Chapter Six
Five years later
Bryan
As we walked along the Santa Monica promenade, the sun shining brightly overhead, my sister brought the camera to her eyes and snapped several quick shots.
“Get anyone good?” I asked when she lowered the camera.
“Oh, you didn’t notice? That was Lucien Drone,” she said, pointing casually at the man she’d just photographed. I glanced behind us and saw a squat, balding guy walking the other way. “The short dude?”
She nodded.
“Why you’d take his picture? Never even heard of him.”
“He used to be on a TV show that was popular in the 80s. Furs and Fiends. He was the skeezy pimp.”
“Gotta say, I’m glad I never saw that show.”
“I don’t even think this picture is worth anything,” she said, tapping her camera. “No one, not even the worst celebrity rags want his shot unless they’re doing a where are the has-beens now. So maybe I’ll try to sell it for coffee change.”
“How do you have time for college and taking pictures of celebrities?” I asked as we neared the restaurant where we were headed for lunch. I was in Los Angeles for business for my company Made Here that I’d started a few years ago. But I had time in between meetings to hang out with Jess. I hadn’t seen her in several months. She’d just started her sophomore year of college.
“Bryan,” she said and mimed juggling. “I’m like you. I learned from the best. When you want something, you go after it, and you juggle everything.”
“You want to take pictures of celebrities? That’s what you’re going after?”
“No. Dork. I want to put myself through college like you did. But speaking of going after things,” she said, and stopped walking to cross her arms and stare hard at me. “Are you still pining after Kat?”
“What are you talking about?” I asked with a laugh, the kind that said she’d caught me red-handed.
“The girl you told me you fell for five years ago?”
“No. Of course I’m not pining for her,” I said, adding in a scoff for good measure.
She poked me in the chest.
“I don’t even know what she’s up to,” I said, looking the other way.
“She’s making necklaces now. My Favorite Mistakes, she calls them. I don’t even like jewelry but those are seriously nice necklaces.”
I turned back to Jess, impressed that she knew. “You track her too?”
She pointed her finger at me and smiled widely. “Aha! So you are still thinking of Kat. I knew it.”
“Fine. You caught me.” I held up my hands. There was no point denying it. Breaking up with Kat was my biggest regret. Hands down, bar none. I thought my reasons were good, but nothing had come close to the idiocy of what I’d done when I left her. If I could turn back time, I would do everything over again from that moment I gave her the necklace.
“You are a world class idiot,” Jess continued, pushing her sunglasses higher on her head. “You’ve spent five years missing her. You need to find her. You need to find a way to reconnect with her. See if she hates you. Ask Nate even. Or does he want to kill you still for breaking her heart?”
“No. He was pretty pissed at first, but he moved on and we’re still friends.” My sister knew everything about Kat. I couldn’t keep it all inside, and Jess was the only person I felt comfortable talking to about it. I spilled the beans to her after I went to Paris with an empty ache in my heart, one that hadn’t faded over those five years.
“She’s in New York,” Jess said pointedly. “I looked her up before I saw you this morning. She’s building her business. There has to be a way you can try to win her back. After all, that’s what the hero in a movie would do.”
Movies. I knew someone who loved movies. I only hoped I could find the same happy ending with Kat that Hollywood gives you.
Then I remembered the mentorship program at the NYU business school. Maybe I could get into that, and find my way back to her.
I gestured to the restaurant. “Let’s have lunch and plot a way back to the heroine’s heart.”
Jess flashed me a bright smile. “Now you’re talking.”