the most part.
Several months after that, Alex and Anthony came up with a rather brilliant idea. Austin had given the two of them a lake house in California as their wedding gift... which to most would seem huge, but to someone as wealthy as Austin wasn't all that much at all. Anyway, Alex decided that they all needed to get away from life for a while and just relax... Austin and Lexi could take the kids, Andrew and Sydney could take care of the horses and the dogs, and they wouldn't have to worry about a thing. Again, Charlie was reluctant to agree, but Sebastian, for the second time... got Charlie's supervisor to give him the time off without telling Charlie, and left him with no excuse to not go... so he agreed, but only if Peyton would come as well. He wasn't going to go on a "couples get away" and be the only single one there... that would just be plain old awful... sort of like those nights when Charlie got home late from the academy and Sebastian had some girl there and since their bedrooms were directly across the hall from each other... yeah, he'd gone through that too many times to count.
Anyway, he asked Peyton, and she agreed, and a week or two later, the trio plus their "lady friends" headed out for California. Before going, Charlie had told Sebastian that if he said so much as one word about him and Peyton having been together that he would kill him... and Sebastian probably knew that it was true, and would be wise to refrain from making any comments that would make the situation less than comfortable for Charlie and Peyton, especially since they hadn't really been in the relationship too horribly long and making some sort of comment like that would just be plain old awkward for all of them.
The trip to California was quick and easy, and none of them had any security problems... and even if they had, they probably all would have been overlooked since everyone was so busy jumping into conversation with Charlie about what it was like being a cop since his license stated his position as a police man. None of the security people were even looking at the images of what was in the carry on bags. Sometimes there definitely were benefits to being a cop... aside from the pay. Anyway, after they landed in California it was a relatively short drive up to the lake house which, he had to admit, was quite a bit nicer than he had expected... although he supposed when Alex and Austin who pretty much lived in mansions said that it was a "cabin on a lake" it was something more like Charlie's house size on a lake, so he really shouldn't have been surprised.
He wasn't too sure how things were going to play out between him and Peyton on this trip. Their relationship, though officially more than just friends, wasn't really to the point that most people would consider going on a trip like this. I mean really... they hadn't slept together... and Charlie wasn't really like that anymore, and he had a feeling Peyton wasn't either... they didn't live together... and you couldn't really say they were "dating," so Charlie wasn't sure how she felt about this whole ordeal. He really was hoping that it would all work out for them though. Even if he wouldn't willingly admit it, he was definitely falling for Peyton. Sure, I know, if a guy gets into a serious relationship with a girl he'd damn well better be falling for her... and he had at that point, but this was getting to the point of more standing on the borderline of falling in love with her. He couldn't explain it if he wanted to... it just happened.
Now I also know you're probably thinking that he fell in love with Hayley too and that didn't turn out so well and that it seems like Charlie's the sort of guy who fell in love much too easily... but that definitely wasn't the case. All the way up to graduation from the academy he had only ever fallen for one girl... but he never admitted to actually loving her. She went off to California after they graduated and he went to New York, and after they parted ways they lost contact. Then there was Hayley... and it was never smooth sailing with her for more than ten minutes at a time, and he really should have taken Sebastian's advice (which is a rare statement indeed) and ended it long before he did. She was only bringing him down... even though he loved her, and told her so quite often... so often in fact that the more she doubted him and said he didn't love her... that saying it became increasingly difficult for him, as well as becoming increasingly difficult to believe himself.
Peyton was different though... she really was. He was taking things slower, looking at them from all angles, taking his kids, his job, and his friends into consideration in the matter... but no matter how he looked at it, there seemed no logical reason why this shouldn't work. He didn't know if she felt the same way at all about him, but from what he could tell, there was just about nothing that was coming between him and Peyton. Chuck got along splendidly with her son, considering they were in the same class that was a good thing, and Peyton just adored Melody. He couldn't possibly think of a more perfect scenario to be completely honest, and if Peyton made any sort of indication that she felt the same way, he would stop refraining from telling her how he felt about her... but until then, he figured it was better to be safe than sorry, and you couldn't really blame him for that. After everything he had been through with Hayley, he deserved to be allowed to be more careful than most others might be.
