Chapter 25
“What are you doing here, Brody?” I ask as the man in question steps around me and into the bungalow. Only when I close the door behind him does he pull down the hood of his sweatshirt using his sling-free arm.
I look at Nate, who’s now in the living area just behind his brother, hoping my eyes relay my surprise—and a warning. Because even though Nate and I talked things through this morning, it’s not the time to tell Brody what’s transpired since we’re stuck on an island together and?—
“It appears I’m interrupting something.” Brody nods toward the deck behind Nate.
Where there are candles.
And a romantic picnic for two.
While I’m only wearing a fuzzy bathrobe.
“It’s not what it looks like,” I blurt out. Nate’s brows furrow, and Brody looks equally confused. Okay, I’m not communicating clearly with my eyes or otherwise.
There’s no question in Brody’s voice. “It looks like you’re keeping up appearances to sell the idea that we’re as happy as ever despite…things.”
“Like she said,” Nate starts, “it’s not what?—”
“Right!” I jump in. “I told you I would. Is that why you’re here?”
“Not really.”
I fold my arms across my chest. “Why then?”
“My doctors cleared me to fly yesterday. Took some convincing, but they finally caved.”
“But how’d you get here?” Nate asks.
Brody looks at Nate as if he can’t imagine a stupider question. “A plane?”
“I mean, I have your passport, so how did you get to Fiji?”
A good question, though not the most pressing given Brody is here. But focusing on the logistics gives us all a beat to collect ourselves and figure out a way to update Brody that won’t be so callous.
Brody clears his throat. “I may have reached out to Nina.”
Nate’s ex? That can’t be right.
Where I’m confused, Nate is pissed. “You talked to Nina? What the fuck, Bro?”
“I needed her help to get into your place to grab your passport.”
“Why would she be able to help?” My eyes are on Brody, but I’m watching Nate’s reaction closely out of the corner of my eye. He’s hesitating, and my stomach churns before Brody responds.
“Because she has a key.”
“Right.” I turn to Nate, still processing.
He had said things were on-and-off again with Nina, and that her visits to “get her stuff” sometimes resulted in them falling into bed, but he failed to mention she had a key to his place.
That, even with their supposed breakup months ago, she still had permission—no, an invitation—to come and go from his life as she pleased.
The words are heavy and metallic on my tongue. “She has a key.”
“I should have told you.” Nate takes a step forward and then seems to think better of it.
“Why are we still talking about Nina?” Brody asks, missing the larger conversation happening.
I shrug, forcing casualness for Brody’s benefit. “It’s just odd she still has a key to his place if they’ve broken up, don’t you think?”
I’m certain it is, though a man has never had a key to mine.
Nate doesn’t give Brody a chance to respond. “It’s complicated. We don’t live together anymore, but she hasn’t returned the key.”
“You didn’t ask for it back? Couldn’t take it off her keychain yourself?” My voice rises with each question, and I take a deep breath to calm myself. I’m far too close to bursting into tears over this information because how can yet another Bannam brother blindside me?
“I tried, but I should have tried harder. Didn’t seem like a big deal then because I planned to get the key as soon as we got back from Fiji. That’s why I was late for the airport. I was telling her to get the last of her stuff out while I was gone.”
Nate had been late to the airport because he was ‘dealing with something.’ Was this really the something? Why didn’t he tell me?
“Does any of this matter?” Brody asks. “Nina let me in. I got your passport, bought a ticket, and now I’m here.”
“Okay,” I say. We’re supposed to be clearing up why Brody is here, not whatever place Nina still has in Nate’s life. Though I want answers to both. “But why did you fly all this way?”
“It’s my show, Abby—Abigail. I needed to make sure things were okay.”
“You couldn’t do that from Vegas?” Nate asks.
“And,” Brody’s eyes focus on me as he continues, “I felt useless in Vegas without you.”
I inhale sharply. “You came here for me?”
I’m more affected than I want either brother to know. Because Brody coming all the way to Fiji post-breakup isn’t an act someone indifferent would do. Which means—despite what I told Nate this morning—maybe Brody had stronger feelings for me than I realized.
I’m so focused on making sense of the situation that I don’t notice Nate move outside to the deck until the door slides shut behind him. Through the glass, I see him blowing out the candles one by one.
“Yes, you,” Brody says, not seeming to think much of Nate’s departure. He probably assumes his brother is giving us privacy. “We make a great team, Abigail. You can’t deny it.”
