Chapter 3

THREE

Owen

T wenty-nine hours of flight time, and I haven't slept at all, not even on my family's Gulfstream with my own cabin. I spent the entire trip having a panic attack while listening to emo music. I'm not proud of it, but I am here, and my brother will know what to do.

I barely glance around at the resort when I get out of the Rolls Royce. It seems nice enough, but I'm not here for leisure. I don't have time to enjoy myself in the sun. Or even stop to have a drink. I can't remember the last time I ate, so alcohol is off the table. I peel off my hoodie as I follow the map the concierge gave me.

I flip it around, realizing I am looking at it backward. Fuck.

I don't have time for this.

I need to find Oliver now.

Before I have my eighteenth panic attack of the day.

Two days? Had it been two days since I'd left Vegas?

What even is time if not a construct to cause me more fucking anxiety?

I need Oliver's advice. He's the only one who can help me out of this situation. I'm not level-headed enough to make adult decisions, let alone ones with life-long consequences. I need a brown paper bag to breathe into. Or barbiturates. I make a mental note to raid mom's fun cabinet when I get back to the city.

Finally, I figure out the directions, since the obvious clue is the entire ocean on one side of the map. I would like to think I'd have figured that out quicker if I wasn't having a panic attack, but I won't worry about it.

I find the walkway to their private villa blocked by a security guard. "Hi Levi. Oliver here?"

"Owen, what a surprise. Is he expecting you?" Levi asks, giving me a strange look.

"I'd like to say because of twin intuition he's always expecting me, but I did call before I showed up."

"Oh, all right." Levi steps aside to let me pass.

I open the door, not bothering to knock. I've seen them naked far too many times to care what I walk in on, and it had been a week. Could they still be fucking? It wasn't that fun or exciting.

I wander through the quiet villa, finally hearing them out back. The view is truly lovely, but I can't enjoy it. I can't enjoy anything. I feel like a fugitive.

I open the sliding glass door and turn to find Isaac bent over the back of a sunbathing chair, rather awkwardly.

How does that even work?

"I did a thing," I pronounce when Oliver doesn't notice my arrival.

"What the fuck?!" Oliver doesn't even have the courtesy to pull out as he looks over his shoulder. "What are you doing here?"

"I have to speak to you, and you weren't answering your phone." Obviously. Why else would I be here?

Sometimes Oliver was so dense.

"Of course I'm not answering my phone." He stares at me.

I stare back, not getting his point. "Can you put a pin in this so we can talk? It's rather urgent, or I wouldn't have flown twenty-nine hours."

"Never mind the flight. What in the fucking world is so important that you think you should walk into the middle of my honeymoon to tell me?" Oliver's tone drips with annoyance.

Well, I'm annoyed too. "Can you?" I wave at his bare ass.

Oliver groans and turns back to brush his lips over the back of Isaac's neck. "I'm sorry. I'll deal with it." He grabs a towel to wrap around Isaac before turning toward me, hard-on and all. "How did you get past security?"

"Levi? He knows me. He's here to stop criminals, not your brother."

"Clearly I need to re-explain to him his job description. Because when I say no one should disturb us for the next month, he doesn't understand the provided information," Oliver mutters under his breath, but I ignore it. "Out with it then, since you're going to make me wait for my fucking orgasm until you tell me."

Isaac sits awkwardly on the chair, red in the face.

"I apologize, Isaac. This is a crisis."

"What crisis? Did you kill someone?" Oliver asks.

"Worse," I say, barely keeping my tone even.

"What is worse than killing someone? Did you lose all your money?" Oliver acts baffled.

"I married Colin."

"Excuse me?"