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 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 ever ever wanted to see it. “And the racket when you pulled in! Like this town isn’t barely tolerable as it is. A motorcycle and a 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 a crack! 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, you think 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.”
His twin had his temper back under its usual tight control, and merely arched a dark blond brow. “Wanting the lady in question to spend the night rather than showing her the door once we’ve stopped sweating isn’t a character flaw, Rake, though it’s telling that you think it is.”
The twins glowered at each other but, to switch it up, remained seated. Usually by now they would be chest-to-chest, with Blake enumerating Rake’s many character flaws and Rake cordially inviting his brother to suck himself sideways.
After a long moment, Blake sighed. “This isn’t helping our mother.”
“No.” That’s why they hadn’t come to blows yet. They loved irritating the piss out of each other, but loved their mother more. Rake, suddenly desperate to occupy his hands, started stacking Splenda packets. “It’s not. So. What, then?”
“I propose we join forces. Hear me out!” he added when Rake shuddered. “You know she has a harder time dealing with us when we’re united.”
He snorted. “Truth. It’s like the Roadrunner teaming up with Wile E. Coyote. You never see it coming, and when it does come, it’s creepy and weird and everyone’s taken off guard.”
“Yes.” Whoa! A smile! Rake sometimes couldn’t remember if his brother even had teeth. “Creepy and weird is an outstanding way to describe the situation. Let’s initiate a conference call and let her know we’re going to work together to help her through this mess, no matter how complex.”
That’s … not an entirely stupid idea. “Yep, yep. That would definitely disarm her into allowing us to interfere. Help!” At his slip, he rapidly adjusted. “I meant help.”
Blake almost laughed, and seeing the light of merry mischief in his big brother’s eyes reminded Rake why he loved the son of a bitch. When Blake loosened up, he was almost human. “So: We will reach out at a time early enough that she will likely be in her room getting ready, but not so late that she has left to deal with the judgmental farmers’ brigade. Eight A.M. ought to do it. Can you be at my place in time?”
Ugh. Well, he’d just stay up extra late that night, avoid going to bed altogether until after the call. Also, Blake didn’t seem to get that they didn’t have to be in the same room to make a conference call. Or even the same state, continent, or hemisphere. “Sure.”
Blake’s eyes went all narrow and squinty, like when he was constipated or thought Rake wasn’t paying attention. “So when would that be, exactly?”
Rake shrugged. “Fifteen minutes early to work out the script. Say quarter to ten?”
Another put-upon sigh. “She is trapped in the central time zone, Rake.”
“Right.” Time for some fun. “Center means more toward the middle. Noon is the middle. So she’s two hours closer to the middle: Ten A.M.”
“I don’t understand.” As Rake opened his mouth to continue torturing his genetic double, said double kept up with the whining. “You have a high school diploma. You have a college degree. You’re a polymath.”
He smirked. This was too good. His twin was brilliant, and like all brilliant jerks, had peculiar blind spots. For instance, he didn’t see how very like their father he was, he was incapable of having a sense of humor 95.999999 percent of the time, potato chips made him constipated but he couldn’t stay away from them, and he got polymath and polyglot mixed up. Rake never corrected him because, again: It was too good. “Not anymore. The doctor gave me some antibiotics and it cleared right up.”
“Very funny.” Yes! Blake was doing that thing where he was forcing words past tightly clenched teeth. You could actually see his temples throbbing. O, victorious day! “You are not a complete imbecile.”
“Awwww. So sweet!”
“Hww oo ot nnstnnd tmm zzzs wrk?” Years of translating Blake’s diatribes through clenched teeth allowed Rake to interpret that as “How do you not understand how time zones work?”
He shook his head, suddenly tired of it all. “Christ, Blake, will you back off my dumbassery for once?”
Blake had broken off to massage his jaw. “But it’s so fascinating. Like studying a new mold spore no one knew existed.”
“Aw, jeez.” He rubbed his eye—the sore one, he remembered too late. “Just tell me what time to be at your place.”
“Five-forty-five.” At Rake’s shudder, Blake added with no small amount of relish, “In the morning. Tomorrow morning. Morning is the opposite of evening. Not today. Tomorrow.”
“What?” Rake’s beloved beat-up leather jacket was just a bit too big, and he sometimes got lost in it. When he straightened, he popped out, Blake had once told him, like a turtle from its shell. “But I’ll have just gone to bed!”
Blake had gone back to glaring. “So assist me with our mother, and then go to bed,” he snapped. “It’s not rocket science!”
Oh again with the rocket science! “You’re just saying that because you studied rocket science!” So, so embarrassing. Blake didn’t even have the decency to wait until college, had started reading up on that stuff during freshman year. Rake could still see that first book in his mind’s eye: Fundamentals of Astrophysics. Something a person who lost a bet would read but oh no, not Blake. He claimed it was interesting. Said it was fun. Did it on purpose. “You’re forever running around telling people this isn’t rocket science, that’s not rocket science. Nobody elected you the namer of things rocket science!” Rake stopped himself; Blake was starting to look like a stroke was imminent. “What’s wrong? Why is your face doing that?”
