Selena turned to look at me. She flashed me a sudden smile and said, "Shhh!"
"Oh, shut up," I whispered.
From the car, Ronnie was glaring at me now. He yelled out, "Shut up! I ain't going nowhere!" But just as he said it, his car lurched forward, only a couple of feet, but enough to throw Ronnie off-balance. He tumbled out of the open window, rolled a couple of times, and landed face-up in the parking lot.
The crowd roared with new laughter.
On the concrete, Ronnie lifted his head. He turned to glare at Jake. "You asshole! You did something! Didn't you?"
"I dunno," Jake said. "Does screwing your mom count?"
Next to me, Selena snickered. When I turned to look, she whispered, "Hey, you laughed first."
Did I?
Probably.
I did that a lot around Jake, come to think of it.
I looked toward Ronnie's car. A skinny guy with slick hair poked his head out of the passenger's side window. He called out toward Ronnie, "Sorry dude. You okay?"
Before Ronnie could answer, Jake gave the new guy a big thumbs up. "Yeah. I'm good," Jake called. "Thanks, dude!"
With a grunt, Ronnie pushed himself up into a sitting position and yelled out toward Jake, "Asshole! He was talking to me, not you."
"You sure?" Jake asked. "Because I've gotta be honest. I'm pretty sure he was looking at me."
Ronnie leapt to his feet and stood, with his fists clenched and his nostrils flaring. But then, he suddenly froze.
I knew why. It was because of the police sirens that were growing louder with every second. Ronnie's head swiveled toward the sports car, which, a split-second later, squealed off, leaving Ronnie standing there alone, looking like a total doofus.
After a long pause, and a whole lot of profanity, he started running, pretty darn sloppily, given his condition.
When he disappeared around the corner, I lowered Selena's phone and hit the stop button. I looked out toward Jake. He was still standing there, looking like the giant smart-ass he was, with his brother standing next to him.
I don't know why, but I couldn't help but smile. He was obviously insane, but he was all mine.
And suddenly, it was hard to care about anything else.
Chapter 39
Five minutes later, Selena and I were back inside the restaurant, sitting in the same booth. Standing at the end of our table, the waitress gave me a perplexed look. "Excuse me?"
"Our food," I said. "We want to order the same stuff as before."
She shook her head. "It's gone. Nicki told me you were done." Her lips pursed. "You weren't?"
"Yeah, we were," I said. "But now we want new stuff." Trying to sound as reasonable as possible, I said, "Just take the same order, and have them make it again." I gave her a tentative smile. "See?"
But from the look on her face, she obviously didn't. "What? You want free food?"
Across from me, Selena spoke up. "We don't expect it for free. Just pretend we're brand-new customers or something."
The waitress's gaze shifted toward the window, where Jake and Bishop were, once again, talking in the parking lot. They didn't look like best buddies or anything, but at least, they didn't look ready to kill each other.
On the nearby street, traffic was moving like nothing had happened. As for Ronnie, I had no idea where he was. And honestly? I didn't really want to find out.
As I watched, Jake flashed Bishop a grin and said something that actually made Bishop laugh.
For some reason, it warmed my heart. Progress? It would be nice to think so.
I turned back to the waitress and told her, "Don't worry. They're coming back."
A couple of booths away, that dreaded female voice muttered, "Great. Then, I'm leaving."
I turned in time to see her slam down her coffee cup, get to her feet, and bustle toward the exit, taking her newspaper with her.
Silently, the waitress watched her go. When the woman walked out the door, the waitress turned back to me and whispered, "Actually, she's been done for hours." She looked heavenward. "Coffee-drinkers. We should charge 'em by the hour, you know?"
As a bartender, I did know. I nodded, and then watched as the waitress turned away to deliver our food-order to the kitchen.
Happily, I was right about Jake and Bishop. They did come back, and managed to have a friendly enough breakfast that didn't involve either one of them throttling each other.
