Spite Club (Mason Brothers 1)

“I hate my job, too,” Andrew said, sipping his coffee. “I’m a programmer. Freelance.”

“I know,” I said. “I found your business card in the pocket of a jacket I borrowed from Nick.”

Andrew’s eyebrows went up. “What jacket?”

“A jean jacket,” I said.

“So that’s where that went.”

“She’s keeping it,” Nick said. “You’re not getting it back.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but Andrew said, “You’re right, she should keep it. Evie, it’s yours. It probably looks hot on you.”

I shrugged. “I was wearing it when I got called a slut.”

Andrew laughed, a real belly laugh that echoed around the room. Beside me, I felt Nick relax, his body practically transmitting to mine through the old sofa cushions.

“I never pictured it,” Andrew said, his laugh winding down, “someone getting called a slut while wearing that jacket. I think that means I have good taste in clothes.”

“It doesn’t,” Nick said.

Andrew shook his head at him. “You’re just jealous because no one called you a slut. Anyway, I’m a good programmer, but it’s fucking boring. The other thing I’m good at is illustration.”

Nick went tense beside me again. There were so many undercurrents to this conversation, I was starting to feel exhausted. “Andrew,” he said in a low voice, “don’t. Fucking don’t.”

I looked from one brother to the other. Maybe Andrew illustrated something disgusting or violent. Or porn. “I’m not sure I want to know,” I said.

“It’s not what you think,” Andrew said, catching the meaning of my worry. “It’s comics. They’re great. Good stories, great characters. It started as a hobby after my accident, but you know what? Lately I’ve been thinking I really like it. Like, a lot. I want to spend more of my time doing it instead of just a hobby. I’ve been thinking I could really make something if I committed myself, you know? Create something that matters. I think that would be worth it.”

Nick sat back on the sofa and rubbed his hands over his face. “Jesus, please don’t,” he said.

“Don’t worry about my brother,” Andrew said. “He’ll be fine. I can show you. Want to see?”

Again I looked from one brother to the other. “You guys are making me crazy,” I said frankly. “What’s going on?”

Nick dropped his hands. “What’s going on is that Andrew is going to show you his comics,” he said, his voice resigned. “Apparently.”

“What’s the matter?” I asked him. “Are they terrible?”

“The drawings are great,” Nick said. “The stories are terrible.”

“The stories are not terrible,” Andrew insisted. He had turned to one of his computers and was clicking. The screen behind his shoulder, facing me, woke up.

“They are,” Nick insisted, which I thought was a little rude. He didn’t have to insult his brother’s creative work, after all. “It’s like an amateur wrote them. An amateur in kindergarten.”

“Amateurs in kindergarten can write great things,” Andrew said calmly, flipping through some files on the desktop. “Especially if they believe in themselves.”

I was going to ask another question, or maybe tell Nick he was being a jerk, when Andrew clicked an icon and a comic showed up on the screen. It was four panels, two on top and two on the bottom. The illustrations were awesome—some kind of devil-type man, with smoke trailing from his nostrils, holding a planet in the palm of his hand and grinning evilly at it. “My great experiment finally worked,” the character said in the panel. “I’ve split the atoms in tiny planet Pluto. Now the entire planet is a live nuclear bomb!”

I got up from the sofa and walked to the screen, getting closer to read on.

The next panel featured a pretty girl with dark-framed glasses staring at a laptop. “Lightning Man,” she said. “Get over here! The readouts I’m getting from

outer space are strange. The radiation levels are changing by the second. Something weird is going on!”

The third panel showed a man leaning over the girl’s shoulder. He had longish hair, brushed back from his forehead and tucked behind his ears. Slashes of brows and a sharp chin. He was wearing all black, the effect a little sinister and very cool. Apparently, he was Lightning Man. “You’re right,” he said to the girl in glasses. “It is unusual. And I think I know what it is…”

“You like it?”