Page 72 of I Hate You More

Caleb cut him short by starting to hop on his right leg. He did it with so much deliberation, so much intent, that Spencer knew he was being provoked.

“You’re going to have a lot of catching up to do,” Caleb taunted. He waved the fifty-dollar bill in the air as though fanning himself. “You’d better get in on this while the getting’s good.”

Spencer shook his head. “If you want the fifty that bad, you can have it. Hell, you can have fiftythousandif you really need it. You just have to promise not to gamble with it.”

Caleb stopped hopping as suddenly as he’d begun. The bill fluttered to the floor, where it lay like a piece of discarded confetti. Neither of them made a move to pick it up.

“You’d do it, wouldn’t you?” Caleb asked, and with a hard note in his voice that Spencer couldn’t remember hearing there before. “If I promised to be a good boy and keep my head down, put it to good use by investing it in my future.”

“Of course I would,” Spencer said, though not without wariness. He didn’t like the way Caleb’s face was so unmoving and still. It reminded him of how Ruby had looked on the porch. “All you’ve ever had to do is ask.”

“Fuck you, Spencer.”

Spencer blinked. There was no vehemence in Caleb’s voice, no anger. Just that chill, that same Ruby chill. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“I mean, fuck you. Fuck your offer and fuck your fifty dollars and fuck gambling therapy.”

“You’re the one who wanted to hop,” he protested. “Not me.”

“I don’t want to hop, you idiot. I don’t even want to gamble all that much, to be honest. It’s never been my favorite thing.”

That feeling was back—of being lost at sea, of drifting away into a world Spencer had only ever seen through a warped glass. “But you were arrested for running an illegal gambling website.”

“Yeah—one that I coded and built all by myself. One that employed three independent contractors before it was brought down.” Caleb brought his hands down on Spencer’s shoulders and squeezed. Hard. “You’re one of the smartest people I know. How you can be so stupid is beyond me.”

Stupidwasn’t a word that got slung at Spencer very often, but he was in no position to deny it. Considering how far out of his depth he was right now, he felt like the least intelligent person on the face of the planet.

“It’s not about the gambling,” Caleb said. “It’s never been about the gambling. I could have just as easily fallen into forgery or petty theft. Thewhatof it doesn’t matter, just so long as there’s an element of danger. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it just so happens that my skill set leans toward a high tolerance for risk.”

“Do you even know how to forge things?” was all Spencer could think to reply.

Caleb squeezed his shoulders one last time before letting go. “I can’t win, Spencer. I can never win.”

In that instant, Spencer knew they weren’t talking about winning or losing at a game of chance. They were talking about something a lot more important than that.

“Our whole lives, you’ve been better than me at everything,” Caleb said, confirming Spencer’s suspicions. “You got better grades. You did your chores on time. You remembered to feed the dogs in the kennel every morning and to always say ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’”

“Thank you?” Spencer tried now.

Caleb chuckled. “That’s not what I mean, and you know it. You were so damn good at everything, Spencer. You still are. No one ever doubted that you’d go to college and make something of yourself or that if you one day decided to run a dog show, you’d do it so well that people would travel hundreds of miles to make their pets preen in front of you. From the day we were born, your success was pretty much guaranteed.”

“That’s not true—” Spencer began, but Caleb wasn’t done yet.

“I’ve tried to do the same. Hit the books, study hard, mold myself into someone like you. It didn’t work, obviously, but no one could accuse me of not trying. Hell, I became a dog trainer for the sole reason that it was as close to a veterinarian as I could get without a degree. And I’m not even all that skilled at it.”

“You are skilled at it.”

Caleb snorted. “If Wheezy is any indication, I think we both know that’s a lie—but even that is just like you, isn’t it? Pretending I have half your drive and intelligence, that I could make something of myself if I dug in and applied myself.”

It was on the tip of Spencer’s tongue to point out that everything he’d just said was true and that the sky was the limit when it came to the things Caleb could do in this world, but he didn’t. Something approaching understanding was starting to seep its way into his brain, hazy now but gaining clarity the longer Caleb stood there talking.

“You’re just so damngoodat everything all the time.” Caleb spoke without bitterness. “I’d hate you for it if I didn’t love you so much, but I do. Love you, I mean.”

Spencer swallowed a lump.

“It’s why I keep falling into the same messes. I play poker and build illegal websites and do so many push-ups that I’m pretty sure I’ve pulled, like, twelve muscles.” Caleb’s voice grew quiet. “If I’m right—and I think I am—it’s also why Ruby has spent every waking hour of the past eight weeks training that completely worthless dog.”

Spencer didn’t ask. He couldn’t.