“It was good,” I said distractedly, thinking of something else. “Look, could you meet me over here at the hotel?”
“Uh oh,” Christian said. “Are you looking at different shirts again?”
I laughed a little, but the sound was weak. “I honestly wish I were,” I told him.
“I'll be there in ten,” Mark told me.
True to his word, he strode into the suite not too long after that. He raised an eyebrow at the way that I was pacing and dropped almost challengingly into a chair. “Dude, what's up?” he asked. “You look stressed.”
“I am,” I admitted. “I shouldn't be, I should have known this day was coming, but I am.”
“You're headed back to New York,” Mark said, realization dawning on his face.
“No!” I said. “I haven't booked my flight yet, but I've been looking at them. That'll happen soon.” I grimaced. “It’s because of my brother.”
“Okay,” Mark said slowly. “I didn't realize you had a brother.”
“I don't talk about him much,” I admitted. “And the media doesn't seem to have realized he exists either. We don't have a relationship. At all. I was…” I swallowed.
“You were probably a dick to him,” Mark surmised, the words coming easily. He shrugged. “Sorry, but I've ready all your interviews and things.”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “I was a dick to him.”
“So.”
“So, he's here in Hawaii at the moment,” I said. “And I feel like, I don't know...”
“You probably should make things right with him,” Mark said, as though it was that simple.
“But he wasn't-”
“No,” Mark said, holding up a hand. “I know that's a pretty normal sibling move, but you can't just do the 'he said, she said' thing for the rest of your life or you're never going to solve anything. And then you'll probably be sitting there on your death bed eventually, and you'll be stuck wondering about all the things that you might have changed about your relationship with your brother. Well, no one's going to want to listen to that shit. You'd better make things right now.”
It was both incredibly wise and incredibly ludicrous for him to say, and I couldn't help laughing. I sobered quickly though. “I don't even know how to make things right with him, though,” I told him. “Like, should I offer him money? He probably doesn't need that anyway; he apparently comes here to Hawaii every year, and-”
“Yeah, don't do that,” Mark said, making a face at me. “It honestly bothers me that that's your first idea.”
“So, what should I-”
“Just be upfront with him, dude,” Mark said. “We all have our faults. And you're lucky because if he's kept up with the news about you at all, he probably already knows all your faults. He knows that you drink too much and that you party too hard and that you've slept with nearly every woman in the world. You don't even really have to say anything except that you're sorry.”
I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. “You make it sound so easy,” I complained.
“It is,” Mark said. “Look, I don't want to go too much into the backstory here, but I've got a brother too. He lives on the mainland now, in Florida. Growing up, living with him was absolute hell. And when he moved out, I swore that I was never going to talk to the guy again. But you know what? One day, he called me up out of the blue and said that he was in Hawaii and that he wanted to meet up and apologize. And we had the most awkward lunch ever, and we talk nearly every other week and exchange holiday cards and all that. He's one of my good friends. I never would have expected that.”
I sighed. “It can't be that easy,” I said. “But I guess I have no choice but to try it.” I shook my head. “If I’m being honest, I wouldn't even be thinking about it this much, but he's the only family that I have left.”
“Aw, man. You need to make up with him then,” Mark said. “Do you know where he's staying here in Hawaii?”
“Not a clue,” I said, shaking my head. “All I know is that I was over at Gretchen's place yesterday and we went for a walk on the beach, and that's when he ran into us, so we assume he must be somewhere in that vicinity. But that doesn't narrow it down all that much.”
Mark shook his head, a grin on his face. “Man, I knew I was going to be able to pay you back one of these days!” he exclaimed.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“One of my really good friends is a police officer here. He can find your man, no worries. What's his name?”
“Jeffrey Wall,” I said. “I think that's still his last name. For all I know, he's changed it so as to have nothing to do with me ever again.”