“I have no idea. I can’t see my face.” He rubbed his temples. “Either I’m getting a headache or my brain is trying to eject from my skull in pure self-defense.”
“Bummer!” Hmm, too bitchy. “Need some Advil?”
“Advil is not what I need.” He glanced at his brother’s face, his gaze lingering on the black eye, then away. “You all right?”
Ah. That. Rake shrugged. “It’s just sore.”
Blake made a sound that was a cross between hmph and a snort. Snnmph. “I assume whatever damsel you rescued was appropriately grateful?”
“I dunno.” He didn’t. “Never got the chance to ask.” It was true. One of those ninety-secon
d things that seemed, in retrospect, to have lasted longer. “I saw a couple of assholes harassing the kiddo, and when I rolled up, one had her purse and the other was about to have her. So … you know.”
Blake nodded and almost—but not quite!—smiled. Both boys had inherited their mother’s moral compass, and her hatred of unfair fights. There had been times in high school when Blake had been the one sporting the black eye. Once, when fending off some football jagoffs after gym, they ended up with matching black eyes. Their mother had marveled at the phenomenon (“Unbelievable, unfortunate, but the symmetry is almost … soothing?”) before grounding them for a hundred years.
“She took off before I could make sure she was okay,” he finished. “The way she was moving, she was probably okay.” She also might have been a track star. He’d seen her shoot an unbelieving look over one slender shoulder, then return to her full-on sprint to the parking lot. Rake didn’t blame her for wanting to vacate, and he was glad to see she got to her car and peeled out safely, but a thank-you would have been nice.
“If you’re going to let people smack you, you might at least tend properly to the injury.” Blake made an imperious motion and the waitress trotted over. Aw, no. It couldn’t be. He wouldn’t. Not here. Not now. They were grown men, dammit!
“Could I get a clean washcloth and—”
He groaned. “Blake.”
“—a bowl of water? And some ice?”
“First off, they’re not bringing you bowls of water and cloths.” He was pretty sure. She’d scampered off in a hurry. “This is not business class on a flight to Tokyo. Second, this happened two days ago.” Even as he was speaking, he knew he was wasting his breath. “Anything you do now will be window dressing.”
“And some duct tape for my brother’s mouth,” he called after her, then turned back. “If you sit still and take care of this, I’ll schedule the call to Mom for an hour later, so you can get a nap first.”
Rake tried, and failed, to keep the grin off his face. “Awwww. You do care!”
“Shut up.”
He batted his eyes at his big brother, who looked uncomfortable at being caught giving a shit. “I feel safer already.”
Blake groaned and covered his eyes. “Stop talking.”
“Such big strong arms! To go with your big strong feet!”
Ah, there was the familiar glare of death. “I hope you get blood poisoning and die.”
“No you don’t.” You grumpy jackass. Blake’s love usually came wrapped in a layer of prickly fierceness, just like Mom’s. How many times had Blake patched him up after a scuffle on the playground? The guy had learned to sew just so Rake could hide the rips from their mother. Money had almost always been too tight for new clothes. So eight-year-old Blake would be hunched over Rake’s torn jeans, forcing a needle through the denim while muttering a constant stream of “idiot” and “moron” and “at least go for their balls first next time, they were all bigger than you.”
“No you don’t,” he said again, just to be saying it.
“No.” His twin sighed, and gave him a crooked smile. “I don’t.”
Three
Venice, now
When he finally flopped out of the canal and onto the dock like a furious, grossed-out fish, a single thought dug into his brain.
Time to question my choices. Which? All.
He let the patter of excited tourists wash over him like background music as he struggled to his feet. The people who’d helped him out of the canal were, understandably, reluctant to touch him, but still wanted to help. He was surrounded by locals, a very concerned gondolier, and the requisite Americans peering at him through their phones, keeping a safe distance even as they took pictures for social media. He and Blake agreed on one thing: American tourists were the Worst. He let loose with a raspberry in their direction, then shook himself like a dog.
“Eww!” one of the cuter ones shrieked, and fled, most of her tour group right behind her.
“It almost went in my mouth,” one of her pals whined, trotting to catch up.
“It did go in my mouth,” he muttered. “About a quart, I think.” He spat. Spat again. Prayed his mother would never, ever hear about the time he fell into the Grand Canal and, worse, spit (a lot) in public. He’d pay a thousand bucks right now for a ginger beer. And then a shower. This day, which had started horribly, could not possibly get any—
“Oh, hey, there you are.”