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Anthony's life definitely hadn't always been... well practically perfect. The poor parts of Mexico were definitely not the best place for a kid to grow up, and toss in there the fact that his parents were drug addicts and they had passed their addictions off on him genetically. Although, to be perfectly honest, Anthony couldn't say for certain if his mother's husband was his father or not... and for all he knew, none of his siblings had the same dad as he did... but none of them had ever really said anything about it. Their lives were hard enough having to deal with providing for themselves for their whole lives, they never even wanted to take into consideration the fact that they might not actually be full siblings. Although Anthony did have to wonder... Andrew was 5'11," his sister was about 5'9," and his other brother was about 5'11" as well... then there was Anthony who barely topped the charts at 5'4." Something didn't seem quite right there, but he wasn't going to say anything about it.
Anthony first started working with horses when he was probably ten years old. There was a track nearby to where they lived, and since money was so hard to come by, he started working cleaning stalls and feeding horses, and any other odd jobs he could do at ten years old. Of course, none of what he earned was kept to himself... it all went to the family. His sister had kids of her own, his brother wasn't making much money, and with Andrew there too... it was hard to support the family, and being as unselfish and giving as he was, he never kept any of what he made for himself. At 12 he started exercise riding horses, and just after he turned 13 he rode in his first race. Sure in the States it would have been illegal for him to even be on and in control of a racehorse on the track, but where he lived was just about as far from the United States as the other side of the world when it came to societal standards.
At 15 he was actually employed full time as a jockey for one of the mid grade racing stables, and it was there that he was discovered by a trainer from the States who had come looking for colts to add to his string. These horses were unruly and wild, but given proper training, they were tough as nails and usually did well in the U.S. This time though, there wasn't a horse that caught his eye, but a rider. Anthony was hardly ever on the ground for more than ten minutes at a time for probably 12 hours a day. Most jockeys there only rode because they made decent money... and although Anthony had started out that way, it had definitely become more than that. There was some sort of connection between him and the horses he rode, and to have enough energy to ride that many horses in a single day one right after the other... it was unheard of in this day and age.
There was hardly a single winners circle photo with the jockey on the horse in those years because Anthony had another horse to ride in five minutes and didn't have time to parade around like he was on some show pony. To him, racing was life, he lived it... he breathed it... he loved it. For a few days the trainer stuck around, shadowing Anthony, watching him, and trying to figure out what it was that kept him going at such a tremendous pace. He was bringing winners in so quickly, the trainer hadn't ever seen anything quite like it. The people he asked said it was just that the stable he rode for had the best horses, but half the animals he rode were anything but the favorites, and somehow he always managed to get them in the money. The more he asked about Anthony, the more the kid fascinated him. He hadn't ever seen a 15 year old ride like that on any horse, let alone on a Mexican racehorse.
At the end of about a week, the trainer decided that leaving Anthony here to expend his talent on horses that weren't going to get anywhere, and in a world that wouldn't appreciate him just wouldn't be right, and asked Anthony if he would be willing to come up to the United States and train with him to become a real jockey where he could make ten times as much as he was making here. Contrary to popular belief, the decision wasn't an easy one, and it wasn't instant either. Far from it, in fact. At the time, he barely spoke a word of English since he had never even finished first grade and hadn't ever taken any english language classes, and since he worked in a place where no one spoke English... he'd never had any need to. For about a year he brooded over it as he continued to ride, and not long after he turned 16, he made his decision. There was a big world out there where he could make his own way and change his stars... and moving to the United States was just the way to do that.
