Page 73 of I Hate You More

“She doesn’t want you to give her the dog-show trophy, Spencer. She wants to earn it.” Caleb gave a rueful shake of his head. “Even if she fails, even if she falls flat on her face and ends up with an ankle monitor and six months of house arrest, she’ll get back up and keep fighting. Don’t you get it? We don’t want to be your shadow. We want to be yourequal.”

“My equal?” Spencer echoed.

“Or as close to it as we can get anyway.” Caleb shrugged. “And even though we know it’s not really possible—that you’re always going to be one step ahead, with a wallet full of cash and a head full of information—we’re not going to give up the pursuit. That’s the whole point. You force us to try. You make us want to be better. Hell, Spencer. Youdomake us better.”

There was a lot to unpack in everything Caleb had just said, but one question loomed at the forefront. Spencer gave in and asked.

“You think Ruby loves me?”

Caleb’s laughter did much to dispel the tension that had fallen over the room. “That’s your takeaway from all this?”

Spencer felt the tips of his ears grow warm. “It’s just that you said you’d hate me if you didn’t love me so much. I know I don’t deserve any of it, but if you think Ruby is the same, that she feels the way you do—”

“She does.”

Spencer wished he could be so sure. Caleb hadn’t been there when Ruby had turned him away, so upset she was practically vibrating, everything about her signaling that she wanted nothing to do with him.

Hehadbeen there for all the rest, though. For every single high point in Spencer’s life, for just as many of the lows. Even when relations between them were so strained that they had to put a literal line between them, Caleb showed up. That was more important than all the money in the world, worth more than a stable job and a predicable daily routine.

“I messed up, didn’t I?” Spencer said.

It was a rhetorical question, but Caleb answered it anyway.

“Oh, absolutely. I don’t know what you were thinking, offering that woman an easy way out.” He laughed. “Even I would have known better than that, and I’m not the one with a college degree and a clean criminal record.”

Spencer felt a strange combination of relief and dread, a sensation that everything was right with the world and also terribly, horribly wrong. “You really don’t care that much about gambling?”

Caleb shrugged. “Not unless I’m staking myself against you. It was a means to an end, that’s all.”

“You don’t plan on breaking any more laws?”

“I can’t promise I won’t run the occasional red light, but no. I’ve learned my lesson. I appreciate you bailing me out and taking me in, and I doubt I’ll ever be able to repay you for it, but I don’t think I can stand the sight of this house much longer. Or, to be honest, your grumpy, unshaven face in the morning.”

Spencer released a shaky laugh. That sounded so much like the Caleb he used to know—the brother who was as much his friend as his foe—that life was suddenly taking on a much sunnier aspect.

“And you’ll go see Mom and Dad?” he persisted. “Now that you’re free?”

Caleb pulled a grimace. “If it’s that important to you, yes.”

“It is.”

His brother nodded once. Even though Caleb didn’t like it, and he wouldn’t enjoy their mom’s loving recriminations, Spencer knew he’d make good on his promise. He always had. That was something he’d forgotten in all the anxiety and annoyance of the past few months. Caleb didn’t always make the same choices Spencer would, but when he said he’d do a thing, he’d do it even if it cost him everything he had.

Just like someone else he knew.

“For the record, you’re not my equal,” Spencer said, drawing a deep breath. This next part was going to be difficult, but it had to be said. “Not in the things that matter.”

A hurt expression crossed Caleb’s face. “Even after everything I just said, everything we just—”

“When it comes to people, you’re unquestionably my master.” Spencer ran a hand through his hair and released a shaky laugh. “And I want you—no, Ineedyou—to teach me. People like you. People freaking love you. Tell me, Caleb. What can I do to get Ruby back?”

Caleb’s wince turned to a wide, beaming smile. “Oh, Spencer. And here I thought you’d never ask.”

Chapter 21

“Well, it’s not how I always imagined you returning to the stage, but I suppose it’s better than nothing.” Ruby’s mother held up a bottle of hair spray and started to apply it. Everywhere. Hair and face and, most important, all those spots where dress met skin. Although the modern style was to rely on tape and clever stitchery to hold a pageant gown in place, Laurel held true to the traditions.

Hair spray fixed everything.