Page 3 of The Love Scam
“Back atcha.” At Blake’s uncharacteristic silence, Rake tensed. “Uh—do you know something I don’t?”
“Almost always.”
“Or someoneI 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 meanthere 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 threeA.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!”Ifshe 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 unspokenagain.“If anyone could recognize barely coherent, little brother, I’d think it would be you.”
Rake opened his mouth to let loose a devastating retort
(I’ll coherent you, tightass!)
but Blake was well into lecture mode. Which was kind of like Marshawn’s Beast Mode, only no one evereverwanted to see it. “And the racket when you pulled in! Like this town isn’t barely tolerable as it is. A motorcycleanda leather jacket? How original. Lovely periorbital hematoma, Marlon Brando.”
I’ve gotta take this from Slutty McJudgypants?“Blow it right out your ass, Benjamin Tarbell 2.0.”
There was acrack!as Blake slammed his fist on the table. “I’m nothing like our father.”
Rake let out what he figured would be an eloquent snort, then embellished said snort with “What’s the new one’s name? Carrie? Terrie? Gerri? Fo-ferry? Fee-fi-fo-ferry?Ferr-ee!”
“Ava.” Blake inspected his fist. “And she’s fine. I have reasonable certainty she’s fine. As couples often do, we came to a mutual decision to give each other—”
Some breathing room.
“—some breathing room,” they finished, and Blake’s glare was a fearsome thing. “And you’re one to talk, little brother.”
No you don’t.Rake had zero intention of letting that one slide. “At least I’m open about what I want from them and what they want from me. You,youthink you’re a gentleman because you insist they spend the night instead of calling them a cab while you’re both still breathing hard.” Frankly,his brother should just buy his own cab company and get it over with. It would save him a fortune in trouble and eons of time. “You’re just fooling yourself, pal. And they know it and I know it and Mom knows it and everybody but you gets it.”
