Nothing good comes from phone calls after midnight. When my clients call me after midnight it's because they fucked up and I need to do a media scrub before the tabloids hit the newsstands at seven A.M… Eastern time. From Los Angeles that's a feat but that's why I'm the best publicist in the business. That's why I can demand a ridiculous monthly retainer from my clients but also why I tend to get stuck with the Tinseltown's biggest screw ups: "bad boys" and "party girls" are gold mines for publicists but they are also a walking disaster waiting to hit the fan. Hence, when my phone rings into the wee hours of the night I immediately wonder who hit a parked cop car or who posted something idiotic on their Twitter. Eight hours ago I wish the phone call would have been that easy.

I was already two brunettes in to my standard Friday night and was ready to crash when my mobile started ringing. This time it wasn't a weepy actress or pissed off rock star on the other end it was Graham Hunter, sweet, pliable do-gooder turned Sheriff of Storybrooke, Maine. His lazy drawl reminding me of everything I hated about the podunk town I grew up in.

Car accident. Liam. Drunk driver. Head on. Instant. Liam.

My big brother was dead.

Saint Liam: the Jones brother everyone loved. I loved him too, even if I was shit at showing it. He practically raised me. From what I understand the Jones family was once quite functionally picturesque: honest hard-working father, beautiful kind mother, and a filial golden son. Then I came about, or so the legend goes. My beautiful, kind mother died shortly after I was born and although Liam swore up and down that it wasn't my fault it's a shade of guilt I've never been able to completely shake. My honest hard-working father became a drunkard with a mean streak and penchant for betting on horses and just about anything else. The golden son became the man of the house and de facto guardian to the scourge of the once-lovely family Jones: me. When our honoured father wasn't spending his modest paycheck as a longshoreman on whiskey and wagers he'd never win he was engaged in his next favorite hobbies, petty thievery and neglecting his sons.

I was incredibly fortunate to have Liam. We were five and ten when my father decided a change of scenery would do us all good. It's rather more likely that he fell behind on rent and had already made a considerable list of enemies in London and the move to the States was as much to save his own skin as to give us a chance at a better life. Of all of the places in the world we landed in sleepy Storybrooke, Maine. I loved it; it's right on the coast, Liam says we inherited our love of the sea from my mother who was quite the sailor in her day. The people in town were kind at first, they pretended not to notice our accents or the holes in our clothes. When our father disappeared into the night and never returned, despite Liam promising that he would, they still pretended not to notice. Except for one family, the Charmings. If you want to talk about picturesque family life, they were it: dashing father, sweet mother, and a daughter who was the most beautiful creature I'd ever laid eyes on. The Charmings took care of Liam and me without intruding on us too much. Even as a lad of twelve they allowed Liam to move into the studio apartment above the Sheriff's station, I now know it was because David Charming was at work downstairs every day and kept a close watch on the brothers Jones from a respectable distance. Snow Charming made sure there was always a balanced meal on our table and clean clothes in our closet. And the daughter… Emma Swan; she became our first real friend.

Liam adjusted well to life on our own. He took his responsibilities in stride and became a good man too soon. He made sure I always made it to the bus on time, my homework was always done, and I never wanted for the necessities. He taught me how to sail and how to tie my shoes. He taught me how to be patient and how to be honourable, at least he tried. It's not his fault I was a complete failure as a student. When he enlisted in the Navy at seventeen he had his paycheck deposited to an account David undersigned for, I had no notion at the time but the two of them made sure all of the bills were paid on time and a small portion every month went towards a college fund to afford me choices that Liam never had. He was always the better of the two of us. I tried to hate him for marrying Emma, but I never really could. He is just too good, was too good, I guess. In short, Liam is the best man I've ever and will ever know. I love him, in my own way.

The minutes after hanging up the phone vaporized, everything just sort of faded out as I struggled to make sense of what Graham was telling me. Liam was gone. He was there and fine and now he wasn't. He was just—gone. In hindsight, I think I was in shock when I got the call because it didn't hit me the way it should have. There was only one thing I wanted, needed, to know. Hunter just kept droning on about gathering this and funeral that and that the high school in town where Liam taught History would be helping make all of the arrangements to make things easier for "Liam's wife."

Emma.

She was alive.

I haven't seen her in eight years but she haunted my dreams every night for half a decade until I was finally able to sleep. I left Storybrooke three days after she and Liam married and I haven't looked back. I moved to Los Angeles where I thought the salt, sand, and sun would fix me; it took me about eight months to burn through the savings account Liam had set aside for my college education. I happened to fall into a pretty good job at Hood Publicity Inc. and worked my way up to senior publicist. Turns out I had a talent for bending the truth, who knew? Three years ago Belle and I struck out on our own. We're running some of Hollywood's biggest accounts through our own firm now. I have everything I need: good job, full bank account, beautiful women at my beck and call.

None of that makes a difference of course because I'm still a miserable sod. Most days I can pull myself together enough to enjoy what I've earned like any normal person should be able to but every once in a while everything goes to hell. I'll see a girl at a restaurant or hear some stupid song that reminds me of her. Then I start thinking about her big emerald green doe eyes and the way she cracks herself up when she tries to tell a joke and I'm ruined. My first five years here I would see her everywhere. She'd be hiding behind my eyes, ready to come roaring back to life the moment that days of exhaustion caught up with me. The worst nights were the ones that were so painfully real that I'd wake up praying to go back to the dream and stay there forever. Things have gotten better. I'm a strictly-brunettes-only man, brunettes with no names are even better. Does it make me a villain? Sure, but it's how I manage.

Now I'm on a plane ticking off fly-over states and counting down the minutes until I'm in the same room as Emma Swan… Jones… whatever, once again. Eight years ago I left on a red-eye without so much as a note to her or my brother. I can't imagine she'll be thrilled to see me again. She's still beautiful and her smile could still stop an entire fleet, I know that much because I still get a ridiculously sentimental Christmas card from Liam every year adorned with the annual over-the-top-coordinated-sweaters-type-photo-shoot photo of the two of them. I wonder if her voice has changed at all or if her eyes are still wide and innocent.

Mostly, I wonder if she hates me and much as I hate myself for leaving.