Like I said, progress.
An hour later, the four of us were in the parking lot, standing between the two different cars that had brought us here. When Bishop pulled Jake aside for a quick, private exchange, I walked Selena to her car door.
I hated that she was leaving so soon. In all the commotion, we still hadn't discussed her upcoming wedding. "I wish we had more time," I said.
"Me too," she replied, looking just as disappointed as I felt. But then, she brightened. "I know. Next weekend, let's get together. We can go shopping for bridesmaid dresses or something."
Loving this idea, I gave a happy nod, only to frown when I recalled something that I was dying to know. I lowered my voice. "Uh, that reminds me…" I hesitated, not sure how to put this.
"What?" Selena asked.
I glanced over at the guys, who were still talking. I sidled closer and said, "Do you remember Bob, the Appliance Guy?"
Her face froze, and for a long moment, she said nothing. Finally, in a carefully neutral voice, she said, "Yes. Why do you ask?"
From the look on her face, she knew exactly why I was asking.
I almost groaned out loud. "Don't tell me, you know about that, too?"
"That depends." She winced. "Does the story involve that counter by Mom's fridge?"
"Oh, my God. She told you?" I should've known. Selena was a lot closer to my mom than I was. Still, it didn't quite mesh with something that my mom had said.
"I don't get it," I admitted. "She told me that you two never talked about it."
Selena closed her eyes and kept them shut as she said, "Uh, yeah."
I gave a shaky laugh. "Whatever you're feeling, I can totally relate. When she told me, she was really descriptive. Was it that way with you, too?"
Selena opened her eyes. Slowly, she shook her head. "I wouldn’t say that."
I gave her a long look. Obviously, there was something I was missing. But what? Almost afraid to ask, I said, "Okay, what aren't you telling me?"
"Uh, well…" She hesitated. "I was there."
My mouth fell open. "What?"
"Uh, yeah." She blew out a long breath. "I, uh, walked in on them, actually."
"Oh, my God."
"Yeah," Selena said. "Which is why we never talk about it."
Wow. I didn't see that coming. "So she was embarrassed? You'd never guess, the way she talks."
"No. She wasn't embarrassed. I was embarrassed. You want the truth? I'm still kind of traumatized."
From the look on her face, she wasn't lying.
I couldn’t help but stare. "I can't believe you never told me."
"I wanted to spare you. You know, that was like five years ago, and I still won't go near that counter."
I wanted to laugh. I did laugh, in fact, but not until Bishop had swept my sister, still looking slightly disturbed, into the car.
Watching them drive off, I could so relate.
In Jake's car, on our way back to his condo, he glanced over at me from the driver's seat and said, "When we get back, pack a bag, okay?"
I blinked. "A bag?"
"A bag, a suitcase, whatever."
"Why?" I asked. "For what?"
He grinned. "You'll see."
My own face froze. Desperately, I wanted to smile back, but I couldn’t, because I had a sneaky suspicion that he wouldn't be smiling either in another minute or so.
I had to tell him something. And I had the sickening feeling that he wouldn’t like it.
Chapter 40
Still driving, Jake asked, "What's wrong?"
"No
thing," I assured him. "It's just that…" I hesitated. "Well, I've got to work."
He gave me a quick glance. "What?"
"Yeah," I said. "For the next three days, actually."
At the next red light, Jake turned his head and gave me a long look. "I thought you were fired."
"Well, I wasn't absolutely sure I was fired." I summoned up a smile. "Remember?"
He didn't smile back. "And about the uniform?"
I felt my face grow warm. The last time he'd seen me in my work uniform, he'd literally torn it off my body.
And I'd loved every minute of it.
But now, I wasn't sure what, exactly, he was getting at. The uniform was definitely an issue, especially after that stupid picture.
Hoping for the best, I said, "I have a spare."
When his gaze dipped to my breasts, I could read his thoughts all over his face. The way it looked, his question had nothing to do with torn fabric and popped buttons.
