“I’m talking about the tattoos and the earrings,” Michael is saying, following me down the hall. “He looks like the purposefully ‘cool guy’ from a boy band.”
I fling open the front door just as Jonah begins stomping up the front steps. “Do you have any idea what time it is?” I whisper-yell, stepping out onto the porch and inwardly cringing because I sound exactly like our mother.
Jonah drops a cigarette onto Michael’s porch, stubs it out with the pointy toe of a boot, and then has the nerve to seem confused. “Huh?”
“Steph and Morgan are in bed,” I explain slowly. “It’s Saturday morning in a quiet neighborhood.” I take in his jeans and T-shirt, the black leather jacket and days’ worth of stubble. “Most people are still in bed and you come tearing down the street like you’ve got your own personal house party going on in that thing.”
“Okay, Dad.” He shoulders past me into the house, giving Michael Christopher the once-over before laughing, a little unkindly. “So this is what married with kids looks like? Rugged.”
Michael opens his mouth to reply before the insult seems to register and he gives Jonah a what the fuck face. Unfortunately, Jonah misses it because he’s already moving past him toward the kitchen.
“Nice place.”
I follow my brother and watch as he pours himself a cup of coffee. “Help yourself, Jones.”
He turns, leaning back against the counter and lifting his cup to his lips. “Mom sent me about two hundred texts asking if I knew where you were.” He sips, swallowing loudly. “Guess she doesn’t know we’ve only seen each other once since you moved here.”
“You’ve been home one time in four years,” I remind him. “So spare me the family bonding lecture.”
“Yes, I’m busy, but I’d make time for my family. Thank God Mom sent me this address or who knows how long before I found out you’re basically homeless and sleeping on your college roommate’s couch.”
“Actually, we have a guest room,” Michael Christopher offers unhelpfully.
“I’m not homeless, dumbass,” I tell Jonah. “I just crashed here last night.”
Michael claps us both on the shoulders with an awkward laugh. “Moving on: How’s work, Jones? I saw that blurb about you in People last year. Fucking People. Amazing, man.”
My brother pulls out a chair, turns it around, and straddles it. Like an asshole. “It was okay,” he says. “Now Vogue . . . that was badass.”
I study him for a few seconds. “Jones, you look like you haven’t showered in a week.”
He grins over the top of his mug. “Fucking crazy night.”
Michael Christopher spins his own chair around and straddles it, just like Jonah. “We had a pretty crazy night ourselves, didn’t we, Carter?”
“It was . . . pret-ty crazy,” I agree, heavy on the sarcasm. They might have had Red Bull and pot, but there was also a sangria bar, a tampon bouquet in the bathroom, and a pumping room cordoned off for nursing mothers.
“Yeah, this place was off the hook,” Michael says, undeterred. “Went pretty late, too. Well . . . I mean, it was over by eleven because Morgan gets cranky if she doesn’t get enough sleep and a lot of the people here had sitters they had to get home to. But until then? In-sane.”
Jonah nods like he can relate, and to his credit he doesn’t give Michael a hard time.
“Carter even hit it off with someone,” Michael says. I groan as soon as the words are out of his mouth.
“A girl?” Jonah grins.
I scowl at him. “A woman, yeah.”
Jonah laughs into his coffee. “Sorry,” he says. “I mean wo-man.”
I give Michael a look that I hope is terrifying.
“What’s her name, MC?” Jonah asks. “Do I know her?”
“No,” I interject. Who knows if I’m right, but it’s a desperate wish tossed out to the universe.
“Evie,” MC says eagerly. “She’s hot, smart, great body. She used to work with Steph over at Alter—”
I cut him off. “Michael. Zip it.”
Jonah claps his hands together and I startle. “Man, Mom is going to love this.”
“Don’t talk to Mom about my dating life, and I won’t mention to her the rotating buffet of barely-legals in your bed.”
He counters my low blow with an even lower one. “You’re right. I wouldn’t want to get her hopes up. You remember how hard she took it when you screwed things up with Gwen.”
I think I hear Michael Christopher wince from across the room.
“Oh my God,” I groan, cupping my forehead.
Gwen Talbot was the first girl I fell in love with, and my mom adored her. Where most mothers might try to convince their twenty-four-year-old son he was too young to get serious, let alone engaged, I could practically see Mom naming her grandchildren whenever I brought Gwen home. But Gwen and I were never on the same page. She wanted a quiet life in Long Island with a house and kids. I was working for an agent and living in a crappy apartment in the city so I could go to every show and meet every influential person in theater. The pay was terrible and the hours were even worse, and we ended our engagement after a year. I don’t think Mom has recovered.
Jonah loves to push this particular bruise and looks pleased as he sits there and continues to drink his coffee. I work on remembering why it’d be a bad idea to punch him in the throat. Jonah with his Range Rover and money and dragon tattoos. Jonah is an asshole.
“Gwen was a whore,” MC finally says, breaking the loaded silence. “And I don’t mean that in a loose-with-her-sexual-morals sort of way, because I totally approve of that and girls should be able to have sex with whomever they want and not be judged. Just, the way she acted when you guys ended things. What a dick.”
I nod in thanks to Michael, because yeah, Gwen was a dick, and then I turn back to my brother. “Just keep your mouth closed. Seriously, why are you here?”
“Mom called a bunch of times and said you weren’t answering your phone. Then she said to check in with MC because if you were dead in a ditch somewhere he’d probably know where.”
“I . . . wait, what?” MC says, looking insulted.
Jonah drains his mug and stands, letting his chair slide noisily against the floor. He leaves both the cup and the chair where they are. “And since you’re not, I can go. Later, big brother.”
And like that he’s gone.
? ? ?
As if she’s been camped in the hall plotting an ambush, my assistant sees me the minute I step out of the elevator on Monday morning.
“You’re here!” she chirps.
“Becca, what are you doing? It’s barely eight a.m.”
Undeterred, she starts toward my office, notebook in hand, and unless I plan on turning back into the elevator—which isn’t the worst idea I’ve ever had—there’s really no choice but to follow.
“I wanted to make sure I caught you before anyone else did,” she says over her shoulder. “One of Blake’s clients has been asking about you.”
“Who?”