“Hi, Joyce.”
“I have Phillip and Kari from the Nighthawk back office on the line as well. Are you available to chat?”
“Uh, what do you need?”
“Are you still at the wedding?”
“I am.”
“Are you okay?”
“Not really,” I answer honestly.
“The organization was emailed a video of you having a fight with someone on the island, Brick,” the woman Kari speaks. “I’m calling to see if I need to set you up with legal counsel. Is anyone pressing charges? The laws are slightly different there than in the US.”
“I won’t need a lawyer.”
“Are you sure? He’s probably seeing dollar signs already,” Joyce adds.
“I’ve got it handled.”
“We can’t control who shares the video online, but we’ll do our best to control the narrative,” Kari says.
“I appreciate you,” I tell her.
“Can you get the guy you beat up to sign a waiver saying he won’t press charges?” Phillip interjects.
“No,” I say emphatically. “I wouldn’t ask him to do that. It was completely my fault.”
“Brick?”
I pivot my head around toward a voice I’ve been aching to hear for hours. Because of the loud waves and her quiet footsteps through the sand, I didn’t notice her approach.
“I’ve got to go,” I say into the phone and end the call.
Kaya stares at the phone and back at me, probably wondering who I just abruptly hung up with.
“That was my agent and my publicist.”
“You don’t have to explain.”
“They just wanted to make sure I was okay.”
“You told them about what happened here?”
“No, uh,” I hesitate. “The Nighthawks were given a heads up from a news outlet about a video featuring me in an altercation.”
“Oh.”
I stand up and face the most beautiful woman in the world. I want to say something meaningful, something that can change the past twenty-four hours for us, but I’m finding it difficult to speak. My throat is tight with emotions I can’t express.
We stand in silence for what seems like an eternity. At a certain point, both of us take our eyes off of each other and onto the horizon. Finally, it’s Kaya who breaks the silence between us.
“Brick…” she says, her voice soft and sad. “I didn’t want you to go back to New York without me saying goodbye. There are no hard feelings on my part. We knew this was probably going to end badly. I just hoped it wouldn’t of been this soon.”
“Your eyes are swollen,” I notice woefully, a clear indicator she’s been crying her eyes out.
“I’m upset that I’ve ruined my brother’s wedding.”
