“What’re you doing here?” he said, speaking loudly over the music.

“Came to see you and your brothers. Heard you got into a bit of a scrape and wanted to see for myself that you’re doing okay.”

“I’m fine, Mac’s fine. Grant’s being weird, but he’s always weird.” Evan said what he thought Adam wanted to hear, but his eyes told a different story. He was exhausted, wired, disheveled, but doing his damndest to sell the all’s-well theme. “How are you?”

“Better now that I’ve seen you.”

“Awww, don’t tell me you care.”

Adam shrugged. “Not about you. Just about Mac and Grant.”

“Oh good. I was worried for a minute there.”

He and Evan had fought like tomcats growing up and continued to enjoy a vicious wrestling match whenever possible, but there was nothing they wouldn’t do for each other, including lie to each other’s faces when necessary.

“Got a minute to show me around?”

“Just. We’ve got a ton of work to do before our first artists begin to arrive next week.”

“I won’t keep you long.”

“Come and meet Josh, my sound engineer. I talked him into moving here from Nashville to work with me. He’s showing me the basics on the board.”

Adam followed Evan up the stairs to the sound booth where he met Josh Harrelson, another victim of the Starlight Records bankruptcy that had taken Evan’s debut album down with it.

“Josh, my brother, Adam, here from the Big Apple.”

Josh shook Adam’s hand. “How many brothers do you have, man?”

“He’s the last one,” Evan said, laughing. “Lots of cousins, though. I’m going to give Adam a quick tour. I’ll be right back.”

“Take your time,” Josh said. “I’ve got plenty to do.”

Evan walked Adam through three studios on the first floor. “We’ve got soundproofed walls so we can run three sessions simultaneously. Back here is my office, not that I’m ever in here. Oh, hey, check out the logos we came up with.” He held up a board with three different renditions of the Island Breeze Records logo. “Any preferences?”

“I like the one that has the island in the backdrop and the surfboard.”

“I do, too. I think we’re going to go with that one.”

“I meant to tell you—you need to cut back the brush on the driveway. This place is hard to find.”

“I’ve got Alex Martinez coming to do that this week. Remember AM?”

“Sure, his brother PM was in my class.”

Adam recalled that the brothers’ nicknames had come from one being a morning person and the other a night owl. “I thought Alex had moved off-island to work at the National Conservatory.”

“He did, but he came home when his mom got sick.”

“What’s wrong with his mom?”

“Alzheimer’s.”