I point my car onto Latigo Canyon, a two-lane road through chaparral-covered hills and steep, wooded canyons, with a view of the ocean along every turn. The houses are huge and spread wide up here, most of them hidden from view by tall fences and towering trees.

On Jonah’s street I stop to enter the security code into an illuminated keypad. An intricate metal gate opens up onto a long, winding driveway, and at the top of the hill sits the terra-cotta-tiled house. I’d forgotten how ostentatiously huge his place is. Two stories wrapped in white stucco, it has to be at least five thousand square feet. My apartment and my parking space could fit into his front room alone.

I spot the front of Jonah’s black Range Rover around the corner in front of the garage. He’d really better be dead.

The ocean wind whips at my hair and my clothes as I climb out of my car. A wide walkway leads up to a set of stained-concrete stairs and a massive double door, and I knock twice, turning to look around while I wait. Now that I’m closer, the yard looks a little more unkempt than I’d expect. A set of urns filled with dying flowers border a lawn that could definitely stand to be cut. It’s quiet, too. It’s still early, but not that early. Last time I came, there was music playing from the back near the pool and signs of life everywhere. People coming and going and multiple cars. A yard crew, a pool man, a housekeeper. This time, I don’t hear anything coming from inside the house.

It might just be my mom’s overreaction gene rearing its head, but anxiety gnaws at me, unease prickling along my skin.

I’m heading back to my car to call . . . I don’t know—someone—when the door opens behind me. The guy is shorter than Jonah, but fit and tanned in a way that one becomes from spending a lot of time outside. His shorts-only outfit is just one indicator of his cool casualness.

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?”