Page 59 of The Best Wrong Move

I race around the kitchen, looking for a clue of who lives here.

“Okay, let me rephrase that. I do live here, temporarily. But my brother owns it.”

“Your brother owns this house?” I start studying old photographs of people playing in the waves, or fishing off the Santa Monica Pier. The photos all look vintage though, like they were taken of a happy family years ago. I barely recognize Dom in one of the pictures when he was just a boy, probably around fifteen years old or so, give or take a year.

“My brother still lives back in California. This is one of his vacation homes. I’m just staying here while my own place gets renovated, it’s nearby. He rarely comes out. Busiest guy I know,” he says stiffly.

“Oh.” It looks like I’ve hit another nerve. “Is he in the vacation rental industry with you, too?”

Everything in Dom’s face flatlines when he studies me. There’s that unexplained tension rising up again. I wish I knew what irked him so much when we skirt around anything that’s about him, or comes close to touching the inner circle of his life.

“You swear you don’t know who my brother is?” He looks a bit skeptical, and it feels like an accusation.

I shake my head. “How would I know who your brother is?”

He puts his hands on his hips.

“Seriously, I have no idea, Dom. I’m happy to Google him though, if you’d like me to know.” I pull out my phone and hold it out in front of me, ready to typeDominick Bryant’s brotherinto the search bar. “But I’d rather that you just told me. What is he, like, a mob boss or something?”

“Put your phone away. I’ll just tell you.”

But he doesn’t tell me. Instead, he continues staring at me. Something about this conversation feels like a minefield, a collection of things I’m supposed to know but don’t.

“Okay, if it upsets you this much, you don’t have to tell me. It’s fine. Really. As long as your brother is cool with me hanging out here today, I don’t need to know anything more about him.”

Yet. I’ll just Google him later, when I get home.

I’m starting to get the sense that whoever lives here has something to do with the reason Dom felt the need to run away from whatever haunts him in California.

“No, I’ll just tell you.”

He slowly pulls the towel off his shoulder and plops down on the stool across from me.

“My brother is a director. A Hollywood director. Quinton Rockwell. Ever heard of him?”

My jaw falls to the counter.

Dom’s brother is Quinton Rockwell.

Holy shit.

Quinton Rockwell is one of Hollywood’s biggest film directors, often mentioned in professional circles with industry giants like Steven Spielberg and James Cameron. He’s well known for producing some of the biggest blockbusters to grace the screen in my entire adult life.

“Are you shitting me?” I set my wine glass down a bit lopsided without realizing it, then lunge to catch the stemware before it nearly tips over all the way. I almost broke Quinton Rockwell’s wine glass. “But your last name is Bryant!”

“Quinton’s industry name is Quinton Rockwell. He grew up Quinton Bryant.”

My hands close over my mouth — I sit back down on the stool to steady myself.

Dom studies me before responding, his eyes narrowing. “You really didn’t know?”

“Dom, how in the hell would I have known that Quinton and you were related?”

“My name got put on your Airbnb listing by accident. I already fired the assistant who made that mistake, and then when you said you were writing a script, I thought maybe you—”

“You thought that I somehow tracked down Quinton Rockwell’s brother, who happens to be renting out a little Airbnb in Hawaii, the exact same time that I’m trying to escape my own viral mess back in New York, just to get a leg up in my budding film career?”

Dom smiles like he’s totally used to this type of reaction when disclosing who his brother is. Then he goes back to draining the crab, unfazed. “Stranger things have happened. You’d be surprised at the lengths people go to in order to get close to my family. You really had no idea?” He sets the pot down to watch my face more clearly.

---