He blinked and looked up. Standing in front of him with her head tilted and one hand on her hip was one of the most oddly striking women he had ever seen. She was tall—the top of her head came to his nose—with the curvy figure of a fifties pinup star. Her face was a pale, freckled oval, her nose long over a wide, smiling mouth with a plush lower lip. Her eyes were a color he’d never seen before, like storm clouds, or dirty ice. Her hair was a light brown that shone with good health and fell in waves to her shoulders. Her neck was long, but her wrists were delicate and she had small hands. Her feet, clad in tan leather sandals, were extraordinarily long and narrow. She was wearing knee-length black linen walking shorts, a crisp khaki shirt, and a light linen jacket, also black and clearly tailored, with the sleeves shoved up to her elbows. But no jewelry, not even a watch.
It shouldn’t have worked. None of it should have worked. She was a mass of contradictions: flawless pale skin but freckles. Tall, but curvy instead of athletic. Long narrow nose, but full lips. Mouth too wide, eyes too narrow and oddly colored. Small hands but big feet. Expensive clothing but no jewelry. And she seemed delighted to see him, the first person that day who was. “I was worried I wouldn’t see you again.”
Add another contradiction; she had the smooth low voice of a radio-show host or a phone-sex operator, but spoke in a sort of slur, where all her words ran together, with odd inflections on some of the vowels: Wuz worr’ed I wouldn’t s’ya ‘gin.
He stared at her, dripping. “Wait, you know me? Do—do I know you?”
“Not really. We weren’t formally introduced.” She was fighting a smile, and losing. “Why’d you jump in the canal, you big dummy? Blech!” Why’dya jump inna canal, y’big dummy?
Blech? Did she just say blech?
“I didn’t jump,” he whined, “I fell.” And some goddamned sympathy would be goddamned nice, thanks very goddamned much.
This made her laugh, because she was probably a monster. “How can anyone fall in?” She made a vague gesture, which encapsulated the enormous canal, the vaporettos, the gondolas, the cruise ship passing by in the distance, and the several feet of docks anyone would have to obliviously wander past before plunging into the water. “It’s—y’know. It’s right there. I thoughtcha musta lost a bet’r something.”
“I didn’t lose a bet, I’m hungover. Possibly because I lost a bet.” Somewhere, he knew, Blake was laughing his ass off. He could sense it. He could sense the mocking laughter.
“Yeah, not surprised, alla vermouth you put away.”
“We were drinking together?” And he hated—fucking hated—vermouth. It had to be a lie. Vermouth, as any sane person knew, was the devil’s urine.
“Naw.” She was still grinning at him with her wide mouth and weird gray eyes. “You were drinking. I was buying, on account of how you tried ta help me.”
“Help you? What the hell is going on? What happened last night?” His voice rose to a roar. “How the hell did I end up in Venice?”
“Got me. I tracked you down to introduce you to your daughter, maybe.” She gestured to the child standing beside her, a slight brunette who was silently staring up at him with big dark eyes. Dickens orphan big. Victorian London match girl big.
“Jesus!” He’d been so busy gaping (and dripping), he hadn’t even noticed the kid until what’s-her-face drew his attention to her.
“Hi,” the child replied.
“What is going on?”
“Don’t play dumb,” the woman advised. “Unless you’re actually dumb. In which case you should try to hide it be
tter.”
He opened his mouth to really let her have it, then bent forward and threw up on her shoes.
“Ah hell,” she sighed as the child beside her laughed.
Four
The smirking weirdo and the child
(daughter?)
(nuh-uh, wrong guy, honey)
helped him back into the hotel, which is when he realized he hadn’t grabbed his key card, and had no idea what his room number was. Or what his hotel was, for that matter; all he knew was that he woke up in Venice with a horrible hangover, which had been the nicest part of his day.
“You’re kidding!” his annoying escort said. “D’you remember the floor at least? No?” To the child: “Who does that?”
“I was trying not to puke,” he snapped. “I couldn’t be bothered with minor details like where I slept and what country I woke up in.”
“And it worked,” she replied, “kinda.”
Normally he would have apologized for ruining her sandals and offered to buy replacements, but that was when he came to another sickening realization. “My wallet! I forgot that, too!” He was patting his soaked pockets and realized it was worse than that. Because now that he gave it some thought, he wasn’t sure he’d forgotten it. In fact … “I lost my wallet!”
“Naw, you didn’t.”
“The hell I didn’t.”
“Where was the last place you saw it?” the child asked helpfully.
“I. Don’t. Know.”
“I said you didn’t lose it.”
“How the hell would you know?” God, she was infuriating. Her good mood in the face of his very serious problem was aggravating—
Aggravating beyond belief, Blake’s voice spoke up helpfully.
Well, it was!
It’s like she has no understanding of the seriousness of your situation. Thinks your problems are funny.
Well, she did! The only time she stopped grinning was when he threw up on her. And even then she’d left the child with him, resulting in an awkward chat,
(“You’re having a bad day.”
The Love Scam Page 2