During that year of time when he was undecided he had his first rather serious accident. He'd fallen off plenty of times, broken ribs, fractured wrists and ankles, been knocked unconscious... this and that, any other injury you could think of obtaining in the racing business... but this one was definitely bad. His horse stumbled and went to his knees, sending Anthony over his head, into the oncoming horses, and one of them just happened to have the perfect stride length for his hoof to come down right directly on Anthony's shoulder, and dig in with the toe as he stepped off. A few other horses kicked him as well as they jumped over him or dodged around him, and by the time they had all gone by, Anthony was bruised, bleeding, and not moving... so it was to the "ER" for him, by no choice of his own. Surgery was preformed to fix the damage, which would not have fixed itself. Unfortunately... the doctor he got was a horrible surgeon, and somehow while fixing the bone he managed to screw up the muscle and nerves in Anthony's right shoulder, which would never cease to give him pain and grief in the future. Nevertheless, within a couple weeks Anthony was out there again riding just the same as he had before, ignoring all the pain he was putting himself through.
At the time, he didn't really think too much on the impact leaving would have on his family... especially Andrew. His whole life he'd been doing things with no thought of himself, working only for his family's well-being, and since he was only 16 he thought they would be okay with him leaving to do something for himself for once... if only he had known. Andrew was only about 13 when Anthony left, and he failed to realize that really, he was abandoning Andrew. His little brother had practically idolized him... but Anthony didn't see it. Leaving was bitter-sweet to him. He knew that there would be no way of keeping contact with his family when he left, since they didn't exactly have mail there and phones were only for the rich people, which his family certainly wasn't. But at the same time, this was the only chance he knew he would ever have at getting out of these slums and make something of himself doing something he loved to do and was good at doing. Once he crossed the border, he had a feeling there was a good chance he would never see his family again.
Of course, he wouldn't miss his parents at all. The only thing they had ever given him was his life, which they also made hell, and his genetic addiction to drugs, which made any sort of serious injury hell as well. But his two older siblings had always looked out for him when he was a kid, and he had always looked out for his little brother up until he left. Leaving definitely wasn't easy for him, but it was something he felt he had to do. The trainer was right, the world had a lot to offer him, and he had a lot to offer the world, so by staying there in Mexico where he made pennies to the dollar of what he could potentially earn in the United States wasn't doing anyone any favors. Even so... it was still hard. Leaving the only life he had ever known or ever dreamed of knowing was like leaving a part of himself that he would have to rediscover in years to come in different places.
After he hit 18 his career sky rocketed. He couldn't legally ride in the States until he was 18, but as soon as he got his license, bot did he ever make an impression on the world. He started snatching victories from favorites and veteran jockeys faster than they could figure out what had hit them. It seemed like there wasn't anything he couldn't do when it came to horse racing. He rode a few races not so unlike Secretariat's Belmont, minus the triple crown part, and ran more than a few like Silky Sullivan. He started making a habit out of going against a trainer's "instructions" and just going with what the horse wanted to do. He regularly took a come from behind runner up to the front and set such a furious pace that all the other horses exhausted themselves trying to keep up, or holding a speed horse at the back of the pack and catapulting around the pack in the home stretch like the other horses were standing still. He was the newest sensation on the track, and people started following the jockey instead of the horses he rode.
At 19 he was very nearly killed in a track accident, but by some miracle he managed to walk away from it. At 20 he started riding at Pinewood again on a blind ex-racehorse. At 21 he was in another accident on the same day he happened to meet the love of his life. It seemed like after moving to the United States he was almost instantly out of the slums that he'd been in in Mexico. His luck seemed completely reversed...aside from the life threatening accidents. Probably about six months after meeting Alex, Anthony happened to run into Andrew who happened to be working at the Blue Bird Diner in Pinewood. He was definitely taken off guard, but even so, he insisted that Andrew move in with him and Alex... it was the least he could do for the not-so-little-anymore brother that he had left behind and never expected to see again.
