Brothers of Paradise Series

“Yes. The whole family is going, actually. I’m sure the Harrises are attending?”

He gives a nod. “My parents will be there, yeah. But I was thinking… how about we go together?”

I’m momentarily confused. The Maze Party is Paradise Shores’ biggest event in the summer. A garden party hosted on the lawns down by the beach, filled to the brim with familiar faces and cocktails. There’s a small maze, constructed for the children, which gives the party its name. It’s practically an institution. Turner and I had been there at the same time on several occasions over the years.

But now he wanted us to…

“Together, together?” I ask stupidly. “Like a date?”

He cocks his head, a faint blush on his cheeks. “If you want to, yes. Or as good friends, as co-workers. I enjoy spending time with you.”

My immediate instinct is to turn him down. It’s a bad idea for about a hundred different reasons. I’ve never been attracted to him, for starters. He’s also my brother’s friend. He was kind of a dick in high school.

And there’s a little voice whispering in my head, familiar and exasperating, saying that he’s not Hayden. Every time I think I’m ready to move on, I hear that voice.

I tell it to shut up.

“I’d love to,” I say.

You think you won’t get over pain, or betrayal, or loss, but you do.

You get up every morning and the sun still shines. The waves still crash against the shore in the distance, and your mom still makes you buttermilk pancakes. The world keeps spinning. And you find that you carry on, too.

After Hayden left, I ended up accepting an offer from Yale, and it was everything I wanted. It had art and design courses. Interesting student organizations, closeness to the city, a lively student council. Close enough to New York, and therefore also Rhys. A semester spent in Paris to study art at the Sorbonne and practice my French.

But it didn’t have the seafood I loved.

It didn’t have the beach and the ocean.

And it didn’t have Hayden.

Not that he would’ve been there, even if he could. He’d made that perfectly clear. For years, no one had heard anything from him. He didn’t show up in Paradise Shores. He wasn’t active on social media, not that he ever really was to begin with.

Texting him that first month had been mildly humiliating. I’d sent text after text without getting a reply, not until one day, he texted back eight little words.

I’m going away for a while. Take care, Lily.

Nine words, actually, if you counted my name.

That was all I got. Rhys got even less, and Parker was just confused.

The one picture I got was through Hayden’s uncle, inadvertently. He’d showed it to my mom, who’d shown Henry, and somehow it had made its way to me.

It was Hayden in uniform. His thick, dark hair was gone, shaved close to the skull. A hat was tucked under his arm and he stood pin-straight, shoulders back. He was handsome, handsome in a foreign, adult way, in a way I’d only been able to imagine. He stared straight into the camera, eyes solemn and distant, giving nothing away. Was he happy in the military? Had he found his calling?

The man in the photograph gave me no answers, much like his real-life self.

So I put the photograph out of my mind and focused on making something of myself. I spent five years in New York, living across the hall from Rhys and working at one gallery after another. It got boring eventually, and I missed the ocean and my family. So I came back to Paradise Shores and ended up in Harris Property Development, my father’s rival. Now I have my own place close to the ocean and I spend nearly every weekend at the family house, making pancakes and eating family brunch.Belonging to NôvelDrama.Org.

It’s a good life-despite the Hayden-shaped hole in it. So what if I’d never considered Turner before? We were friendly. He was nice, and we laughed together. I’d made the completely right decision in accepting his suggestion for a date.

I would wear my white, lacey dress, my wedge heels, and I’d drink champagne and enjoy myself with Turner. No expectations, no fears.

Tonight, though, I’m snuggling alone on my couch with the TV on. There is no point in stressing about a date that was days away. There’s a new documentary about Italian art that I want to watch.

The show has just started when my phone chimes. It’s Parker.

Guess who’s coming to town this weekend? he sent. Hayden!

Hayden

Hayden, 11

“This is a nice place, isn’t it?”

I look around the beach house. We’ve already unpacked-it didn’t take us long. There’s a kitchenette and a living room with two large sofas. A gigantic bathroom with the largest shower I’ve ever seen. Technically there’s only one bedroom, but someone converted the large walk-in closet off the living room into a second one with a single bed.

The floors are hardwood, and giant windows open up straight onto the ocean. The sound of waves made it difficult to sleep the first few nights.

“Yes, I suppose.”

Gary shakes his head at me. “You’ll get used to it, kid. So will I.”

I guess I will. Gary and I have lived in worse places. And the years with my father before that, when it was just him and me… this would be nothing like that, compared to empty bottles everywhere and the sudden eruptions of violence.

“Where should we put her?” Gary is holding my mother’s picture, framed. “On the counter?”

“No,” I say with a frown. She would be staring at us eating.

Gary looks around. “The place isn’t that big, kid.”

I point to one of the windowsills. “How about there?”

He puts the picture in place and takes a few steps back, hands on his hips. “Perfect. She’ll be able to see the ocean, too.”

A smiling, blonde woman looks back at us. She died when I was five, and in my mind, she’s become a distant memory, a woman who smelled like vanilla and hugs. Gary doesn’t look anything like his sister, but he’s a good sort. He’s made sure her picture was set up in every place we’d stayed in.

“That’s good, right?”

“Yeah.” I head to the thick brochure on the counter. A giant brick building is on the front, students in uniforms sitting on the grass, laughing happily. “Paradise Shores Preparatory School?”

“That’s the one.” My uncle lifts the little clip-on tie that came with my uniform and turns it to and fro.

“Who names their town Paradise anyway? What kind of stupid name is that?”

Gary chuckles. “I know. This is… Hay, this is batshit crazy. But the school is good.”

“Who’s paying for this?”