Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 1

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    BETWEEN YOU AND ME
    by Alex Mar
    It's when the music changes from a hard pounding rhythm of drums and electric guitars to something soothing that Jace Winters finally takes a step back from the wall where the enormous canvas hangs. The first piano notes, feathery light, feel good after the last twenty or so minutes of rock that had accompanied the slide of paint, only allowing himself a moment for each pause to take stock before diving back in.
    He isn't done yet, but at least it's progress— more progress than he'd made in the last three days.
    Plucking an ear bud out, he takes another couple steps back and lifts his arm, wiping at the stiff feel of dried paint on his cheekbone. The back of his neck is sticky from the uncomfortable heat that's been with them all week, and his hair has escaped the low ponytail. He can feel wisps of it clinging to the sides of his neck and scratches absently at the skin there. His T-shirt is an oversized thing that had originally been white. It now has a faint pink tinge to it under all the other blotches of dirt and pale smudges of blue paint. It clings to his upper back and his hips, the material damp. He's been in the garage all afternoon and inside, it feels like a sauna, like the garage is absorbing the heat.
    The walls of his throat feel tight and dry, like if he swallows too hard it's going to crack all the way down. It hadn't even occurred to him to go get more water after he'd finished the bottle he kept in the mini fridge for when he holed up here for hours at a time.
    "Finished?"
    His heart tries to hammer its way out of his chest, but Jace manages to keep from jumping a foot in the air, instead turning to glare over his shoulder.
    He really hadn't been with it if he hadn't even realized someone else snuck in.
    It doesn't surprise him to find his brother waving at him from across the garage.
    By the grin that spreads over Cameron's face, he knows it too and is probably patting himself on the back over this one. He's leaning back against their stepdad's— Phil's— car and, he looks comfortable enough that Jace knows he's probably been standing there for a while, waiting for the moment to scare the shit out of him.
    "Dick," Jace mutters. He sets his palette down, the newspaper under his feet shuffling and scrunching as he drops to his haunches to plunk his paint brush in the jar of water that's turned a sooty green grey. Nothing he can do about his hands though. Streaks of paint coat his palms and stain the tips of his fingers as if he'd dipped them in a jar of ink. It's under his blunt nails, caked and drying.
    He leaves the brush in the jar and stands back up, still glaring at Cam as he tugs the iPod from where it's clipped to his pocket and switches it off, slinging the earphones over his neck.
    Cam holds up a can of Coke and waves it at him, looking too smug for Jace's liking. He wonders if his own face makes that exact expression, the kind that makes people want to cuff someone around the back of the head.
    Probably not. For twins, they don't share many habits, but the similarities that do exist between them border on eerie. Some people find it hard to tell them apart if they haven't seen them in a while.
    "There are rules you know," he says, walking over to grab the Coke from Cam's hand. The aluminium is cool against the palm of his hand, leaving a trace of dampness from the condensation. He pops it open and moves to Cam's side, leaning up against the car too and taking a swig.
    Cam shrugs, tucking his hands into the pockets of his jeans and looking across at the canvas, eyes narrowing a little like he's about to try and figure it out. "You never used to have a problem with me bursting in before."
    The fizz of the Coke spreads over his tongue, cool and almost a bit too much but Jace gulps it down, finds it easy to ignore the hint of underlying challenge in that statement.
    It's there in the side glance, a squint of fox-shaped eyes so like Jace's own except that Cam's always change, the color shifting as if to fit with the seasons. Right now, the bottle-green gaze is hooded as he stares at Jace, not even attempting to downplay the dig.
    It's something that Jace has gotten used to. Whereas before he would've been right up in Cam's face, demanding that he just say whatever it was he wanted to, now things are different.
    So Jace turns away, lips quirking up in a smirk that feels tense in the way it stretches his lips. "Fucks