Lovegame(111)

Despite all that, it’s a little like looking in a mirror. We have the same eyes, the same nose, the same cheekbones and jaw. The same build. The same height. The same hands. It’s disconcerting, even after all this time. Then again, it always has been.

Two peas in a pod my mother used to call us. Even though I was significantly younger than him, she always went on and on about how alike we were, even after it became apparent that there was something very, very wrong with Jason. At least to everybody but her.

There’s a reason I have the issues I do.

I wait for him to say something—anything—but he just looks at me with those strangely expressionless eyes. He’s waiting for the same from me, I’m sure, but I still have nothing to say. Not here and not to him.

Minutes pass, long and silent, and still neither of us says a word. I don’t know how long it’s going to go on, but it feels like we’re locked in a battle now and the first one to speak is going down. I’m determined that it isn’t going to be me—I’ve lost to Jason too many times through the years, in battles far more important than this.

Eventually he’ll get tired of the game, or my visitation will end. Either way, I’m still the winner because I get to walk out the front door and he has to go back to his cramped and isolated cell.

More minutes pass in our strange and silent countdown, marked only by the incessant ticking of the clock on the wall behind us, well out of reach of the prisoners. The guard is watching us from his post in the far corner of the room, and I can tell he’s trying to figure out what the hell this is about.

I would enlighten him if I knew. But even the profiler in me is stumped by our stubbornness in this.

In the end Jason breaks first, just like I knew he would.

“What are you doing here?” he demands.

“Mom said you wanted to see me.”

“And you just came running, out of the goodness of your FBI agent heart.”

“I was never an agent.”

“Oh, right. You were the analyst. Isn’t that the job they give people who can’t cut it as agents?”

“Sometimes.” He’s looking for a rise and I refuse to give him one. Just like when we were kids. But I’m not a kid anymore. “And sometimes it’s just the job they give to people who have psychopathic *s for brothers.”

“Hmm, maybe.” His voice is unconcerned, but I can tell he didn’t like that. Didn’t like being called a psychopath, but more, didn’t like that I was the one saying it. But he, too, has his poker face on. “Feel better now that you got that off your chest?”

It’s just unlucky for him that I’ve spent the last decade and a half staring down people much more disturbed—and disturbing—than he is. “Not really, no.”

“Yeah, I figured it’d take more than you being a snarky little cunt to clear the air between us.” He shoots me a grin so macabre that my blood runs cold.

Again, I keep that shit to myself, on total and complete lockdown. “Oh, I don’t know. I can see you just fine. Fifteen years and a couple of degrees in psychology clears a lot of smoke out of the way.”

The first cracks start to show as he snaps, “You think you’re so smart, don’t you? With your Harvard education and your big Hollywood movie? Well f*ck you, Ian. Fuck you.”

Very deliberately, I yawn right in his face. And if I thought he was pissed before it’s nothing compared to the rage on his face now. Rule number one about my brother—he hates being ignored.

His hands clench on the table and I can tell he’s thinking of taking a swing at me. Again, just like old times. But, again, I’m not a kid anymore. He doesn’t scare me the way he used to. I won’t let him have that much control over me.

And so I don’t move, don’t flinch, don’t so much as breathe as I wait to see what he’s going to do. I almost want him to do it—being his little brother, if nothing else, taught me how to take a punch, physical or metaphorical—but it turns out he’s smarter than that now. Or he’s got more to lose. Because when the punch comes, it’s verbal, not physical.

“Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask. Did you bang that blond bitch yet? The one who stars in that movie of yours?”

My whole body tenses up, no matter how hard I work to stay loose. To stay blank. I can’t stand him talking about her, can’t stomach the idea of him even thinking about her. For the first time, it’s a struggle to keep my voice even when I answer him. “It doesn’t work that way. I’m just the guy who wrote the book.”

He likes that. Likes how unimportant I am. Likes even more the thin thread of tension I can’t keep out of my voice.

“That’s a shame, man. If that bitch was working on one of my books, I would have given it to her by now. Would have made her take it whether she wanted to or not.”

“And we both know how well that worked out for you so far, don’t we?”

“Don’t kid yourself. I’m exactly where I want to be.”

“Whatever it takes to get you through the day, brother.”

He really doesn’t like that.

His eyes narrow and his fingers drum on the table. “What was her name again? Oh, yeah, that’s right.” He snaps his fingers, points at me. “Veronica Romero. Big Hollywood royalty. You hit that yet?”