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  “So, Nate,” I say casually, popping off the bottle cap against the counter, “what’s with the surprise visit? You know I never complain to have you here, but usually you, well… call first. How long did it take you to get here?”

  Nate gives a nervous smile, and I don’t miss the way his eyes flick over to Phel, like he’s afraid to answer and is trying to choose his words as carefully as possible. “I left in kind of a hurry,” he answers, and shrugs in too offhand a way to be natural. “Started out five days ago and didn’t stop until I hit San Diego. I grabbed a shower before I got here, though, since I didn’t think it’d be polite to turn up on your doorstep smelling like a truck stop.”

  “How considerate,” murmurs Phel, and that’s the first thing he’s said so far this morning not in response to a direct question. The words make Nate’s back go up—I can see his shoulders tighten—but he fails on the return volley. Definitely weird. And Phel… well, Phel can be a bit of a princess sometimes, but one thing he isn’t is ill-mannered. I’m sure they saw to that in finishing school or wherever. At this point, I think, we’re obligated to have a confrontation about this later. I moodily swig my beer.

  Much to my annoyance, I’m equally unimpressed by Nate’s explanation. This is exactly the type of nonanswer he likes to give when avoiding something major. It’s probably impolite for me to pursue an interrogation in front of a complete stranger—strange to Nate, at least—but I’m compelled to take advantage of his sudden timidity. Brothers are like that, always exploiting weaknesses out of love.

  “Didn’t Emilia have anything to say about you taking off like that? Normally she’d have called to make sure you arrived in once piece by now.” When Nate’s face darkens, I fold my arms and grunt in displeasure. It’s one of those uncontrollable responses of mine that remind me why Nate sometimes calls me a Neanderthal, but right now I’d rather get some answers than worry about my image. “Nate, is everything okay?”

  “Yeah, everything’s peachy; just needed a break,” he tells me—too quickly—and that’s about as much as I can stand of him lying to my face. It’s 100 percent clear that’s what he’s doing, playing me off like I’m some fucking nitwit and not his only brother, not the person who knows him better than anyone else alive.

  “Nate,” I repeat. I catch the look in his eyes that begs me to drop the subject, let it go, but my hackles are up and I just can’t. We aren’t so different, Nate and I; the thought of there being something wrong with him makes me crazy. “Tell me what’s going on, or I’ll phone Emilia myself.” Well, that’s a bit extreme as far as strong-arm tactics go, but from the wild expression that flashes across his face, I know I’ve hit pay dirt. I don’t know what to make of the fact that Nate is freaked out by the prospect of me speaking to his wife, especially since Emilia and I have always been on great terms.

  “I should… go,” Phel interjects, starting to rise from his stool. He and Nate both look like they’re going to be sick, but I’m not letting Phel out of my sight just yet either.

  I throw out my hand to grab his arm. “Stay,” I tell him, and Callie makes a small noise of confusion, dancing on her paws in front of me. Clearly she thinks the order is for her, even though she hasn’t moved since we got to the kitchen.

  Still, both she and Phel obey, though he says, “Obviously you two have something to discuss,” in a strangled voice. “It’s not my place.” The glance exchanged between him and Nate is one I have no hope of interpreting. “I wouldn’t want an audience present for a conversation of this kind with my family.”

  I want to remind Phel that he doesn’t even talk to his family, but the point is moot and it would be a dickish thing to bring up. So I roll my eyes and say, “According to Nate, it’s nothing anyway. Right, Nate?” Both of them glare at me. “It’s my house!” I add stubbornly. “I deserve to know why my married brother is suddenly showing up unattached on my doorstep.”

  Something about my phrasing makes Nate and Phel both flinch. “Who said anything about ‘unattached’?” my brother demands, fingers tightening around his glass of water. For the first time since he got here, I realize his fingers are naked except for the silver ring he always wears on his right hand. His gold wedding band is gone, which wouldn’t normally be such a big deal—he’s always afraid of losing it at work somewhere—except for the look on his face when he sees me notice.