Not long after that he and Alex got married, and Andrew ended up getting a girl pregnant the night he was planning on leaving town without so much as a goodbye. Anthony tried to explain to Andrew that anything he needed he just had to ask for, and that he wasn't going to abandon him again when he needed him... but Andrew seemed much to bitter about Anthony leaving to accept any of it, and Anthony was at a loss as to what to do about the situation. He hadn't meant to abandon Andrew... it just sort of happened, and he knew that was no excuse. After that he couldn't quite seem capable of shaking off the guilt of leaving his brother behind to fend for himself... and that was about the time Alex came up with her genius idea to get Anthony, Charlie, and Sebastian de-stressed. Austin had oh so generously given them the lake house where he and Alex (much to Anthony's discomfort) had spend the vast majority of a summer a few years before Anthony met Alex, and Alex decided they should all go there for a week or two just to relax and not worry about life.
So they dropped the kids, Chuck, Jamie, Caiden, Ale, and Melody off with Lexi and Austin and headed off for California. Anthony had to admit, traveling with a cop was convenient. He'd done a lot of flying in his life with race tracks being all over the country, and every time someone noticed that Charlie was a policeman it was like they suddenly didn't care about security anymore and let the six of them just go right on through. The flights went without issue, as did the drive up to the lake house. He could definitely see why Alex and Austin had gone on about the place so much... though what he couldn't quite see was how Austin had managed to part with it. This was the only house on the entire lake, and most of the land was owned by the government except this, and a few other parcels. The entire lay of the land was simply beautiful, and it felt sort of like they were on a second honeymoon... with Sebastian and Charlie tagging along and bringing their significant others along for the ride.
Of course, considering it had been only just barely a year since Anthony broke his leg and ribs and was nearly killed when the doctors gave him morphine... he wouldn't be doing any swimming. It had taken him a year to be recovered enough to ride after his first accident, and that time he had only broken his arm just above his wrist, cut his leg open, and broken two ribs. This time the damage was worse, and although this time he had gotten the broken bones fixed by a doctor, even riding still hurt like hell, and on bad days just walking down stairs was like running over hot coals with shards of metal in between, broken glass at the end, and a bed of nails to lie on... yeah, it was bad. So to avoid any un-due stress during their attempt at de-stressing, he just wasn't going to try it, he would much rather just miss out on that and miss out on the pain than partake in swimming and cripple himself with the pain. But still, it was wonderful to get away.
As the group arrived at the house and stepped out of the car, Anthony slipped his arm around Alex's waist, doing his best to forget that Alex and Austin spend way too much time here alone for comfort. He wouldn't let on to the fact that it was a bit awkward all things considered, but he knew Alex could always see right through him, and she could probably tell... but that was just Alex for you. She could read just about anybody like a book, and her husband was no exception. She seemed capable to read him page for page from the moment they met... and although it might sound strange, he actually loved that about her. Most people just saw him as "happy-go-lucky" Anthony all the time, which was what he wanted... but Alex looked deeper and could always tell when something wasn't right with him or when something was bothering him. She completed him, and he would do anything for her...that was what love did to a man.
Although they really took off in separate directions at that point, they were still best friends. About that same time, they met Anthony, the most recent addition to the stable's riders. Much the same way Charlie and Sebastian had taken a while to be friends, it was the same way with Anthony. Both of them were about 5'11" at the time they met Anthony, while Anthony was only just barely 5'1." Sebastian was a hardcore eventer, and Charlie was training to be a cop, while Anthony was a jockey's apprentice. None of them were very much alike... except for the part with Charlie and Sebastian being players with a knack for getting themselves into huge trouble, or some sort of fight... but somehow the three of them got along and managed to survive through all their differences.
Lately Charlie had been going through some very serious issues lately... most of them revolving around his engagement to Hayley Mathews. He really had loved her, and it was because he loved her so much that he put himself through hell for her. Between her drug addictions, alcoholism, breaking up with him, cheating, and the dozens of other things she did to make his life stressful, it was a miracle he had lasted as long as he had with her. When he finally called it off for good and she left, Charlie was loaded down with even more responsibility. He legally adopted Chuck, the son she'd had with Sebastian some six years earlier, and also had his daughter Melody whom he'd had with Hayley to take care of. On top of that, he was working over 90 hours a week as a policeman in Pinewood, and between trying to be a dad and being an overworked cop, he was definitely getting much more stressed out than was good for him.
