Brothers of Paradise Series

Jamie laughs. I savor the sound, to how it warms the entire car. “I didn’t see one, but I can’t actually be sure.”

I don’t know that I’m doing it until I turn to the right, choosing a route I rarely drive these days. Off Ocean Drive and past the gas station, through the roundabout…

“I haven’t been back here in years,” Jamie says.

I slow the car down to a crawl. “Does it look the same?”

She leans across the center console to get a better look. “Yes,” she says. “But also smaller, somehow.”

Paradise High sits right across the street. The two houses, the north and south building, the quad, the benches underneath the large maple. It all feels like an eon ago.

And also like yesterday, with her beside me, someone so strongly associated with this place.

When I turn the wheel this time it’s entirely deliberate. I pull onto the parking lot. Beside it, the quad stretches out in an endless field of green, soaking up the rain.

“Remember that spot?” I say, pointing toward the bleachers.

Jamie groans. “Oh my God, I haven’t thought about the Smoke Corner in forever.”

“I saw you there a lot,” I say, “my last year.”

“Not a lot, come on. I was only there sometimes.”

“You were one of the edgy kids.”

“Paradise Shores didn’t have edgy kids,” she counters. “My nose piercing and Jonah’s shaved head were about as grunge as it got.”

That makes me grin. “Still, you never cared about fitting in.”

“Because I didn’t fit in,” she says. “You had the sailing club, and football, and the Marchand name… come on, you were the school’s favorite senior.”

“That’s not true.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Isn’t it? I remember standing right there,” she says, pointing at the Smoke Corner, “during one of the games and hearing the entire bleacher chant your name.”

“Okay, so I had a few good games. We were a terrible high school football team, if you look nationally,” I say. It’s the truth. Paradise High is in the business of producing academically inclined kids, not athletes, and fills their extracurriculars up with activities that’ll look good on college applications. The school has every sport under the sun, including a partnership with the Sherman Riding School outside of town.

Football just happened to draw crowds.

“That might be true,” Jamie says, “but that doesn’t change the fact that you were a star in school.”

I roll my eyes. “James.”

“You, Turner and the others all had your pick of who to bring to prom,” she says, eyes meeting mine. “The entire body of girls, from juniors to seniors, basically.”

“Come on.” I run a hand over my jaw, uncomfortable with her words. They weren’t true, not really, but they had clearly felt true to her at the time.

She raises an eyebrow, and in that single second, I can almost see the nose piercing and the short, black hair, interposed on the grown woman in front of me. “Wow. Are you… blushing, Marchand?”

I snort. “No. Remind me, how come you didn’t go? Neither you nor Lily went that year.” I remembered, because I’d looked for her at prom, wondering what asshole she’d gone with.

“I was boycotting it,” she says. “Don’t ask me why. It made sense to me at the time.”

“A political statement?”

“Most likely.”

“Don’t tell me Lily’s had to do with Hayden?”

“Of course it did,” Jamie says, effortlessly. “I can’t believe you never saw that. Saw them.”

“I didn’t want to,” I say. My windshield wipers are still going, a hypnotizing movement outside my front window. “My little sister and my best friend? No.”

“But you’re okay with it now?”

“Yes. It’s different now.”

Jamie looks down at her hands, at long fingers and bare nails. “She texted me this morning.”

“Lily?”

“Yes.”

I drum my fingers against the steering wheel. “What did she say?”

“Nothing I didn’t expect,” Jamie says, “and nothing I didn’t deserve.”

“Why are you worried about seeing her? You don’t seem to be concerned about me, and we didn’t talk for years either.”

It makes her roll her eyes, just as I’d hoped. “But you and I weren’t best friends. We didn’t have a pact to name our kids after one another.”

“So I guess you didn’t keep the friendship bracelet I gave you?” I put a hand to my chest. “Ouch.”

“God, I can’t imagine you ever wearing one of those.”

“Me neither. But tell me, if you want to.”C0pyright © 2024 Nôv)(elDrama.Org.

Jamie runs a finger along the hem of her skirt. “You’ve already seen the worst of me,” she says. “I guess with Lily, I’m just… embarrassed. And I feel guilty, and I don’t know where to start.”

“She’ll understand,” I say, and hope to God it’s true, because I don’t. The worst of her? I don’t know what she means.

“She might.” She shakes her head, and the tone of her voice isn’t one I recognize. “I’ve missed her a lot.”

“She’s missed you too, I know that much.”

“She’ll be at the regatta,” Jamie says. It’s not a question, but I answer anyway.

“Yes, she will. Hayden should be too. Jamie…”