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.

“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 your equal.”

“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. You do make 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.

He had been 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.