  I take a step back from the table. When I was little, the best way to get Nate’s attention or find out information was, if not outright bribery, to keep saying his name until he caved. I’m tempted to do that now, a steady line of Nate, Nate, Nate, Nate, NATE, but it’s as much to satisfy the sudden flash of worry as it is concern he won’t eventually tell me what’s the matter. When your brother—who never goes anywhere without his family—suddenly shows up at your house at the other end of the country with a single suitcase and a stubborn refusal to call his wife, there’s a really short list of explanations.

  He must know me too well, because before I can start scrabbling for the one that’s least likely—Emilia’s mother wanted a quiet vacation with just her daughter and grandson, maybe—he sets his jaw and says, “Emilia and I are getting divorced,” in a voice tight with something, and refuses to look away from the middle distance. Not at me and certainly not at Phel, and suddenly I feel like the biggest heel going for not letting Phelan make a break for it when he first tried. I swallow around the lump in my throat that threatens to choke me. “She and Liam are still in Mount Vernon, and she’s going for full custody. I didn’t know how to tell you this over the phone, so I just started driving. Okay? She threw me out.” Phel is staring at him, hard, but Nate won’t meet his eye and takes a swallow of his water instead. For a fraction of a second, our gazes collide.

  “What happened?” I ask in a horrified whisper, but before Nate can respond, Phel pushes himself away from the counter with a deafening scrape of the chair against the kitchen tile. Both Nate and I jump. Phel says, “I’m leaving,” in a tone of voice that clearly says, That is fucking it.

  Nate nods to himself like the announcement surprises him not at all, lifting his glass in a sarcastic toast. “So long, Phel,” he chirps.

  “Don’t move,” I order Nate, and scramble after Phel in the direction of the front door, which he’s managed to reach with surprising speed.

  Maybe Nate’s impending marital breakdown—my response to even thinking the words is an automatic what the fuck?—takes precedence, but I still promised myself I would get to the bottom of Phelan’s sudden moodiness. We’re at the point where we’re blunt with each other pretty much all the time, or at least I am, and I kind of like what we have going. But I know I’ll never get a straight answer out of him if he leaves now, since honesty with Phel is like spotting Halley’s Comet: miss it, and chances are you won’t see it again this lifetime.

  “Phel, wait up,” I say, trying once again to grab his wrist. This time he manages to evade me. “What’s going on? I’m sorry you got pulled into the middle of that, but even before you seemed—”

  “What?”

  My eyebrows lift at the sharpness of his voice. “You seemed to really dislike Nate. I never gave much thought to the two of you meeting, but I guess I didn’t expect you to actually hate the guy on sight.” Baffled and not afraid to show it, I give a shrug. “Is there a problem?” I can’t think of a single damn reason why Nate might have pissed Phelan off within seconds of meeting—if anything, he tends to charm his way past people’s defenses so fast it gives me whiplash. Not Phel, though, and I want to know why. I could leave it alone and hope it’ll change, but in my experience, Phel always responds best when given the chance to explain himself.

  Unnervingly, Phelan looks at me really hard for a moment, and I get this creepy sense he’s trying to decide whether or not to trust me. That stings a little bit, because I thought we were way past all that, but I can recognize the expression of someone who’s deliberating whether or not to rescind my security clearance. But just when I expec
t him to blow me off, Phel sighs, and his eyes flutter shut like the weight of the world has attached itself to his eyelashes.

  “I’m sorry,” he says eventually. “I didn’t intend to be so rude, but Nate just… he reminds me of you-know-who.” I do know, though it’s vaguely ridiculous that Phel still refuses to refer to his ex-boyfriend by name around me. “My back went up a bit and I didn’t do a very good job of controlling the emotional response. Hence the pills. I’m sorry, Hugh.”

  His earnestness makes me laugh in surprise, then quiet when Phelan’s shoulders stiffen a little. “That’s kind of a relief,” I admit, astounded it’s so simple. In a way I pity Phelan for feeling haunted by his ex, to the point he’s even seeing flashes of memory in my painfully straight big brother. Nate probably never looked twice at a guy in his life.

  “Obviously there’s some stuff going on with Nate and his wife, but I don’t think you need to worry—he’s a decent person and pretty much the straightest guy on the planet, if you don’t count his weird obsession with Hugh Jackman.” The reference either escapes Phelan or he isn’t in the mood to joke around; an unimpressed muscle tics in his cheek. “Let me find out what’s going on with him today, alright? We’ll meet up for surfing tomorrow, promise. I hope you give Nate a chance, though, because he’ll probably want to hang out. I’d really like it if the two of you got along. It’d be shitty if my brother and my best friend wound up hating each other.”

