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To the casual third-party observer, Brett’s reaction upon opening the door and discovering his older sister on the other side was probably deeply comical. To him, there was nothing funny about finding a family member, his family member, outside his room. He jerked backward, his eyes widened, his mouth fell open, and he could swear his heart stopped. Then he hissed, “Patience?” and resisted the urge to poke her to see if she was real.
“Brett. I thought that was you in the lobby but didn’t understand why you’d be here of all places. Good. Now you can explain yourself.” Patience Jacobs was a straightforward person, always had been. As a sibling, she was brutally honest, especially when she was drinking, and she was frequently drinking.
Shorter than Brett, she wore tall platform sandals that put them at eye level. She wore a stereotypical tropical tourist outfit, a sarong wrapped into a halter-neck dress, gaping open in places to reveal her bikini underneath. Her hair was in two braids and she had a huge flower behind one ear. In her hands, with their stubby, bitten nails, was a coconut with a straw and a little umbrella sticking out of it. In features, she and Brett had always looked alike, same brown hair, same blue eyes, same angular facial structure. But physical features were where their similarities stopped, or at least Brett had always desperately hoped that was the case.
“Explain myself?” Brett echoed because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Yes.” That was all he would get from Patience. She didn’t expand on her statements, had never felt the need to. Her writing matched her elocution—brief, heavily punctuated, and direct. Her characters always sounded like miniature versions of herself, only marginally less horrible. “What the fuck is wrong with your room?”
Before he could answer, a noise from the bedroom reminded Brett he wasn’t alone. Michel was in the bedroom. Michel, who could walk out at any moment wearing who knew what. Considering where their last interaction had almost gone, it wouldn’t be out of the question for Michel to strut in in the buff. Or in his tiny Speedo...
He had to get his sister out of there. Now.
“Who’s your traveling companion?” Of course, Patience knew he hadn’t come alone. If she’d seen Brett, she’d doubtless seen Michel, too.
Brett proceeded carefully, sure the only thing protecting him now was the hope Patience hadn’t recognized Michel. “Um...that’s my friend. We’re here on some business.”
Patience didn’t react. She took a long sip of whatever she was drinking out of the coconut and continued to stare at Brett. Finally, she said, “Friends, huh? Is that what we’re calling it these days?”
Brett felt his face grow hot. He didn’t know how his family would respond to him being bi. It had never come up before. He’d assumed they wouldn’t care, just like they didn’t care about the rest of his life. Patience, for all her bluntness, was hard to read. She might be messing with him, but Brett had never known her to have a sense of humor. Was she pissed at him for not telling the family about his new boyfriend? Or about the trip to the island? Or, slim chance though it was, could she be happy to see him?
“Just...give me a second,” Brett said. He closed the door and sprinted to the bedroom.
Michel stood by the bed, contemplating his open suitcase, his jacket discarded on a nearby chair and his shirt unbuttoned to reveal his muscular chest. Brett made an involuntary sound as his extinguished lust rushed back.
“Brett? Are you okay?” Michel moved around the bed and stood before him, rubbing his arms in a way that was both comforting and distracting.
“My sister’s here,” Brett choked out.
Michel’s hands froze. “Which sister?”
“Patience.”
Michel nodded, seeming relieved.
“But...” Brett continued, the thought occurring to him as he spoke. “She didn’t say she was alone. There’s a good chance she’s not.”
The frown that had started with the mention of his sister deepened on Michel’s face.
Brett hurried through the rest. “She didn’t seem to know you’re here. She knows I’m here with someone but didn’t say anything about you. I’ll go with Patience right now, find out what she’s up to, and be back as soon as I can. With any luck, she’s alone and leaving tomorrow.”
“Okay...” Michel said, clearly unconvinced. “Then we can continue where we left off?”
Brett tried to determine what was causing him more anxiety, the presence of his sisters or the impending intimacy with Michel. He nodded.
Michel smiled, but it was a small, unsure one. He was worried too, but whether it was about Brett’s meddling, his destructive siblings, or his weird reaction, Brett didn’t want to ask.
He gently pulled out of Michel’s grasp and left the room. The hope that Patience had been a mirage and the hall would be empty was futile. His sister waited for him just outside the door. “Let’s go downstairs,” he said briskly and led the way. It wasn’t until he reached the first floor that he realized he hadn’t kissed Michel when he’d left.
In an empty alcove in the main lobby, Brett sat down on an uncomfortable tropical print ottoman and waved for Patience to take the chair across from him.
