Brothers of Paradise Series

“I would never.”

She turns around, a hand on the table. Waiting. My teeth grind together. Something’s off about Jamie, and I know that Lily will notice it. If she had a moment to consider, she’d know what to say. But I fear she’s too hurt by Jamie’s silence to see past her own pain.

And right on cue, Jamie enters the dining room. Her hair is in a ponytail today. It falls soft and curved down her back, and her eyes are downcast. She’s the same age as my sister, only a year younger than me, and yet there’s something young and hesitant in her movements that was never there before.

I hate it. It’s not her.

“Lily…” I murmur, but my sister is already moving toward her best friend. The two of them had been inseparable. Their heads always bowed together in school, the auburn and the brown, or when Jamie started dying it, the pitch-black.

Jamie’s back goes ramrod straight. Her mouth doesn’t move, not as Lily approaches.

I can’t hear what they say, but I don’t have to. Lily is the one doing most of the talking. I watch her run a hand under her eyes at one point, and at another, her voice rises. Jamie listens to all of it. She’s gripping the menu in front of her tight enough that the laminated plastic curves. She nods, twice, and once shakes her head so quickly the ponytail flies.

It’s too much for her, I think. I don’t know why. But it is, and I can see it in the pinched set of her mouth and her cautious eyes.

I get up from the table and make my way to the two women. They’re off center in the restaurant, but they’re by no means hidden. And it’s only Jamie’s second week at work.

“Ladies,” I say. “Sorry to interrupt, but there are tables to wait.”

Lily looks at me like she’s plotting my slow and painful death. “You run your employees ragged, do you?”

“Your brother’s right,” Jamie says quickly. “I’m on the clock. Sorry, Lily. It was nice to see you.”

“All right,” Lily says. She doesn’t sound quite like my sister either. “I’ll see you around?”

Jamie nods, and Lily gives a half-hearted smile. “Bye then,” she says to Jamie.

She doesn’t say goodbye to me, and I’m sure I’ll get an earful about interrupting later, watching as my sister disappears toward the exit without looking back.

Beside me, her former best friend sighs deeply.

“I’m sorry about that,” I say.

Jamie shakes her head. “I knew you’d tell her.”

“I waited a week,” I say, and give her a half-smile. “It took her less than three days to come here.”

“I’m surprised she waited that long,” Jamie says.

I chuckle. “She was always a bit impulsive.”

“Yes.” Jamie looks down at the menu in her hand, the plastic slowly straightening. “Thanks, Parker.”

“For interrupting? No worries. You don’t actually have many tables to wait, you know. Feel free to take a break.”Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!

“I think I’ll keep working.” She looks up at me, and there’s a tiny, crooked smile on her lips. “Wouldn’t want to disappoint you, Boss.”

I open my mouth-what do I say to that?-but Jamie turns and disappears back toward the kitchen. I watch her go.

She’d been my little sister’s friend. Off-limits in more ways than one, not least because of the giant stay away stamped across her face with every glance. There had been fire in her eyes. I’d seen it when she walked into school in flares when ripped jeans were trendy. In short, dark hair when the popular girls sported long, highlighted locks. In the dark eyeshadow around her eyes that, even smudged, emphasized the warm brown of her eyes.

That’s gone now. The unexpected clothing. The dark makeup. But not the fire. Even with her hair braided down her back and a clean face dotted with freckles, the fire is there. Hidden and subdued, but present.

And I can’t wait to stoke it back into a flame.

JAMIE

“You can stay for as long as you want,” Mom says. “Maybe a year, or two…”

She’s sitting in the reading nook in the living room, surrounded by pillows in a rainbow of colors. On her lap is her old laptop. A sticker for the local dive shop sits on the back, not that I think she’s ever gone diving.

“I can’t stay for a year,” I say.

“Why not? This is your home, and it has great schools. Put Emma in line to start first grade at Paradise Elementary.”

“I can’t.”

“There are opportunities here,” she continues. “You got a job on your first week.”

“That was sheer dumb luck. The yacht club needed waitresses, and I’ve done a lot of waitressing.”

Mom shakes her head. “There’s no such thing as dumb luck. You fit in here.”

I draw my legs up beneath me on the couch. My head is pounding, and there’s no way to make her see why I can’t stay.

“I don’t mind watching Emma,” she says, voice softer this time. “We’re getting along even better now, I think. She’s not so shy around me anymore.”

“She likes you,” I say. My daughter is cautious around strangers, but she’d taken to her grandmother immediately. The creative streak and habit of making fluffy pancakes for breakfast had eased the way. There are few things six-year-olds like more than crafting and copious amounts of maple syrup.

At least my six-year-old.

“The school here is good,” Mom says again. “One of the best in the county.”

“I know.”

“Please consider it, sweetheart. I just got you back.”

I rest my head against my updrawn knees. Yes, we’d just gotten back. And I’m forcing myself onto my mom and her hospitality after years of too-sporadic phone calls and far too few visits. She’d only seen Emma a few times before we’d shown up at her doorstep with all of two suitcases to our name.

It’s embarrassing, and not the kind that fades after a few laughs. It’s the deep kind of mortification that makes me feel two feet tall, and in this town, I’m dwarfed by the wealth and success of people who hadn’t let life beat them down.

I’d waited too long to take the reins of my life again, and I never thought I’d be that person. Never thought I’d lose myself. But I had. And now we’re all paying the price for it.

“I can’t,” I say again, and my voice sounds broken. I hate hearing it. “You’ve already given me so much, Mom. I can’t live here that long without paying rent.”

“Oh, rent,” she says with a wave of her hand. “If that’s the stickler, we’ll figure something out, if that would make you feel better. We’ll talk about it. But don’t you dare pick up and move on somewhere else, Jamie Elizabeth Moraine. My granddaughter deserves pancakes every day.”

That makes me laugh. Emma sure does, that and so much more that I can’t give her. It’s all hand-me-down bikes and a mother who keeps looking over her shoulder. Right now it all feels too much. Too many decisions and too much guilt.