  Those wide blue eyes blink up at me as Phel chews his bottom lip for a moment, worrying the plump flesh red. “I’m your best friend?” he asks. The surprise is clear in his voice. What the hell did he think we were doing this whole time, hanging out every day like we’re the only two people in Cardiff?

  “Well, yeah,” I retort. “You think I’d put up with your crazy otherwise?” This earns me a smile—I don’t swing that way either, but I have to admit that Phel’s smile is something special—and I can’t help grinning, sagging a little at the respite in Phel’s dark mood. “Go home, Phel. No way should you be trying to surf after all that Xanax you ate.”

  Reluctantly, Phel nods. For a brief second, his eyes flicker toward the kitchen, and seem to rest there as a single line of concern forms between his brows. Then it’s gone just as suddenly, and he’s sliding his feet into his sandals and pushing the front door open. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Hugh,” he says in farewell. “I hope… I hope everything works out with your brother.”

  “Me too.”

  With one last smile, I close the door behind his departing back and, sighing, have to lean against it for a moment to get my bearings. I’ve coached a few buddies through breakups before, not including Phel, but trying to help my brother come to grips with divorce seems another animal altogether. I know everyone says this, but I thought he and Emilia were going to stay together forever. Shows what I know.

  Nate’s still staring into space when I return to the kitchen, though I notice there are another couple of beers open on the counter, braced for the impending conversation as much as either of us. At my entrance, Nate looks up with a faint lopsided smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

  “Sorry I scared off your buddy,” he offers.

  “Phel doesn’t do well with emotional stuff,” I answer. He’s not the only one, far from it, but at least Phel is man enough to admit it. “If I’d known, I’d have never invited him inside.”

  “Where’d you meet him, anyway?” I know Nate’s trying to change the subject and put us off talking about his divorce for as long as possible, but since I don’t blame him, I let this one slide.

  I shrug and play with the label of my beer. Beneath the table I can feel Callie breathing wetly on my bare toes, her quiet mood seeming to feed off the maudlin energy in the room. “We met at the beach a few months back,” I explain. “I know he comes across as kind of intense, but he’s a really good guy. He has his own shit to deal with as much as anyone else. Cardiff seems to be the place to be for emotional crises.” Though I smile at the joke, Nate doesn’t.

  “He’s having an emotional crisis?” he asks instead.

  For a second I debate how much to tell him. I don’t think it’s kosher to let slip that Phel is being rehabilitated for his nervous breakdown, but the basics probably won’t pose an issue. “Some guy back East really fucked him over—Phelan fell for him, hard, except the jerk turned out to be married with kids the whole time. The wife found out and the whole thing turned into a colossal mess, so Phel pretty much came out here to recoup and hide. The dude sounds like a classic douchebag, but Phel is still torn up.” Maybe I said too much; Nate flinches. The tic reminds me to stay on topic. “What’s going on with you and Em?”

  The way Nate stares down at his beer makes it look like he really wants the beverage to up and speak for him. It doesn’t, of course, so Nate gives a miserable grunt that curls his lip at the corner. “Hugh, I—” His voice breaks, which I don’t think I’ve heard since Dad died. His hands come up to push through his hair roughly. “Fuck. I’m the classic douchebag, man. Emilia, she… she caught me messin’ around with someone else.”

  The force of my jolt rocks my stool against the counter. “What the fuck?”

  Nate grunts in response. My guess is he doesn’t want to have to repeat himself. Nevertheless, he sighs and chooses to elaborate, which I suppose is one of the perks of being a brother—if I were anyone else, I’m sure he would have told me to eat a dick. I can tell he’s not happy about it, though. “Yes, it was only one person, and no, I didn’t mean for it to happen.” He looks so damn tired when he says it and, if I can be honest, sad. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen Nate look that worn-down.

