Million-Dollar Consequences

Thirteen

Three days. It’d been three days since he’d had sex with Meghan. It was beginning to appear as if the proverbial honeymoon was over, and they weren’t even married.

Worse, they weren’t snapping at each other, or openly arguing about whether or not she was moving to LA. Her mornings were rushed, with her gathering her laptop and planner and kissing him goodbye on her way to work at the coffee shop. By evening, she’d been parked in front of her laptop, headphones on, editing her latest podcast.

He’d planned on asking her about their abnormal dry spell until this morning, when he’d opened the bathroom cabinet and spotted a box of tampons on the shelf. That’s when he realized she was on her period, which explained the lack of sex. She was still sore at him, but at least she wasn’t repulsed by him.

God, he was an idiot.

He finished filming by one o’clock in the afternoon. Ashley told everyone to take the day and the next off since she’d like “some alone time with my sexy husband,” who had come to town to visit. Isaac would take it. He could use the time to patch things up with Meghan, and hopefully sell her on the idea of California, after all.

“My last day.” Outside of the hotel, Max expertly steered away from a group of fans with pens at the ready.

“You should sign something for them,” Isaac urged, smiling and waving at the raised cell phones.

“Pass,” Max said. “Let’s get a beer. Then you can tell me what’s been eating at you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s me, Isaac. You know I know.”

He probably did. They had always had that twin-mindmeld thing, and being close in proximity had amped it up tenfold. “Okay, but we have to go to your place or mine. I can’t talk freely at Rocky’s.”

“My place,” Max decided, angling for his truck.

Twenty minutes later, they arranged two Adirondack chairs around the bonfire Max had built in his backyard. Facing the mountainside, the crisp fall air cooling his lungs, Isaac was glad they hadn’t gone to a restaurant to talk. The solitude of Max’s place was nice. As if choreographed, they each lifted their beer bottles and sucked down hearty swallows.

“Damn, that tastes good.” Max lowered into his chair.

“Tastes better because it’s your last day of shooting.” But his brother’s last day wasn’t entirely welcome to Isaac. That “whole feeling” was splintering yet again. With his and Meghan’s distance, with Max wrapping his final scenes.

He hated this feeling. Brooding, he sat in his own chair and stared at the fire.

“Assuming your mood has something to do with Meghan,” Max said.

“What mood?”

Max pointed at him. “That one.”

Isaac gave in and explained his last argument with Meghan, concluding, “LA would be good for her.”

“And for you.”

“Well, yeah. But this has always been about helping each other. What’s wrong with that?”

“Meghan doesn’t want to live in LA any more than I do. Did she tell you she looked at a house out here?”

“She mentioned it.” It irked him that Max knew, but then Max knew everything Kendall did so maybe Isaac shouldn’t take it personally. “If she rents now, she’ll settle for a tiny apartment. She can buy a giant house if she waits until the show airs. In six months she’ll have ten times the fan base, which means bigger asks for sponsorships and bigger advertisers.”

“Not everyone cares about bigger.”

“It’s smarter to continue the engagement story until the show airs.”

“You’re my brother and I love you,” Max said, which harkened that a big-brother life lesson was forthcoming. “But if you break Meghan’s heart, I’ll crush you into tiny pieces.”

“Meghan’s heart is in zero danger. And you’d have your hands full with me, bro. I know tae kwon do.”

Max’s eyebrows jumped. “Really?”

“Really. Besides, Meghan is the one who wants to escape me, not the other way around.”

“She’s smart.”

“Think you can give me your honest opinion without the insults?”

Contemplatively, Max took a swig from his beer bottle. Then he spoke.

“After they wrapped Brooks Knows Best the first time around, I made it clear to you that I wasn’t interested in the spotlight any longer. You could not be deterred, brother. I wouldn’t say you were blind with ambition, but you sure as fuck weren’t seeing twenty-twenty. You dragged me to God knows how many signings and fairs so you could continue basking in the fading spotlight of your fans.”

“I was passionate. You can’t blame me for fighting as hard for it as you fought to escape it. And they were our fans.” A point Max often forgot. “They loved you as much if not more than they loved me.”

“Not true. You’re the natural.”

Not wanting to start an old argument that’d never ended well, Isaac sighed. “What does this have to do with Meghan?”

“She might be like me.”