The Love Scam - MaryJanice Davidson Page 0,2

was meticulously trimmed, his blue eyes meticulously not bloodshot. Savile Row on the man’s back, Armani on his wrist, and no doubt something fancy on his feet. Rake slouched lower and looked: yep. Black and shiny. Definitely expensive. The two of them were a before-and-after picture.

Worse, Blake hadn’t insisted on a meeting at dawn so Rake could admire his twin’s dapperness. (That was a word, right?) Something was up.

He struggled upright. “Is Mom okay? Please say Mom’s okay. A hangover plus Blake plus Mom is just exhausting to think about.” He sighed and rubbed his temples. Sometime in the night, his tongue had been switched out for a wad of cotton. A dirty wad that tasted like booze. “My head is still attached to my body, right? It didn’t blow up or anything?” He gingerly felt his skull, worried his fingers would sink into it like bread dough. “My brain feels really explodey.”

Blake snorted. “Stop making up words, you hungover troglodyte.”

Rake nearly spit all over himself; probably wasn’t the best time to gulp his water. “I will if you will!” Wow. That didn’t sound childish AT ALL. God, why do I let Blake get to me like this? Why does he goad me? We’re almost thirty!

“Troglodyte is a real word!” Rake cheered up a bit to see Blake’s famously even temper was splintering.

“God, why do I ever reach out to you?”

“Dunno.” He did know, but would never say. They’d always been different, always fought, but underneath it all was something like love, or at least loyalty, or at least not hate. So Rake would think, but never say, You reach out because you’re lonely. Because you’re a stereotype—the uptight rich guy who needs tru luv to loosen up. And I’m your screwup brother who occasionally needs guidance but never admits it, because I’m a stereotype, too. And around and around we go. “But it makes you nuts, so I don’t know why you don’t quit it.” Rake finished his water, and now grabbed Blake’s. Ah, water, sweet water of life. Wait. Water of life?

“God help us when you become a father.”

“Back atcha.” At Blake’s uncharacteristic silence, Rake tensed. “Uh—do you know something I don’t?”

“Almost always.”

“Or someone I don’t?”

Blake waved away his brother’s sudden attack of paranoia. “You mean do I know you have a bastard or five running around?”

“You’re one to talk!”

“Fair point. But no. I don’t have personal knowledge of your hypothetical bastards. Nor my own.”

“Oh, thank Christ.” Rake was so relieved, he nearly swooned out of the booth onto the floor. “So why are we here?”

“Unlike some, I cannot simply jettison my responsibilities when they become tiresome. Not that I haven’t been tempted; surely I’ve done nothing to be saddled with you.” Blake was pontificating, and Rake gulped faster. Maybe he’d drown. Or belch! Blake hated pretty much every natural bodily function, especially ones made by Rake’s body.

“Did so. It’s your own fault for insisting on being born first. You probably elbow-checked me on your way out of the womb. Now c’mon, why are we here? Why’d you call? What couldn’t wait until our birthday?”

“Our mother is in Sweetheart and she needs us. She hates it, but she needs us.”

The sarcastic retort died and Rake sat up so straight, it was like someone had rammed a broomstick down his spine. “Tell me,” he ordered.

Blake did.

Two

Ten confusing minutes later …

“So Mom’s stuck in her hometown, which is called Sweetheart for reasons both dark and hilarious, and she’s too stubborn to leave, and she won’t ask us to help her bail.” Rake considered that for a moment. “Yep. Sounds legit.”

Blake was nodding. “It’s too much for her, too much for anyone, and she keeps getting in deeper and deeper.” A short pause, which Rake knew meant here comes the judgment. “You wouldn’t recognize her voice if you took her calls.”

“Hey! World traveler, remember? Show me the cell tower on Lopez Island or the Travaasa Hana or the Aran Islands. I always call her back.”

Blake waved Rake’s return calls away: Shoo, return calls, be gone from me. “At three A.M. Sweetheart time, when she’s semiconscious and barely coherent.”

Oh, now that’s too damned ridiculous. “She’s completely coherent! It’s our mom! She’d be coherent if she was dead!” If she was— Wait, that makes no—no! Stand by your senseless statement! Double down on the senseless!

Blake sighed. “You disappoint me.” Rake didn’t have to be a mind reader to hear the unspoken again. “If anyone could recognize barely coherent, little brother, I’d think it