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When I heard my younger brother had given up a six-figure job working for our father in order to live in a small beach town, I thought he was going through one of his phases. My father thought he was going through one of his phases, too, so he sent me to go retrieve him and insisted I stay with Bodhi until I convinced him to come back. He didn’t want anything changing Bodhi’s easily-persuaded mind.

After heading down from Seattle to a charming little town called Westport in order to find out for myself, I realized it was not a phase.

When Bodhi came here for a surfing competition two weeks ago, no one in our family thought anything of it. When he didn’t come home after the competition was over, we assumed he was taking his time getting back to city life. He was never one for commitment; he tended to make decisions based on how he was feeling in the moment. After a week on the job, Bohdi quit. Up and left without a word until two weeks later, when he announced he was entering a surfing competition down here and wasn’t planning on coming home afterwards.

I pulled up to the quaint neighborhood Bodhi apparently lived in now. He had a two-bedroom condo that overlooked the calm Pacific Ocean, painted yellow with a brown roof. I highly doubted this was Bodhi’s choice of color. He must have bought the place as-is to solidify his decision to move here. It was hard to take seriously any decision he made just because he changed his mind so often, and most of the times, those decisions contradicted themselves.

Bodhi let me in after I knocked on the brown door. I didn’t see a doorbell anywhere, making me frown. What condo didn’t have a doorbell?

It was two o’clock in the afternoon and he answered the door in a grey hoodie, with the hood covering his dirty blond hair, and matching sweatpants. He had socks on his feet, mismatched ones, and he looked as though I had just woke him up.

Classic Bodhi.

His half-mast eyes widened when he saw me. It was probably the finely tailored suit, the slicked back hair, the smell of success in the form of expensive cologne. I was the stark opposite of my younger brother and proud of that fact.

“What are you doing here?” he asked me, his blue eyes dull. “Did Dad send you?” Without commenting, he stepped aside, a silent invitation to come inside.

I was almost afraid to step in. I could smell the salt from where I stood and I didn’t know if I wanted to experience the scent even more than I currently was.

“I came here to bring you back to Seattle,” I told him in a low, calm voice. I tried to keep the judgment out of it but there were times it was difficult to do so.

“So Dad sent you.” His back was to me, leaving me to shut his front door, but I felt the eye roll even if I couldn’t see it. “I already told you guys I’m not coming back.” He plopped on a beat-up brown sofa and gave me a shrug. “I don’t understand what you guys don’t understand about that.”

“Because it’s not realistic.” I glanced around the room. The walls were a dark red, the curtains an off-white, covering square-shaped windows that overlooked the ocean. If I was quiet enough, I was positive I would be able to hear the waves crashing into the rocks beneath the houses lined up along the bluff. “Look at this place, Bodhi. What the hell is this place?”

“Typical Maxi,” he muttered. “Thinks he knows everything. Thinks his way is right and everyone else can go fuck off.”

I closed my eyes, trying to maintain my patience. I wished Isla was here. She was always good at calming Bodhi down. It must be a twin thing.

“That’s not what I said, Bo,” I told him.

“Didn’t you?” Another eye roll. I was surprised he still had eyeballs, truth be told. “To answer your question, this is my home. This is where I plan to live for the foreseeable future.”

“Which is what, the next few days?” I asked. “You have responsibilities back in Seattle.”

“What, you mean Dad’s company?” he asked. “Just because I came from that man’s loins doesn’t mean I’m suddenly responsible for a company he created. I didn’t ask for the job and I didn’t ask to be born.”

“That job makes you a lot of money,” I pointed out. “You wouldn’t have been able to buy this unique property.”

“I make money surfing.”

“When was the last time you surfed, Bodhi?” I asked. I was done being patient. The three-hour drive - thanks to traffic - was wearing on me and the scent of the nearby sea was clouding my senses, like a woman wearing too much perfume. “Get your head out of your ass. You need a plan. And moving here because you feel like it isn’t going to do anything for you.” I crossed my arms over my chest and narrowed my eyes. “Let me guess; you used all your savings to buy this place and you realize that to survive, you’re going to need to get an actual job.”

The look on his face told me I was right but I didn’t expect him to admit it out loud.

“I’m starting my own business,” he countered. “I’m serious, Max, I’m not going back. I like it here. I like the people, I like the atmosphere. I’m not going back to Seattle or to Dad.”

“And Mom? Isla?” The women of our family were our weak spots. If I couldn’t convince him to come back because it was the logical choice, I could throw in my ace and see if that worked.

He hesitated. I could see it in his eyes. Just as I was about to head back to the door, expecting my brother to follow, he stopped me. His brow furrowed and his blue eyes became defiant.

“They’ll just have to visit me,” he said. “They’d probably like this place better than Seattle anyway.”

I clenched my jaw. It sounded like he wasn’t leaving, at least for now. Which meant I was stuck here too, for the time being.