I can because I have proof he hasn’t been a good team player—at least not on my team. “You lied to me about Jamie.”
“Was it really a lie?”
My expression must confirm it was because he quickly amends his response.
“Okay, a lie by omission, perhaps. But I didn’t do it to hurt you.”
“I know. You did it to help yourself.”
I pause long enough for him to refute me, but as the silence stretches on and his eyes can’t so much as lift to meet mine, it’s obvious he doesn’t intend to.
So, I continue, saying the words aloud as much for myself as for him. “You were doing it to help your career, ensuring I showed up for Rush and that Nate wouldn’t have qualms coming here as you, especially fresh out of a breakup of his own.” If it really was a breakup after all.
“And I did it for you. For your career,” he says, his eyes meeting mine with a passion only his work evokes.
“I could have stuck with BrandMe. Heck, they begged me to. But I chose you, Abigail. Even though I’m the only client you have.
Your success depends on my show and my career as much as mine does. ”
“Still. I deserved to know the truth from my boyfriend instead of having to piece it together on my own. You let me think I was imagining things with Jamie and manipulated me for the sake of your show. Was it ever even about me, Brody? Not my work, not what I could do for your career, but me me? Was I ever really enough?”
I don’t notice how worked up I’m getting until a tear rolls down my cheek, followed by another and another until I’m full-on crying.
“Abigail, of course you’re enough.” His voice is tender, then tentative. “How could you ever think otherwise?”
“Because you let me!”
My declaration echoes around us as if we’ve been transported elsewhere, landed on opposite ends of an enormous cavern, and need to shout to be heard even if we can’t be understood.
As my shoulders shake with a fresh batch of tears, Brody takes a hesitant step forward, followed by another, until he closes the space between us, pulling me against him with his uninjured arm.
His embrace is familiar, but his cast on my waist is a tangible reminder of how much has changed. How fractured it’s all become.
“I wanted so badly to be enough,” I sob into the shoulder of his sweatshirt. “But I never really felt it. Not until Fiji, and that only happened because…” Am I really going to say it? But I no longer feel it’s a choice or something I can put off. At least not something I want to. “Because of Nate.”
“Nate?” Brody pulls back from me, letting air rush between us. “I don’t get it. Do you mean what I think you mean?”
Until this point, I’m on a roll clearing the air while landing the verbal punches I needed. Now I’m at the edge of a cliff, poised to jump but unable to take the actual plunge.
“She’s trying to say there’s something between us,” Nate cuts in. He’s standing in the doorway to the deck, the door open again. I’d been louder than I realized if he could hear it all from outside.
Brody scoffs. “Yeah, the show. Fiji. Being me.”
“No.” Nate’s gray eyes flash, a storm threatening to roll in. “Something more.”
Brody looks to me for answers. “Abs?”
What’s left to say? We’ve made this mess, and getting it all out might be the only way to clean it up.
“Something happened between us,” I admit. “Beyond the show.”
Nate’s eyes brighten, urging me to continue setting the record straight. But how can I? Despite his brother’s flaws and missteps around the Fiji plan, there’s no way I’m rubbing this thing with Nate in Brody’s face.
“We should tell him the truth,” Nate urges. “We owe him that.”
He’s right. Brody withholding information was part of how we got here in the first place, and now I’m keeping things from him. He deserves the truth, no matter how painful. And he deserves to hear it from us.
I reach for Brody’s hand, feeling relief when he lets me take it in mine, but the words stick in my throat.
How am I supposed to look someone I once loved—someone who might very well still love me—in the eye and tell him my heart belongs to his brother, even if I’m not entirely sure what that means yet?
I clear my throat and force the words out, sticking to the facts.
“Nothing happened between Nate and me until you and I were over. Very much over.”
Brody rips his hand away, waving it to stop me from continuing. “You and Nate? Seriously?”
“Is it so unbelievable someone would want to be with me?” Nate asks, stepping forward. “Or is the incredulous part someone actually choosing me over you?”
“No,” Brody says with as much patience as venom. “But I do find it difficult to wrap my head around the idea that my girlfriend and my brother would run around behind my back.”
“Ex-girlfriend,” I emphasize, a clarification both vital and entirely irrelevant.
“We weren’t running around behind your back, Bro. We didn’t plan for this to happen. It just did.”
“Like that makes it better.”
