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After the events of the morning, while Jameson felt triumphant and rather pleased with himself, he fully expected Grayson to give him the silent treatment for at least the rest of the day. While he was hardly the only Hawthorne brother to take losses hard, he certainly made the biggest show of his disappointment when it was Jameson who beat him.
The last thing Jameson expected was an honest-to-God confrontation. It wasn’t as if Jameson had never won on Saturday mornings before. And while he would never say a game didn’t matter, well, there was an unspoken rule between them that the competitions would never come between them. They were brothers. And they had nothing to prove to each other.
(Which wasn’t to say they had nothing to prove.)
“You think you’re so incredibly clever, don’t you,” Grayson said quietly as he sat down next to him on the log he’d been using for contemplative purposes.
“I have so many questions right now,” Jameson said flippantly, deflecting Grayson’s serious tone both in defense of himself and as a reminder to his brother that even when they were set against each other, they weren’t really against each other. Ever. That had always been the agreement, or the silent one, at least. “First, how did you even find me? I’m sitting down. This is not my natural state of being.”
“Near a cliff. I made an educated guess.”
That was fair. The aforementioned “contemplative purposes” he had been using the log for may have had something to do with that cliff and a half-formed plan involving trees, ropes, and a very large amount of paper towel rolls.
“Second, what has you so bothered about my cleverness?” Jameson had, at this point, of course figured out that Grayson was upset with his victory. There were things he could have followed that up with. It’s just a game. But it wasn’t, not entirely, not to them. You won last week. Irrelevant. You’re equally as clever. Out of the question. So he simply wore his signature cocky grin and prayed that Grayson would see through his instinctual defenses. He wasn’t sure he was even capable of letting them down.
“I didn’t say you were clever, I said you thought you were clever,” Grayson bit back.
Jameson raised an eyebrow, and his smile faltered a bit. “Gray, what are you—”
“You didn’t even solve the puzzle!” I know. “You won on a technicality, yet the old man still declared you the winner.” Only with you guys in earshot. “I’m not impressed, Jameson, and I want you to know that.”
You’re not the only one who wasn’t impressed, Grayson. “Doesn’t matter whether or not I impress you,” Jameson reminded him, his shields slipping back into place. “Why do you care whether I know the extent of your indignation? I win either way.” What? Diffusing wasn’t Jameson’s skill. He was actually considerably better at lighting fuses.
“You did not.”
“Oh come on, Grayson, you have to have a better comeback than that.” Seriously. Not the best at diffusing. “Was the objective of the game not to retrieve the medal?”
“We were given objects, Jameson. The puzzle was to figure out how they were meant to be used.”
“Guess the old man didn’t account for how high I’m willing to climb,” Jameson said cheekily.
“No one should ever have to account for that because it’s ridiculous, Jameson.” Grayson, of course, still hadn’t lost his cool, as this was something he was entirely incapable of doing, but Jameson still counted it as a win when the extent of his frustration showed in his voice. “It wasn’t even a climbing wall. There weren’t even real notches to hold onto. And that medal was who-knows-how-many feet in the air.”
“Yet I’m alive.”
“Yes, well, some of us can’t afford for that to not be a given on the other side of the challenge!” Grayson “exploded,” which actually looked more like a really fiery look in his steely eyes and a nearly imperceptible raise of his voice. “Some of us are actually expected to do things right, Jameson. Some of us don’t have nothing to lose. Some of us can’t afford to make the same mistakes you make, which means not taking the impossible, entirely un-calculated risks you take!”
Well, Grayson certainly knew what words to use when he was angry with him. The knives he’d thrown were in the words he hadn’t really said: You make mistakes, Jameson. I’m too important for that.
Jameson donned the smirk he wore like armor, and this time, no part of him wanted Grayson to be able to see past his shield. “There’s a difference between having nothing to lose and everything to win, Grayson. Why do you think I care so much about success?”
Jameson rose to his feet, which was normally a Grayson move: a signal that the conversation was over, no questions asked. Of course, it was probably received a little differently when Jameson did it, and he meant for it to be. He looked back over at his cliff, and the positioning of the tallest trees beside it. “I’m going to need a lot of paper towel rolls,” he said, quiet enough that it was clear that it was to himself but loud enough that Grayson could hear.
Grayson took the peace offering. “Text Xander. He’ll help you pull off whatever you’re about to do. Leave me out of it.” But one of the corners of his mouth was turned up to the side.
Grayson’s words could have made him want to back down, but Jameson’s fatal obstinance pushed him further forward. At some point, he’d started taking higher and higher risks just for the thrill. He put his life in danger because he could.
He was beyond believing it would ever get him any real, positive attention.
“You didn’t truly win, Jameson. Not today.”
“I could have solved the puzzle. But I’m a good climber, and I figured it would be faster.”
“Of course. That’s why I told the other boys you won. I want them to see that what you did was different, calculated, and creative.”
“Then why…”
“Because what you did was predictable for you, uncalculated, and the least creative route you could have taken.”
At some point, Jameson’s tendency towards danger became the “easy way.” The thing that made him ordinary.
You always say I’m never satisfied
But I don’t think that’s true
You say I’m never satisfied
But that’s not me, it’s you
Cause all I ever wanted was to be enough
But I don’t think that anything could ever be
enough for you
~Olivia Rodrigo, “enough for you”