Sebastian and Anthony were trying just about everything they knew to do to get Charlie to be more like the reckless 18 year old he had been a few years ago. He needed to figure out what it was that made him Charlie and start being just a little more like that instead of the depressed workaholic that he'd been lately. Melody was about nine months old when Sebastian came up with probably the best idea he'd come up with in a long time. He managed to convince Charlie that he needed to spend more time with his kid, and got him to take Melody out into the park. In the middle of this outing, Sebastian went to call Anthony and run something by him, and while Sebastian was off on the phone, Charlie happened to run into a certain Peyton Colburn, who also happened to be one of Sebastian's past flings who also happened to have a six year old son belonging to him.
Anyway, it seemed that Charlie had a thing for the girls Sebastian had children with from his past. He and Peyton hit it off fairly well. Charlie was definitely being more careful with his heart this time though, and being a bit overly cautious about himself. He started it off as friends, and slowly but surely it started to become a bit more than just friends. Charlie was still hesitant to make their relationship officially more than friends, but with a bit of prodding from Sebastian, he was talked into doing it. Of course he was still over worked and having a hard time managing his family, his job, and his relationship with Peyton, but he seemed quite a bit less stressed than he had been for the most part.
Several months after that, Alex and Anthony came up with a rather brilliant idea. Austin had given the two of them a lake house in California as their wedding gift... which to most would seem huge, but to someone as wealthy as Austin wasn't all that much at all. Anyway, Alex decided that they all needed to get away from life for a while and just relax... Austin and Lexi could take the kids, Andrew and Sydney could take care of the horses and the dogs, and they wouldn't have to worry about a thing. Again, Charlie was reluctant to agree, but Sebastian, for the second time... got Charlie's supervisor to give him the time off without telling Charlie, and left him with no excuse to not go... so he agreed, but only if Peyton would come as well. He wasn't going to go on a "couples get away" and be the only single one there... that would just be plain old awful... sort of like those nights when Charlie got home late from the academy and Sebastian had some girl there and since their bedrooms were directly across the hall from each other... yeah, he'd gone through that too many times to count.
Anyway, he asked Peyton, and she agreed, and a week or two later, the trio plus their "lady friends" headed out for California. Before going, Charlie had told Sebastian that if he said so much as one word about him and Peyton having been together that he would kill him... and Sebastian probably knew that it was true, and would be wise to refrain from making any comments that would make the situation less than comfortable for Charlie and Peyton, especially since they hadn't really been in the relationship too horribly long and making some sort of comment like that would just be plain old awkward for all of them.
The trip to California was quick and easy, and none of them had any security problems... and even if they had, they probably all would have been overlooked since everyone was so busy jumping into conversation with Charlie about what it was like being a cop since his license stated his position as a police man. None of the security people were even looking at the images of what was in the carry on bags. Sometimes there definitely were benefits to being a cop... aside from the pay. Anyway, after they landed in California it was a relatively short drive up to the lake house which, he had to admit, was quite a bit nicer than he had expected... although he supposed when Alex and Austin who pretty much lived in mansions said that it was a "cabin on a lake" it was something more like Charlie's house size on a lake, so he really shouldn't have been surprised.
He wasn't too sure how things were going to play out between him and Peyton on this trip. Their relationship, though officially more than just friends, wasn't really to the point that most people would consider going on a trip like this. I mean really... they hadn't slept together... and Charlie wasn't really like that anymore, and he had a feeling Peyton wasn't either... they didn't live together... and you couldn't really say they were "dating," so Charlie wasn't sure how she felt about this whole ordeal. He really was hoping that it would all work out for them though. Even if he wouldn't willingly admit it, he was definitely falling for Peyton. Sure, I know, if a guy gets into a serious relationship with a girl he'd damn well better be falling for her... and he had at that point, but this was getting to the point of more standing on the borderline of falling in love with her. He couldn't explain it if he wanted to... it just happened.