Nate looks at Brody, really looks at him, and I see the conflict in his eyes—the love for his brother, the guilt, and something else I can’t quite place. “I never wanted to hurt you.”
“Well, you’ve failed spectacularly.” Brody rolls his eyes, and then a new thought occurs to him. “Wait. This happened when Nate was pretending to be me.” His gaze locks with mine. “Are you sure you weren’t falling for me again? Getting caught up in all the acting?”
“Did you really ask her that?” Nate interjects, pulling his brother’s attention back to him. “My entire life, I’ve been the second-best brother because I was born four and a half minutes later. It didn’t occur to me until now that’s exactly how you see me too. The lesser twin; the second choice.”
“That’s not true,” Brody says, but his words lack conviction.
“I’m always living in your shadow. Heck, I’m in Fiji literally pretending to be you!” Nate shouts.
“That’s my point! You’re here being me, which means Abigail has been falling for me. Again. Don’t you get it? Nothing has changed.”
The brothers look at me expectantly, like I’ll clear everything up and we can forget this ridiculous fight ever happened. But how can I?
Nate and I had been emulating my relationship with Brody for the cameras, at least at the beginning. Where did faking it end and genuine feelings begin? How can we prove to Brody, or even ourselves, what part of all this is real?
And is it still as real if Nate’s been holding onto Nina?
“See?” Brody says, as if my silence proves his point. Maybe it does because the only thing I’m certain about is everything’s one big mess. And the brothers fighting, only partially over me, is something I’m in no headspace to deal with.
“No,” Nate says, taking a step toward his brother, “all I see is?—”
“Stop it! Both of you. We are not doing this.” My voice is sharp in the bungalow. “Definitely not tonight. Not like this.”
To my surprise, the men stop arguing. I take full advantage of the moment. “We have our last day of filming tomorrow and need to sleep,” I say, giving each of the brothers a pointed look. Forget dinner; there’s no way I could stomach food now.
“Ah, but which we?” Nate asks, his arms crossed in a challenge as he turns to Brody. “Will you be doing the excursion?”
“You know I can’t!” Brody whines.
“Seriously?” I interject. “Knock it off, you two.”
Nate’s eyes narrow at Brody. “He needs to knock it off.”
“No, you need to knock it off,” Brody spits back, moving to cross his arms before remembering his one arm is in a cast. He settles for wrapping his good arm around his body in a lopsided sort of hug.
“This is ridiculous. We are all going to bed. Now.” With the word bed, I realize an additional problem: there is only one bed and far too many hearts on the line. “You two can take the bed, and I’ll take the couch.”
“No!” the brothers shout at the same time.
“We’re not letting you sleep on the couch, Abigail,” Nate clarifies. At least they can agree on that.
“Well, I’m not sharing the bed.” I leave the ‘with either of you,’ implied.
“I’m still recovering,” Brody offers instead of a solution.
Nate sighs. “Abigail, you’re taking the bed. End of story. Brody, you can have the couch because you’re injured. And I’ll…” Nate looks around the bungalow, seeming to consider the floor before his eyes land on the deck door. “I’ll sleep on the deck.”
“You’re going to sleep outside?” I ask as Brody collapses onto the couch.
Nate shrugs. “It’s fine. The loungers are cushioned.”
I want to protest, but what can I say? Sleep in the bed with me? Not exactly an option with Brody here. Maybe I don’t want it to be?
With both brothers around, it’s hard to tell which side my heart has a stake in. It feels like both.
And while that may be right, it feels entirely wrong.
I barely sleep, tossing in the enormous bed as my mind rushes through dream after dream in a frenzy.
Sarah in the middle of the ocean, smiling and beckoning me to follow. Me stepping off the island and wading in after her. Walking, walking, walking until I can’t touch the bottom anymore. Until I’m a bobbing head floating toward her. Until I am sinking. Until I am drowning.
Telling off Carl in a crazy moment in which I quit BrandMe of my volition, taking Corina with me to start a wonderful new agency where we never have to worry about someone holding us back.
A slightly older version of Sarah there, hugging me tight and declaring how proud she is.
How she always knew I could do it. Her arms squeeze me so tight I can hardly breathe, but I’m happy.
Younger versions of the Bannam brothers racing to the top of a tree without a care in the world. But they can never get there. They just keep climbing until they are in the clouds and out of sight.
Me, in real life, bolting upright in bed with a racing heart because I know at least one brother—though I am not sure which—is doomed to fall.