  This information is somewhat reassuring, though only moderately so. Nate’s never been one for thinking ahead, and the spontaneity of his decision to cheat isn’t totally surprising to me; that he cheated at all is what’s shocking. My mind can’t decide what it wants to know most, however, so it seems best to stick to the basics. “And Emilia filed for divorce once she found out?”

  Unexpectedly, Nate laughs, a quiet snort through his nose. “Actually, no. Despite what happened, we tried to work it out—did couples therapy for a while, separate bedrooms, ‘I feel’ statements, the whole bit. But it wasn’t helping, and eventually I just told her I’d gone as far as I could go, had the papers drawn up. Then she threw me out and announced she was applying for full custody of Liam.”

  “Wait, you’re divorcing her?” I don’t mean to suggest Nate could only ever be the one to get dumped, not at all, but he’s always been first to admit Emilia is a perfect ten, not only gorgeous, but intelligent, sane, awesome, and a great mother to boot. Divorcing her is the equivalent of a homeless dude turning down a $50 million windfall. “Are you out of your mind? Why?” A horrible thought occurs to me: “Oh God, you aren’t in love with this other woman, are you?”

  That defeated sigh again. “Yeah, Hugh, I am.” Our eyes meet, and he looks troubled, but not unsure; when I asked him the same thing about Emilia almost a decade ago, just after he found out about Liam, his answer wasn’t half as confident. “It was totally unplanned. We just met and….” He hesitates. “She changed my whole life, man. Changed the way I think about myself, who I want to be. I couldn’t stay with Emilia after that, not even for Liam. It’d be just as unhealthy for him to live in the same house as two parents who don’t love each other and fight all the time, a father who regrets everything he never became. Hell, we grew up with a dad who hated himself, and look how much fun that was.”

  “So you would have left Emilia eventually, if she hadn’t found you out first?” I have my doubts about that, but leave them unsaid. Nate, for all his bluster, isn’t much of a risk-taker, especially when it comes to falling short of other people’s expectations of him. It’s for that reason I try not to ask too much of him, because I know he’ll bend over backwards every time to try and come through, even if he kills himself in the process.

  “I was thinking pretty seriously ab
out it,” Nate admits. “It never seemed like a real option, but after a year, it began to feel like the only one. I couldn’t keep living a lie, and it wasn’t fair to anyone.”

  It feels like my mind is running at half speed; much of what I should be extrapolating from this conversation is losing out to the bombshells Nate probably doesn’t even realize are bombshells. “A year?!” Jesus, my voice is starting to screech worse than Gilbert Gottfried’s. I knock it down a few decibels until I’m almost at a whisper, even though we’re inside my own house. “You screwed around on your wife and kid for a whole year, Nate? Seriously? What the fuck?”

  “It wasn’t that simple, dude.” The flush high in his cheeks hints that Nate is starting to get angry, defensive. “Both of us had something to lose by the relationship coming out.” He gets flustered for no reason and adds, uselessly, “In the open, I mean. Out in the open. Trust me, the last thing she wanted was for it to become public knowledge she was dating some loser contractor from the middle of nowhere. Her family is super conservative and high-profile, and it just… trust me when I say the fallout was bad.”

  God, what is it with these people? I think. Like it wasn’t bad enough Phel’s parents kicked him to the curb and forgot his name when they found out he was gay; apparently there are still families out there pulling Gone With the Wind Scarlett O’Hara shit. “Where is she now?” I ask awkwardly. “Are you two still together at least?”

  Nate clenches his jaw. “No. She pretty much told me to get herpes and die painfully when she found out I was married. I’d told her about Liam before that, but Emilia… I tried to play it off like we were no longer together.” He must catch my look, because he adds, “I know, Hugh, I fucked up big time. You don’t need to say it.”

  “Holy shit, Nate. You didn’t just fuck up, you ruined three people’s lives, not including your own!” The force of my own outburst surprises me, but goddamn—I’ve never known Nate to be so careless with other people. He’s never been anything but overprotective of the people he loves, me and Emilia and Liam. If the shoe were on the other foot, he’d have killed someone for pulling a stunt like this. I feel like I don’t know the person sitting in front of me, and I think maybe that comes out in the way I look at my brother across the countertop, because Nate bristles and visibly restrains himself from throwing something, either a fist or his beer bottle.