Page 42 of The Paradise Problem

I shake my head, feeling immense relief the second I decide to let this stupid race go. “It’s nice just to be out here. We can snorkel here if we want.”

“I tell you what: I am not getting back in that water. The ocean is monster soup, and I don’t want to die today.” She lies back against the stretch of kayak between us, and I stare down at her nearly naked body, wondering precisely how fucked I am.

With her eyes closed, Anna says, “Tell me more about your relationship with your brother.”

“It’s not therapy hour, Green.”

“Okay, then I want to go snorkeling with the group.”

“He and I have never been close,” I say quickly, suddenly and deeply uninterested in spending the morning anywhere but right here with Anna. “I think from the moment he was born, the only thing he cared about was impressing our father.”

“What’s the age difference?” she asks.

“He’s three years older,” I say. “Then Jake came four years after me, and Charlotte four years after that.”

“Your mom was pregnant and raising kids for over a decade?” Anna whistles, dropping a hand over the side of the boat to skim her fingertips through the water. Her limbs are so long, so graceful. With her eyes closed I can just look, admiring the shape of her collarbones, the small valley of her breasts beneath her swimsuit, and down the smooth skin of her stomach. “Actually, so was Blaire, now that I think about it. No wonder they always have drinks in their hands.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” I say, forcing my gaze away. “They have help.”

Anna laughs. “Help being pregnant and birthing children?”

“No, I mean nannies.”

“Look how quickly you dismiss all that work.” Anna lifts her hand, flicking water back at me. “Your mom birthed four babies and helped your dad manage an empire. Blaire birthed four and is married to Alex. Of course they have nannies.”

We bob in the water while I sit with this. She’s right. So why am I diminishing what she’s done, just like my father does? When I poke at it, resentment builds.

“I have a complicated relationship with my mother,” I admit.

“I get it,” she says easily. “Is it like, your dad is a dick, and your mom enables it?”

I stare at her, wondering how she so concisely summed up the pathos I spent the better part of my twenties working through. “Something like that.”

“But back to Alex…” Anna says, her voice somehow soothing even when she’s pressing at all of my bruises. “Maybe you two are so competitive because it serves your father for you to be at odds with each other.”

This makes me laugh a little. Nail on the head. “You think?”

“You drive Alex crazy because he can’t ever beat you even though he’s the older brother. He’s probably jealous because you’re tall and hot and smart and he’s short and—”

“Annoying. You can say it.”

“You two don’t seem to bring out the best in each other,” she says instead.

I laugh wryly. “No.”

“Why not try being nice to him?”

It takes a second for me to know I’ve heard her right. “Nice to Alex? Why?”

“Uh, because it doesn’t seem like anyone else is? Because you’re his family?”

“Spoken like someone who has no family.”

The second the words are out of my mouth, we both go silent. Fuck. What a terrible thing to say. “Sorry. That wasn’t great. Let’s strike it from the record.”

“All good.”

“Do you…” I reach up, cupping my forehead. “Please tell me you have family. Otherwise, I’m going to dive into the monster soup.”

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