Spencer paused in the middle of scrubbing his kitchen sink, surgical gloves up to his elbows and a container of bleach by his side. Growing up, his mom had always been a cathartic cleaner—the more upset she’d been, the harder she’d scrubbed. He could still remember the morning after Caleb had been first expelled from school for one of his many teenage escapades. Spencer had woken up at four o’clock to find his mom on hands and knees, taking a toothbrush to every inch of grout in the guest bathroom.

He hadn’t been scrubbing quite that long yet, but there was still time.

“I mean it, Caesar. Come over here.”

The bulldog, who was lying by the front door with his head on his paws and heaving a forlorn sigh every ten seconds, responded with—what else?—another forlorn sigh.

“It hurts my feelings. You do realize that, right?” Spencer gave up on the sink, peeling off his gloves with a snap. All traces of Caleb were now removed from the kitchen—the stacks of old takeout in the refrigerator, the garbage that hadn’t been emptied in over a week, the cheap bottles of whiskey that had replaced normal things like ketchup and sriracha. From the way the kitchen sparkled and gleamed, Spencer’s house was finally starting to look the way it used to.

Cold. Sterile. Empty.

“It’s not like he’s dead,” Spencer said. “I could text him right now, and he’d be here in ten minutes. Probably less.”

The look Caesar gave him, his eyes wet and accusatory, dared him to make good on that threat. It was a feeling Spencer understood well. Since the moment he’d driven away from Mrs. Orson’s house—and away from Ruby—all he’d wanted to do was to call his brother. Caleb was the last man anyone should turn to for relationship advice, and he’d probably spend half the time laughing at how badly Spencer had messed things up, but he didn’t care.

He wanted his brother. And Caesar, unable to eat or sleep or do anything without his favorite Wilson twin near, felt the same.

“You could at least pretend to love me,” Spencer accused as he slid down the wall and came to rest beside the dog. Caesar didn’t go so far as to shower him with affection, but he did roll his head onto Spencer’s lap, which counted for something. “I’m the one you’re stuck with, so you might as well make the best of it.”

Caesar’s warm, heavy bulk went a long way in soothing Spencer’s lacerated feelings. Even though he was the animal’s second choice, he was grateful to have him near. There were some things a man wasn’t meant to bear alone.