“That was odd, even for you,” Patience said as she settled herself into the chair. She crossed one leg over the other, her sarong thankfully wrapping more around her body.
“What are you doing here, Patience?” Brett asked in a low voice. He’d been trying to think of what to say the whole way down. Did he want her to leave? Or just leave him alone? He was fairly certain he didn’t want to know how the rest of his family were doing. He was absolutely certain he didn’t want her to know he was there with Michel.
Patience shook her head. “That’s not how it works. I asked you first. I found you. You wouldn’t even be in a position to ask me that question if I hadn’t.”
Brett took a deep breath. His jaw clenched, but he didn’t look away. Not making eye contact was a sign of weakness to predators and the Jacobs family. “I’m here on vacation with a friend. I had some time off from work, and Uncle Lou was able to book me a spot.”
“Funny,” Patience began, pausing to take a drink. “Uncle Lou didn’t mention you were coming to The Reef.”
Uncle Lou was Lou Stanton, owner and CEO of Stanton Enterprises, father to Sylvia Stanton, and their mother’s brother. He was obscenely rich, obscenely powerful, and rather a pill. Brett avoided him at all costs and it seemed to be the best way to have a relationship with the man. Lou Stanton owned Mino Island, but he also had connections just about everywhere, including the secret, exclusive Reef resort. Should Patience decide to ask Uncle Lou about Brett, he could easily find the reservation under Michel’s name and this vacation, not to mention the privacy of their relationship, would be over. It all depended on Brett keeping his story, his life, so unbelievably dull that Patience wouldn’t be tempted to follow up. Tenuous and not a little bit terrifying.
“No, he must not have put it together that we’d be here at the same time. Besides, I booked through my work, LT Technologies,” Brett said, contradicting himself and wondering if his astute sister would notice.
Patience sat back in her chair, the flicker of keen interest dying. “Oh, right, remind me what you do again?”
Gladly, Brett thought and launched into an explanation of his research. It had always been his number one defense against his family—talking about the experiments he was conducting in such details that their eyes glazed over and they forgot why they’d wanted to spend time with him in the first place. Well, apart from that period when he’d tried to be a screenwriter, play by their rules, and win their affection. It had worked for a while, then led to some of the darkest days of his life. If it hadn’t been for Lucille and Michel, he’d still be face down in a pile of unwashed sheets and dirty dishes.
Sure enough, Patience cut him off partway through his explanation of the chemical composition of various components of their new cellular technologies. She stood up. “I regret asking. And my drink’s empty. We’re going to the bar.”
Brett didn’t want to go to the bar. He drank so infrequently now and he didn’t want to waste that infrequency on drinks with his sister. It sounded cruel, even when he said it to himself, but he had the deep psychological wounds to show what bonding with his family led to. Yet, he stood, followed her across the lobby, and out the doors leading to the pool and the poolside cantina.
“You still didn’t explain why you’re here,” Brett said as he scanned the sunbathers, checking to see how extensive the relative ambush was. He recognized a few of his fellow guests as people he’d met when he used to attend Hollywood parties, no familial relations. His gaze snagged on a woman sitting by herself at a high top on the other side of the pool. He knew her. Didn’t he? She seemed so familiar...
“Evelyn. I was right, it was Brett.” Patience interrupted his thoughts. As he processed her words, his stomach sank and he turned to face another woman, this one well known to him, unfortunately.
She used to have the same hair as Brett and Patience. Brown as brown can be. But for as long as Brett could remember, she’d worn it deep red, and while the rest of the family generally opted for the unkempt, wild look of the artist, Evelyn Jacobs went sleek and styled with carefully controlled waves. She turned on her heels, whipping her hair over her shoulder, and fixed Brett with the full force of her smoky-eyed gaze.
She was wearing a dress with Michel’s face on it. Not a single image either. Oh no, the dress was covered in photos of Michel. They were from his coffee table book—him shirtless and brooding, looking away from the camera. Michel gazing directly at the viewer, his eyes smoldering. Michel leaning casually against the counter in his mansion, his shirt unbuttoned and his posture relaxed. Michel sitting by a creek with a guitar. Every inch the tortured, genius artist the Jacobs family loved. There was no way he could allow them anywhere near Michel, not now, not ever.
When Evelyn saw him, she stopped drinking from the floral print paper straw that stuck out of her goblet-sized margarita. After a moment in which she seemed to be deciding how to react to his presence, she opened her arms and said, “Bretty,” in a high voice, filled with fake excitement.