Now I also know you're probably thinking that he fell in love with Hayley too and that didn't turn out so well and that it seems like Charlie's the sort of guy who fell in love much too easily... but that definitely wasn't the case. All the way up to graduation from the academy he had only ever fallen for one girl... but he never admitted to actually loving her. She went off to California after they graduated and he went to New York, and after they parted ways they lost contact. Then there was Hayley... and it was never smooth sailing with her for more than ten minutes at a time, and he really should have taken Sebastian's advice (which is a rare statement indeed) and ended it long before he did. She was only bringing him down... even though he loved her, and told her so quite often... so often in fact that the more she doubted him and said he didn't love her... that saying it became increasingly difficult for him, as well as becoming increasingly difficult to believe himself.
Peyton was different though... she really was. He was taking things slower, looking at them from all angles, taking his kids, his job, and his friends into consideration in the matter... but no matter how he looked at it, there seemed no logical reason why this shouldn't work. He didn't know if she felt the same way at all about him, but from what he could tell, there was just about nothing that was coming between him and Peyton. Chuck got along splendidly with her son, considering they were in the same class that was a good thing, and Peyton just adored Melody. He couldn't possibly think of a more perfect scenario to be completely honest, and if Peyton made any sort of indication that she felt the same way, he would stop refraining from telling her how he felt about her... but until then, he figured it was better to be safe than sorry, and you couldn't really blame him for that. After everything he had been through with Hayley, he deserved to be allowed to be more careful than most others might be.
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Anthony's life definitely hadn't always been... well practically perfect. The poor parts of Mexico were definitely not the best place for a kid to grow up, and toss in there the fact that his parents were drug addicts and they had passed their addictions off on him genetically. Although, to be perfectly honest, Anthony couldn't say for certain if his mother's husband was his father or not... and for all he knew, none of his siblings had the same dad as he did... but none of them had ever really said anything about it. Their lives were hard enough having to deal with providing for themselves for their whole lives, they never even wanted to take into consideration the fact that they might not actually be full siblings. Although Anthony did have to wonder... Andrew was 5'11," his sister was about 5'9," and his other brother was about 5'11" as well... then there was Anthony who barely topped the charts at 5'4." Something didn't seem quite right there, but he wasn't going to say anything about it.
Anthony first started working with horses when he was probably ten years old. There was a track nearby to where they lived, and since money was so hard to come by, he started working cleaning stalls and feeding horses, and any other odd jobs he could do at ten years old. Of course, none of what he earned was kept to himself... it all went to the family. His sister had kids of her own, his brother wasn't making much money, and with Andrew there too... it was hard to support the family, and being as unselfish and giving as he was, he never kept any of what he made for himself. At 12 he started exercise riding horses, and just after he turned 13 he rode in his first race. Sure in the States it would have been illegal for him to even be on and in control of a racehorse on the track, but where he lived was just about as far from the United States as the other side of the world when it came to societal standards.
At 15 he was actually employed full time as a jockey for one of the mid grade racing stables, and it was there that he was discovered by a trainer from the States who had come looking for colts to add to his string. These horses were unruly and wild, but given proper training, they were tough as nails and usually did well in the U.S. This time though, there wasn't a horse that caught his eye, but a rider. Anthony was hardly ever on the ground for more than ten minutes at a time for probably 12 hours a day. Most jockeys there only rode because they made decent money... and although Anthony had started out that way, it had definitely become more than that. There was some sort of connection between him and the horses he rode, and to have enough energy to ride that many horses in a single day one right after the other... it was unheard of in this day and age.
There was hardly a single winners circle photo with the jockey on the horse in those years because Anthony had another horse to ride in five minutes and didn't have time to parade around like he was on some show pony. To him, racing was life, he lived it... he breathed it... he loved it. For a few days the trainer stuck around, shadowing Anthony, watching him, and trying to figure out what it was that kept him going at such a tremendous pace. He was bringing winners in so quickly, the trainer hadn't ever seen anything quite like it. The people he asked said it was just that the stable he rode for had the best horses, but half the animals he rode were anything but the favorites, and somehow he always managed to get them in the money. The more he asked about Anthony, the more the kid fascinated him. He hadn't ever seen a 15 year old ride like that on any horse, let alone on a Mexican racehorse.