It had to do with the fact that, in my work uniform, I was always one rainstorm away from a girlie show.
Lamely, I said, "I've got a tank top that I'm gonna wear underneath. And honestly, I think we'll be getting new uniforms soon."
I gave a shaky laugh. "There had to be some mistake with the fabric. After all, I can't be the only one who had problems."
Problems – like flaunting my goodies all over Detroit. Yup, that was a problem, alright. But I was hoping Jake would let that slide.
Watching me, he said nothing, and his expression became unreadable. But there was one emotion I could definitely rule out – happiness.
I made a sound of frustration. "In case you don't know, when you keep your job, it's good news."
"Yeah? Is that why you didn't tell me?"
"No. It just didn't come up. That's all."
"Right."
"It didn't," I insisted.
"Uh-huh."
Under his penetrating gaze, I started to squirm in my seat. It was true that it hadn't come up, but it could've come up. Regardless of what else had been going on at the time, I surely could've spared ten seconds to say something like, "Oh, by the way, my boss is giving me another chance."
So why hadn't I?
I tried to think. Was it because I knew that Jake wanted me to work for him instead? Or, was it because yesterday, when I thought I'd been fired, I'd been bucking for sympathy, and had loved it when I'd gotten some?
I recalled Jake's arms, strong and hard, wrapping me up in a warm cocoon of oblivion. It had been kind of nice, actually.
Or who knows, maybe I hadn't mentioned the job thing because it was getting a little embarrassing to be hired and fired all the time. It had gotten so bad, in fact, that my brothers – and Jake, too, come to think of it – had been placing bets on my employment status.
Talk about humiliating.
Jake was still watching me, waiting, apparently, for some sort of response.
I wanted to say something smart, or at the very least something funny, something that would snap us out of whatever this was. But nothing smart came to mind, and my funny bone wilted under his cool, hard gaze.
Desperately, I looked toward the traffic light, and spotted my escape-hatch. "It's green," I told him. "You can go."
He turned to look. "Right." He hit the gas, and we lurched forward.
I forced out a laugh. "You're not trying to launch me out of the vehicle, are you?"
When Jake said nothing, I added. "You know, like Ronnie?" I summoned up another laugh. "That was pretty funny, huh?"
But Jake wasn't laughing. And my own laugh had sounded totally hollow, even to my own ears.
At the next intersection, Jake took a left and pulled his car off to the side. He cut the engine and turned to face me.
I looked around. "Why'd you stop?"
"Because I've gotta ask you something."
"Okay." Trying for a neutral tone, I said, "What?"
"Why will you work for them, but not for me?"
"Them?"
"Hotels, restaurants, whatever." His voice hardened. "Seems to me you're not too picky."
The words stung. "What do you mean by that?"
"I mean, you're a damn bartender."
I stared at him. God, did he have to be such a jerk about it? "There's nothing wrong with being a bartender."
"I know."
"No. You don't." I tried to mimic him. "You're a damn bartender."
"What? You think I look down on it?"
I gave a half-hearted shrug. He'd made his scorn apparent, hadn't he?
"For the record, I don't," Jake said. "With my life? A bartender's a step up."
"That is such a crock," I told him. "You're rich. You own your own company. You're famous, for God's sake. You don't have to work as a bartender."
"Yeah? And neither do you."
I was so not in the mood for this. "God, what's your deal? Yeah, I work as a bartender. So what?"
His tone softened. "Baby, if it made you happy, that'd be one thing. But you're not happy. You're miserable."
"I am not," I insisted.
"Yeah? You ever listen to yourself?"
I gave another shrug. Okay, so I didn't always come home whistling a happy tune. But who did? "So?" I said. "Not everyone loves their job."
He made a scoffing sound. "So what is it? You love it? Or you don't love it? It seems to me, you want it both ways."
