“Then you should have offered to drive him out here with you,” his mom said. “Or to wait until he was available so we could all visit at once.”

“Justine, we talked about this,” his father said, a gentle warning in his voice.

“Yes, and we agreed that Spencer is too hard on his brother. Caleb’s going through a rough patch right now. He needs a helping hand, that’s all.”

It was fortunate for all three of them that Ruby appeared in the kitchen just then, both she and Max wearing clean new clothes. Max looked the same as he always did, his chubby legs protruding from a pair of red shorts that Spencer recalled seeing on both of the other boys at one point in time. Ruby had changed into a yellow sundress that buttoned all the way down her front and reached midcalf. There was nothing the least bit scandalous or revealing about it, but Spencer found himself unable to look away.

She was like the sun walking into the room—and into his life. Every time she appeared, his chest contracted and expanded in equal proportions. He didn’t understand it, but he liked it.

He liked it way more than was good for him.

“You didn’t tell me that you two started that weird duct-tape separation when you were kids,” Ruby said by way of greeting. “Although now that I think about it, I should have known. No rational adult would conceive of such a plan. Let me guess… Your side was the one with all the airplane models lined up in tidy rows?”

She allowed Max to wriggle out of her grasp and dash across the kitchen toward Julio and Xavier. As if they, too, were in on the conspiracy to make Spencer look like a hard-ass of a man who didn’t give two damns about his brother, they shared their cookies with Max without being asked.

“For shame.” His mother wiped her hands on a dishrag and turned to face him. “Don’t tell me they’re still doing that? Spencer, how could you? You’re thirty years old.”

“So is Caleb,” he couldn’t help pointing out.

“They’ve got a whole system, actually. With rules and punishments and everything.”

His mom tsked disapprovingly at this, but his dad only chuckled. “They’ve always been a deeply competitive pair,” he said. But then he ruined it by adding, “He’s doing well, though? Our Caleb? He’s…happy?”