At the end of about a week, the trainer decided that leaving Anthony here to expend his talent on horses that weren't going to get anywhere, and in a world that wouldn't appreciate him just wouldn't be right, and asked Anthony if he would be willing to come up to the United States and train with him to become a real jockey where he could make ten times as much as he was making here. Contrary to popular belief, the decision wasn't an easy one, and it wasn't instant either. Far from it, in fact. At the time, he barely spoke a word of English since he had never even finished first grade and hadn't ever taken any english language classes, and since he worked in a place where no one spoke English... he'd never had any need to. For about a year he brooded over it as he continued to ride, and not long after he turned 16, he made his decision. There was a big world out there where he could make his own way and change his stars... and moving to the United States was just the way to do that.
During that year of time when he was undecided he had his first rather serious accident. He'd fallen off plenty of times, broken ribs, fractured wrists and ankles, been knocked unconscious... this and that, any other injury you could think of obtaining in the racing business... but this one was definitely bad. His horse stumbled and went to his knees, sending Anthony over his head, into the oncoming horses, and one of them just happened to have the perfect stride length for his hoof to come down right directly on Anthony's shoulder, and dig in with the toe as he stepped off. A few other horses kicked him as well as they jumped over him or dodged around him, and by the time they had all gone by, Anthony was bruised, bleeding, and not moving... so it was to the "ER" for him, by no choice of his own. Surgery was preformed to fix the damage, which would not have fixed itself. Unfortunately... the doctor he got was a horrible surgeon, and somehow while fixing the bone he managed to screw up the muscle and nerves in Anthony's right shoulder, which would never cease to give him pain and grief in the future. Nevertheless, within a couple weeks Anthony was out there again riding just the same as he had before, ignoring all the pain he was putting himself through.
At the time, he didn't really think too much on the impact leaving would have on his family... especially Andrew. His whole life he'd been doing things with no thought of himself, working only for his family's well-being, and since he was only 16 he thought they would be okay with him leaving to do something for himself for once... if only he had known. Andrew was only about 13 when Anthony left, and he failed to realize that really, he was abandoning Andrew. His little brother had practically idolized him... but Anthony didn't see it. Leaving was bitter-sweet to him. He knew that there would be no way of keeping contact with his family when he left, since they didn't exactly have mail there and phones were only for the rich people, which his family certainly wasn't. But at the same time, this was the only chance he knew he would ever have at getting out of these slums and make something of himself doing something he loved to do and was good at doing. Once he crossed the border, he had a feeling there was a good chance he would never see his family again.
Of course, he wouldn't miss his parents at all. The only thing they had ever given him was his life, which they also made hell, and his genetic addiction to drugs, which made any sort of serious injury hell as well. But his two older siblings had always looked out for him when he was a kid, and he had always looked out for his little brother up until he left. Leaving definitely wasn't easy for him, but it was something he felt he had to do. The trainer was right, the world had a lot to offer him, and he had a lot to offer the world, so by staying there in Mexico where he made pennies to the dollar of what he could potentially earn in the United States wasn't doing anyone any favors. Even so... it was still hard. Leaving the only life he had ever known or ever dreamed of knowing was like leaving a part of himself that he would have to rediscover in years to come in different places.
After he hit 18 his career sky rocketed. He couldn't legally ride in the States until he was 18, but as soon as he got his license, bot did he ever make an impression on the world. He started snatching victories from favorites and veteran jockeys faster than they could figure out what had hit them. It seemed like there wasn't anything he couldn't do when it came to horse racing. He rode a few races not so unlike Secretariat's Belmont, minus the triple crown part, and ran more than a few like Silky Sullivan. He started making a habit out of going against a trainer's "instructions" and just going with what the horse wanted to do. He regularly took a come from behind runner up to the front and set such a furious pace that all the other horses exhausted themselves trying to keep up, or holding a speed horse at the back of the pack and catapulting around the pack in the home stretch like the other horses were standing still. He was the newest sensation on the track, and people started following the jockey instead of the horses he rode.
