Million-Dollar Consequences

He wasn’t the villain. He had been trying to do the right thing from the start. He’d been trying to make Cecil happy, to make the show a success, to repair his relationship with Max. He’d been trying to help Meghan’s podcast gain a million followers.

Rather than those well-worn excuses, Isaac asked a question he hadn’t planned on asking. “What if... What if I did love her? What then?”

“You tell her.” Max’s eyebrows rose.

“And what if I told her? She’d expect me to be this...whole person. Not to make any mistakes.” Isaac gripped his beer glass and shook his head. “She’d expect me to have my shit together.”

“What are you talking about?” His brother looked genuinely perplexed. “Loving someone doesn’t mean being perfect. It means you’re willing to try.”

“And when I screw up?” He lifted a hand and dropped it, half embarrassed to admit his fears and half relieved to share them out loud. “Then what?”

“Then you do what you and Meghan have been doing from the beginning. You argue and then you make up.”

“How the hell do you focus on a family and a career at the same time? In the past I’ve been able to handle one at a time. Look at us. I had to choose, and I chose wrong. You and I haven’t been the same since. I can’t put Meghan through that. Or our child.”

Max’s eyebrows bowed with sympathy, but his words were loaded with undiluted sarcasm. “Tell me you’re not this dumb.”

“I care about her,” Isaac continued, ignoring his brother’s insult. “It’s not that I don’t care about her.”

“Admitting you love her isn’t like saying Beetlejuice three times, Isaac. You’re not going to summon bad luck because of it. And as for you and me...”

Isaac swallowed thickly, his heart on tenterhooks. He’d long wished he and Max would be close again. That he’d finally cross the chasm between them.

“You’re my twin brother,” Max said. “It nearly killed me to leave you behind. That’s why I stayed in LA for years longer than I’d planned. I told myself leaving LA was for the best, but brother...” Max put a hand on Isaac’s shoulder and squeezed. “It was hell losing touch with you. When we finally found our way back to each other, I worried we’d never be the same.”

“And?”

Tenderness flooded Max’s normally rigid expression. “Look around. We found our way back. You’re here, reading my damn mind again. I took the part on Brooks Knows Best to be near you.”

Isaac blinked. “I thought you agreed to the role for the fans.”

“So, you are this dumb.”

Isaac wanted to laugh at his brother’s joke. He wanted to hug him. He also wanted to rage about the mess he’d made of absolutely everything. Instead he shook his head, remorse his dominating emotion. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” Max boomed. “Don’t be sorry. If I hadn’t taken that role you convinced me to take, I might never have realized that while I did the right thing leaving acting, I was dead wrong for holding you accountable for my actions. I never should have cut you out of my life. I never should have left you alone out there or let you believe you didn’t matter. You matter more than anyone to me. If I lost you permanently, the way Kendall and Meghan lost their brother...” He trailed off, unable to say any more.

“I feel the same way,” Isaac said, his heart aching for an entirely different reason than before. Or maybe the same reason—for Meghan. For how she must have hurt when she’d lost Quinton. For how she must hurt now that he’d proposed to her and made her feel unloved.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Max said. “But you’re done using me as an excuse for not taking everything you want in life. Shit changes. That’s the one thing you can count on. Nothing will stay the same, and no matter how hard we try, we can’t control the circumstances we find ourselves in. You have to roll with it. Do your best. But take the risk, Isaac. If I hadn’t risked everything for Kendall, I’d still be alone on this mountaintop, blaming you for my choices. You get me?”

Isaac got him, all right. Some of the ache in his heart dissipated, proving there had been unresolved issues from the years he and Max hadn’t spoken. The part of his heart that missed Meghan was radiating with pain, but at least he could see the end of it with him and Max.

“I was this close to having it all,” Isaac told his brother. “At one point she wanted to be with me.”

“And now?”

“And now she doesn’t.”

Max said nothing, which was in a way worse than if he’d yelled. Isaac could do without the yelling, but he needed advice. Usually Max hid some advice within the yelling.

“I mean, she is at your house...”

Max was already shaking his head. “You can’t come there. Kendall will have my ass.”

“My family is important. I lost you once. I don’t want to lose Meghan.”

“So, you thought a proposal would guarantee she’d stick around?”

“Yeah, okay? Yes.” Isaac drank his beer, but it sat flavorless on his tongue before he swallowed. “I didn’t know what else to offer her.”

“You could love her. Let go of the idea that you can’t admit how you feel about her until after you’ve achieved this elusive perfection you’ve been chasing.”

“Wholeness. I’ve been chasing wholeness,” Isaac mumbled, but that sounded as stupid as chasing perfection.

“You can be in love and screw up at the same time. Look at me.”

Isaac managed a weak chuckle, but it was short-lived. “Truth?”

“Hit me.”