“I love your brother,” I lie.

“Then why didn’t you hug him and be like yes?” She drops the hose. She paces. “Never mind,” she says. “This happens every time I go out with someone. At first you act like you love my brother and it’s cool and you want to be friends but then the minute he, I don’t know, needs something from you, you turn your back on him.”

“He didn’t need anything from me,” I say. “He got a fucking deal.”

“He needed you to be happy for him.” She sniffles. “He needed you to love him. I mean, why couldn’t you have just hugged him and been there for him? Why did you have to run away?”

So now it’s my fault that Forty ran away and Love’s father is calling us in for another feeding. I try to talk to Love but she says now isn’t the time. She isn’t the same girl she was four days ago and if this keeps up, she won’t love me anymore. She is a snowman melting, a phone dying, a plant wilting. I go inside and eat my guac and talk about books with her parents and I am a limp dick. Her parents decide to go to a movie—ha!—and I don’t say see I told you so. They go and we’re alone and we sit on her giant sectional and once again whatever I say is wrong.

If I tell her it’s going to be okay, she says I have no way of knowing that.

If I tell her I love her, she says she can’t deal with me right now.

If I ask her what I can do, she tells me there’s nothing anyone can do.

If I try to make her laugh, she says she doesn’t want to laugh.

If I get upset, she says she can’t deal with one more person losing their shit.

Her parents come back. “Any word?” Ray asks.

“No,” Love says.

Dottie tells us that it finally hit Ray. They didn’t make it to a movie theater. They just went to Forty’s condo above Sunset. They think he’s dead. They can feel it. I try to be positive because that’s what they say to do in these situations, but it doesn’t work. I try to cheer up Ray and watch Fast Five with him and Love says I’m abandoning her. I leave Ray and the movie and follow her and she snaps at me. “Well, now you’re abandoning him.”

I can’t cure Love when she’s sick like this, sitting in the dark with her headphones on, blocking out the world, watching things, as she was when we met, and I understand now that she was sad that day too. She had just had sex with Milo; she was hating herself, blaming herself for leading him on. And right now, Forty is the one who ran away, and he did that, but she is blaming herself, as if his fuck-ups are her fault. There is a codependency between twins that can’t be broken. And then I get a text.

It’s Forty.

The first thing I do is look around to make sure Love and Ray and Dottie are all far away from me and they are. I unlock my phone. I read: Feel like grabbing some grub, Old Sport?

Unfuckingbelievable. His family is on a vigil and he doesn’t offer any explanation. Does he not care about them? Does he not remember when he stole intellectual property from me?

I write back: Where and when?

He writes back: Now and the 101!

I put my hands on Love’s shoulders. She takes her headphones off and looks up at me.

“I’m going to go find Forty. I can’t just sit here and do nothing.”

She reaches out to me. “How?” she asks. “What do you even mean?”

“I mean I’ll find him,” I say. “I’ll drive around. I’ll go to his haunts.”

“Joe,” she says, brightening. “You’re amazing. Thank you.”

“You don’t need to say that,” I say, and I kiss her hand. “You’re the amazing one and the least I can do is get in the car and try and bring him home.”

Love nods. “I’m so sorry. I know I’m being a royal fucking bitch. I don’t know how to control it and I hate myself for not having figured out how to control it yet. Thirty-five fucking years.”

I kiss the top of her perfect head. “Life is long,” I tell her. “You’re gonna be fine. I’m going to find him and sober him up, whatever it takes, I’m gonna be with him. And then we’re gonna come back here and he’s gonna be with us and I’m gonna take care of him so I can take care of you.”

“I love you, be safe,” she calls as I leave the house.

The person she should worry about is her brother. He’s hit my last nerve and if he isn’t calling to apologize for stealing my scripts, fucking me over, and torturing his family, then he is going to be roadkill on the fucking 101.

41

I drive fast and when I get to the 101 Diner from Swingers, Forty’s already in a booth, red-faced and high, feet up, dirty toes in old huaraches and he’s flirting with a waitress and nursing a beer. My least favorite song in the world comes on, the song that was playing in LAX when I arrived, that stupid fucking Tom Tom Club song, and as I walk to Forty’s table, the song feels like an omen. Just the same, I am a fair person. I give Forty the benefit of the doubt. Surely he’s been squirreled away, wracked with guilt over what he’s done to his family, to me. Surely this is the scene in his sad life when he comes to Jesus, when he begs for forgiveness.

“Forty,” I say as I sit down in the booth. “We’re all having a nervous breakdown looking for you. What the fuck?”

“Whoa,” he says. “I sense a little hostility.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Call your sister.”

“You look a little piquant, Old Sport.”

Only assholes say piquant and I know that this is not the moment where he sees the light, where he becomes a human and cops to his horrible behavior. He called me here because he’s full of cocaine and he hums along to the frothy, bratty pop as he peruses the menu. I order a blackened chicken sandwich and he orders a BBB—bacon, bacon, and bacon sandwich—and puts down his menu.

“Joe,” he begins. “I have to say that I’m hurt.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I say. “But do me a favor. Before we get into anything, call your sister.”

He shakes his head. “I know you think I screwed you over somehow, but you need to remember that I’ve been working on these scripts for years.”

“Let’s not get into that now,” I say. “I just want your family to know you’re okay.”

“Well, I’m not okay,” he snaps. “You couldn’t even congratulate me properly. I get the news of my life and you turn into a jealous little bitch.”

“Forty, we had a deal . . .” I stop, I take a deep breath. This is not why I came here. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is call your sister.”

But he’s exasperated. “A deal? Do you know how many people have pitched in on these projects over the years? That’s what this business is. We read each other’s shit. There was no deal. A deal is what I have with Megan.”

Every time he says Megan my aspirations flare. I won’t let them do me in and distract me. I’m here for one reason: He either gets to call his family and have one more shot at life or he gets to abuse his family and suffer the consequences.

The music is too loud and he goes off on how the scripts are his. He paints a picture, wherein I am the shady one, the one who didn’t even want to tell Love that we were talking about maybe doing something together.

“You know, I’m actually kind of impressed. Separation of church and state.” He winks. “My dad would have told my mom in a fucking heartbeat. But you didn’t let your dick get in the way of your brain.” He smacks my shoulder.

“Whoa,” I say. I want to bash his face in and set him straight. I count to three. “Love has nothing to do with the deal we made.”

And I should have told Love; I regret not telling her. I want a time machine. Secrets erode trust and that’s how I got into this mess. Had I told Love about Forty’s proposal she would have lifted her little hand to her chest and said ooh, Joe, I’m not sure that’s such a good idea. But you can’t go back in time; I know this from the mug of fucking piss.