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Alert: Front gate approach
Alert: Front gate entrance
Alert: Motion detected front door
I don’t have a code on the gate itself. Will can’t leave me the fuck alone about it. I’ll never waste my breath trying to explain it. It’s not as complicated as he pretends it is. Code systems are unreliable. On occasion, I need people to be able to get inside the gate without help from me.
Sinclair: Jesus Em open the door
He’s out there with a duffel bag slung over one shoulder and the hood of his coat pulled up over a knit beanie. “The fuck is that?” I ask him. “You’re not staying here.”
“Hey, Emerson. Missed you so much.” He slaps my shoulder on his way past me. Always barging in like this. The thousands of square feet around us contract. I lock the door while Sin opens my coat closet and hangs up his coat. He whips his hat off to reveal too-long dark hair. It’s getting unruly.
“You need a haircut,” I snap at him.
“Just a place to stay.” He shuts the closet door and grins at me. “Luckily, my favorite brother has the space.”
“Go camp on the beach. Or climb the bricks and sleep on the roof. Staying in a guest room is hardly adventurous.” All Sin does is go on adventures. He’s always scaling cliffs freehand or jumping out of planes and generally risking his life for no reason at all.
“Staying with you is always an adventure. Are you going to offer me a drink?”
“I hate you.”
“I love you too, Em.”
We go through my office to the den behind it. No computers in sight in this room. Just leather furniture, a fireplace, and shelves full of books. One of Daphne’s paintings hangs in the single display space. One of her smaller pieces, from college. It was early on in her study of the ocean. The brushwork and the colors are completely raw, almost like she attacked the canvas.
Sin stretches out in one of the leather chairs and searches around for the fireplace remote. He finds it, and the flames crackle to life in the grate. I open the cabinet on the mini bar. “Cold as hell out today. Did you surf?”
“What do you want to drink?”
“Vodka.” He slings an arm behind his head and closes his eyes. “How cold is the water?”
“It’s winter, Sin. It’s fucking cold.” I hold the glass in front of his face until he opens his eyes and takes it. I don’t want a drink.
“Did you go out today?” He glances down at the vodka, then back up at me. “Other than to surf.”
I don’t want to sit with him, but looking down at him like this feels ridiculous. So I take the opposite seat. “Why are you here?”
“Answer me first.”
Irritation makes my teeth snap together. Always with the questions. The endless questions, as if anything has changed. It never occurs to Sin that I don’t want anything to be different.
Fine—I want one thing to be different. I want Daphne. There’s nothing else I would change.
“Yeah. I walked for hours. I love long walks on the beach.”
He narrows his eyes. Sips his vodka. “Is that sarcasm, or—”
“Jesus Christ.”
My brother raises his free hand. “I’m only asking because—”
“Stop asking. Why are you here? Don’t tell me it’s for a goddamn family reunion.” Will was talking about this on the phone. Getting the three of us back together.
“In a manner of speaking.”
“You’re kidding.” My skin has gone cold beneath my clothes. Colder than it was when I climbed out of the ocean. Colder than when I let myself fall into the waves. “You’re fucking kidding, Sin. You can’t invite yourself into my house for a goddamn sleepover.”
