Dating You / Hating You
Page 33

I have no idea who he is.
“Hey,” the guy says, waving the floppy slice of pizza in his hand at me. “You got through the gate, so I’m assuming you’re supposed to be up here.”
“I assume so,” I say, and look above the door somewhere for a house number, wondering if it’s possible I’m in the wrong place. “I’m Carter. Is Jonah here?”
Recognition dawns and the guy’s face lights up. “You’re the brother! Man, you two look so much alike.”
I push up my glasses, tamping down irritation. “Is he home?”
He looks back over his shoulder. “Think he’s on the patio,” he says, and then motions for me to step inside.
There’s a lot of white in Jonah’s house—white floors, white walls, white stairs—but not much else. In fact, there’s not much furniture at all.
“I don’t think I caught your name,” I say as I follow the stranger through the enormous entryway—my last apartment could fit in here, as well as my current one, and most of Michael Christopher’s house. We pass through the kitchen and head toward the back door. Pizza-and-Shorts Guy is about my age, with dark, wavy hair and a smile I sort of want to wipe off his face with the back of my hand. If I had to guess, I’d say “actor” by day, waiter by night.
Or . . . kept man?
Standing here in Jonah’s eerily empty house with this stranger, I realize that I don’t know my brother that well at all.
“I’m Nick,” he says, and stops in front of the back door. “Jonah is out there.”
And sure enough, there he is, sitting in a chaise longue in jeans and a leather jacket, next to the giant swimming pool.
“Thanks,” I say, stepping outside.
The view is spectacular, and again, I can see why Jonah bought this place. He’s high enough up that the horizon stretches out over the hills to reach the ocean from what feels like one side of the world to the other. Palm trees tower overhead and there’s just so much space.
But even finally seeing my missing brother, the feeling that things are a little off only grows. The pool is a dull, clear brown and a few stray leaves skip across the ground, spinning lazily on the surface of the water. Pots are empty; the patio has seen better days.
“Hey,” I say when Jonah doesn’t seem to notice I’m there. “You know it’s like seventy degrees outside, right?”
He looks over and watches me through his sunglasses. “What are you doing here?”
“Mom sent me. Said you haven’t been answering her calls.”
He looks forward again. “Yeah, don’t know where my phone is.”
I take a seat on the chair next to him. “Don’t you need it? For . . . I don’t know, work?”
He reaches for a beer bottle perched on a glass table by his side and takes a long drink. It’s not even eleven yet. I decide to try a different approach.
“Who was that?” I ask. “Inside.”
“Nick,” he says, and takes another drink.
“I got his name. I mean, does he live here?”
“Yeah.”
I lean forward, resting my elbows on my thighs. “Is he . . . is he the boyfriend?”
“Whose boyfriend?” he asks, squinting into the sun.
“Well . . . yours.”
Jonah turns his body to fully face me and gives me a look over the top of his sunglasses.
“Dude, I don’t care who you sleep with,” I say, shrugging. “It’s not like we talk all that much anymore. Besides, you cut the elastic off all my underwear when I drank your orange juice, threw away my clothes when I left them in the dryer too long, and look like you want to murder anyone who wears shoes inside. The first conclusion I’m supposed to draw is that you have a roommate? You’re a nightmare to live with. That Nick is your boyfriend seems the more likely explanation.”
He sits back again. “People do change, you know. I’m not that hard to live with.”
“Sort of. People might be influenced by things, but they don’t change who they fundamentally are.”
“So you’re saying that fundamentally, I’m a dick.”
I think about it for a moment. “Yeah.”
This makes him laugh. “And you’re an asshole.”
“Why did you get a roommate?” I ask, but looking around, I’m beginning to think I get it. “Is everything okay?”
“Are we about to have a big brother–baby brother talk?” he asks.
“I would surely get some Mom points for it. I guarantee she’s in New York right now telling the neighbors you’ve been sold into some sort of sex ring because you aren’t answering the phone. Are you going to let her know you’re okay?”
He shrugs, and I push my hands between my knees to keep from smacking the back of his head.
“Are you in trouble? Like . . . you bought a fucking mansion in Malibu. Money can’t be the issue.”
“Do you have any idea how much it costs to live here?”
“I can barely afford my apartment, so, yeah”—I gesture broadly—“the scope of this is beyond me.”
“I probably couldn’t afford your apartment, either, right now.” He takes off his sunglasses and tosses them on the table. “Dude, it’s fucking expensive to be me. I live up here and have parties and have to be seen with the right people and wear the right things. I’d get in a little over my head, but it was always okay because I’d just do another layout or magazine cover, you know? It was fine because there was always more work.”
“ ‘Was’?”
Jonah leans his head against the back of his chair and exhales a long, tired breath. “I did a job for this designer—high fashion—and he wasn’t happy. I mean, normally I’m cool with some people not liking my work, it’s art and open to interpretation, but this . . . I sort of lost my cool. There was another shoot, but I couldn’t seem to get the lighting right. I did some touch-up work to correct the shadows and it made the rounds of every women’s magazine and gossip site, all talking about how I’d doctored the photos to slim down the model and done a shit job of it. Some fashion bloggers tore the shoot and me to pieces and . . . let’s just say things have been a little tight.”
“So you did a less-than-stellar shoot and your shitty diva attitude got you into trouble,” I clarify.
With a dead-eyed look he grabs his sunglasses and puts them back on. “It’ll be fine.”
I pull out my phone and for the first time Google my brother. It takes a little scrolling, but he’s right: on some of the trashier gossip sites there are archived articles with phrases like has-been and washed up and fashion feature poison. In this moment I’m eternally grateful my mom wouldn’t know how to Google if her life depended on it.
“It doesn’t look fine,” I say.
Jonah stands to walk into the house.
“How much debt are we talking here?” I ask, following him through the door.
He stops at a trash can, drops the empty bottle, and moves to the fridge to get another beer, which is about the only thing I see inside. Walking around a corner to make sure we’re alone, he closes a tall set of double doors, enclosing us in his massive white kitchen. “The credit cards alone?” he says, pulling at the label on his bottle. “I’m guessing about a hundred.”