“Hey, Evie,” he said, using her old nickname in response to his own. He stepped toward her and returned her weak hug with a quick back pat before retreating to a safe distance and hiding a cringe at her outfit.
Brett was torn between not knowing what to say and not knowing how to react. He hadn’t seen his sisters in nearly two years, ever since his writer’s block over his second script and Michel’s perceived abandonment caused him to retreat into a hole of depression, shame, and alcoholism.
Patience ordered another coconut and raised her eyebrows at Brett to ask if he wanted anything.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t drink much anymore.”
His sisters exchanged a look. “Hmm.” Patience smiled when the bartender handed her the drink.
Evelyn cut into the awkward silence. “Did Patience tell you why we’re here? Uncle Lou wants to turn her series into a TV show for his new streaming service. Patience, being the shrewd businesswoman she is, wasn’t going to just sign any old offer simply because he’s our uncle. So, he flew us out here for a few days to sweeten the deal.”
Brett’s blood froze. “Uncle Lou is here?” There went his cover story, and he hadn’t even had the chance to perfect it.
Evelyn smacked his arm. She’d always reminded him of the first sorority girl to get drunk at the party. “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course, Uncle Lou doesn’t have the time to jet off to an island.”
Patience shot Brett a look that he didn’t understand but immediately assumed meant she was onto him because why wouldn’t he suddenly develop a persecution complex? She led the way to one of the high tops near the pool.
While his siblings bent over their tropical beverages, Brett leaned back, folded his arms, and tried to keep himself from running away screaming. It wasn’t like he was going to hang out with them all day, but he did need to get some info. Like what they’d be doing for the next few days so Michel and he could avoid them. He looked at Evelyn’s dress again and bit back his commentary.
It wasn’t just that his family was obsessed with this heavy drinking, destructively creative lifestyle. Nor that they were entirely focused on money and careers and getting ahead in the business. If those flaws were the worst of them, Brett would have begged Michel to come with him as emotional support. But no, the real problem was right there on that damn dress. Evelyn Louise Jacobs was the president of the largest and most active Michel Polce fan club in the world. They had weekly meetings, they went to all his appearances, and they had just about every piece of clothing autographed they could. There were forums, groups on every social media platform, and a physical headquarters, the location of which was the worst kept secret in LA. More than a few of them walked the fine line between fandom and obsession.
It was only a matter of time before the fan club found out about his and Michel’s relationship. They knew he was friends with Michel, but Brett had always been able to downplay their connection. If they knew he was dating the man and totally in love... well, when that truth came out, Brett had no illusions he’d ever be invited back into the family circle. He’d heard what Evelyn had said about Sylvia, and she was their cousin. Her own brother? He knew his tenuous relationship with his siblings wouldn’t survive the news and didn’t want to be anywhere in the vicinity when it exploded.
Evelyn jumped in before he could ask about their plans.
“What are you doing here, Bretty? Did Uncle Lou invite you, too? He really should have told us if he did.”
Patience answered, her eyes boring into Brett as she did. “No, Brett’s here on a vacation with a friend.”
“Ooh, a friend. What’s that code for? A girlfriend?” Evelyn might have been teasing, but her voice was sharp, laced with something more than idle curiosity, and it cut at Brett.
Brett wanted to say it was none of her damn business if he had a girlfriend, or a boyfriend for that matter. Instead, he changed the subject. “So, what’re you two up to while you’re here for the next...”
He trailed off, hoping one of them would tell them exactly how long they were staying.
“Two days,” Patience said. “You’re looking at it,” she added.
Evelyn nodded. “Yep. Two more days of relaxing with absolutely nothing to do. I’ve told the club I’m completely unavailable, and Patience isn’t taking calls from her agent or publisher right now. A complete disconnect.”
“Sounds wonderful,” Brett said and meant it. He let them chatter on, asking questions now and again about Patience’s latest work and the rest of the family. He didn’t inquire about the fan club, although Evelyn filled him in anyway. It wasn’t until the sun was setting and he realized he was starving that he broke away from them. They both encouraged him to join them for dinner and to bring his friend, but he claimed jetlag and headed toward the room. He hadn’t meant linger for so long but also hadn’t been able to bring himself to leave. Was he really so worried about what they’d get up to if he wasn’t watching? Or was there something else, some deep-seated fear of leaning into this intimate vacation with Michel that kept him away? Brett pushed the second option aside as utter nonsense. He wasn’t afraid of being with Michel. His reticence had everything to do with his terrible sisters and their potential to ruin his vacation.