At 19 he was very nearly killed in a track accident, but by some miracle he managed to walk away from it. At 20 he started riding at Pinewood again on a blind ex-racehorse. At 21 he was in another accident on the same day he happened to meet the love of his life. It seemed like after moving to the United States he was almost instantly out of the slums that he'd been in in Mexico. His luck seemed completely reversed...aside from the life threatening accidents. Probably about six months after meeting Alex, Anthony happened to run into Andrew who happened to be working at the Blue Bird Diner in Pinewood. He was definitely taken off guard, but even so, he insisted that Andrew move in with him and Alex... it was the least he could do for the not-so-little-anymore brother that he had left behind and never expected to see again.
Not long after that he and Alex got married, and Andrew ended up getting a girl pregnant the night he was planning on leaving town without so much as a goodbye. Anthony tried to explain to Andrew that anything he needed he just had to ask for, and that he wasn't going to abandon him again when he needed him... but Andrew seemed much to bitter about Anthony leaving to accept any of it, and Anthony was at a loss as to what to do about the situation. He hadn't meant to abandon Andrew... it just sort of happened, and he knew that was no excuse. After that he couldn't quite seem capable of shaking off the guilt of leaving his brother behind to fend for himself... and that was about the time Alex came up with her genius idea to get Anthony, Charlie, and Sebastian de-stressed. Austin had oh so generously given them the lake house where he and Alex (much to Anthony's discomfort) had spend the vast majority of a summer a few years before Anthony met Alex, and Alex decided they should all go there for a week or two just to relax and not worry about life.
So they dropped the kids, Chuck, Jamie, Caiden, Ale, and Melody off with Lexi and Austin and headed off for California. Anthony had to admit, traveling with a cop was convenient. He'd done a lot of flying in his life with race tracks being all over the country, and every time someone noticed that Charlie was a policeman it was like they suddenly didn't care about security anymore and let the six of them just go right on through. The flights went without issue, as did the drive up to the lake house. He could definitely see why Alex and Austin had gone on about the place so much... though what he couldn't quite see was how Austin had managed to part with it. This was the only house on the entire lake, and most of the land was owned by the government except this, and a few other parcels. The entire lay of the land was simply beautiful, and it felt sort of like they were on a second honeymoon... with Sebastian and Charlie tagging along and bringing their significant others along for the ride.
Of course, considering it had been only just barely a year since Anthony broke his leg and ribs and was nearly killed when the doctors gave him morphine... he wouldn't be doing any swimming. It had taken him a year to be recovered enough to ride after his first accident, and that time he had only broken his arm just above his wrist, cut his leg open, and broken two ribs. This time the damage was worse, and although this time he had gotten the broken bones fixed by a doctor, even riding still hurt like hell, and on bad days just walking down stairs was like running over hot coals with shards of metal in between, broken glass at the end, and a bed of nails to lie on... yeah, it was bad. So to avoid any un-due stress during their attempt at de-stressing, he just wasn't going to try it, he would much rather just miss out on that and miss out on the pain than partake in swimming and cripple himself with the pain. But still, it was wonderful to get away.
As the group arrived at the house and stepped out of the car, Anthony slipped his arm around Alex's waist, doing his best to forget that Alex and Austin spend way too much time here alone for comfort. He wouldn't let on to the fact that it was a bit awkward all things considered, but he knew Alex could always see right through him, and she could probably tell... but that was just Alex for you. She could read just about anybody like a book, and her husband was no exception. She seemed capable to read him page for page from the moment they met... and although it might sound strange, he actually loved that about her. Most people just saw him as "happy-go-lucky" Anthony all the time, which was what he wanted... but Alex looked deeper and could always tell when something wasn't right with him or when something was bothering him. She completed him, and he would do anything for her...that was what love did to a man.