Embarrassingly, I knew exactly what he meant. In truth, I did hate my job. But the situation wasn't as simple as Jake made it sound. "I'm not planning on being a bartender forever," I said. "It's a big company, and now that I have my foot in the door…" I gave him a pleading look, hoping he'd let it drop already.
He didn't. Instead, he made a forwarding motion with his hand. "Go on."
Jeez, did I have to spell it out?
From the look on his face, apparently, I did.
"Well," I continued, "if I play my cards right, I could get into their hospitality department."
"And?"
"And, I'd be using my degree."
"To become?"
God, why was he playing dumb? He knew exactly what I'd been hoping for. We'd discussed it, several times, in fact.
Still, in the most reasonable tone I could muster, I said, "Well, for starters, I could become an event planner or something."
"Right."
I made a sound of impatience. "Why do you keep saying that?"
He looked at me for a long, silent moment. Finally, he said, "So let's recap. Your 'plan' is to work your way up to a job that I'm already offering you."
I glanced away. Technically, this was true. But things weren't quite that simple.
Jake continued, "So, I've gotta ask. Why?"
"You know why."
"Because you'd rather trust strangers than me?" Abruptly, he turned away. "Got it."
I watched, with a sick feeling, as he fired up the engine and pulled away from the curb. Suddenly, I felt like crying. But what would that accomplish? Nothing.
As he drove, I sat, sulking in the passenger's seat. Why couldn't he get it? If I took a job with him, I'd have literally all of my eggs in one basket – the Jake basket. Oh sure, that basket was beyond nice, but how sturdy was it?
Jake loved me. I knew that. And I loved him, too. But what would happen if our relationship ended? I'd have literally nothing – no money, no job, no future. Why couldn’t he see how risky that was?
But of course, Jake thrived on risk. He ate it up and went back for more. It was one of the things I loved about him. But unlike Jake, I didn't have gobs of money and hard assets that I could sell if I had to.
I didn't have fame. I didn't have fortune. All I had was him.
Of course, that, in itself, was a very big deal.
I was so damned crazy about him. But I couldn’t help but notice that in spite of some hints a few weeks earlier, he'd taken no concrete steps to make the relationship more permanent. I didn't want to rush him. Hell, I didn't want to rush us.
But if our relationship didn't survive, what then?
For the millionth time in the last month, I thought of Bianca. She'd worked for him, too. And now, she was a total basket case.
I sank lower in my seat. Funny, I was feeling like a basket case now.
Suddenly, I was so tired of being on defense all the time. We were now only a couple of blocks away from Jake's building, and I desperately wanted to resolve this before we got there.
I turned sideways in the passenger's seat and said, "Let me ask you something. At the conference, center, why didn't you mention that Bianca was there?"
"I wasn't hiding it."
"Yeah. But it still seems odd."
His fists tightened on the steering wheel. "You really wanna play this game?"
"It's not a game," I said. "I really want to know."
"Yeah? Well, there's stuff I wanna know, too."
"Like what?" I demanded.
His voice hardened. "Like, why didn't you tell me that Rango's been hassling you?"
I froze. He knew about that? Oh, crap. "Who told you?"
"So it's true." He made a sound of disbelief. "And you didn't tell me."
I squirmed in my seat. "Maybe I didn't want to ruin your night."
He took a sharp turn. With a start, I realized we were pulling into the turnaround of his building. He stopped just outside the main doors and sat for a long, painful moment, looking straight ahead.
Finally, with the engine still running, he turned to face me. His eyes were dark, and his mouth was set. "You've got some guy calling you, giving you a hard time, and you think I don't wanna know that?"
"That's not it," I said. "I just feel bad, you know. It's like you're always riding to my rescue. I feel kind of guilty, like I should be solving some of these problems on my own."
"Maybe I like riding to your rescue."
"How could you?" I said. "I'm a mess. It just doesn't seem fair."
His mouth tightened. "Fair is for pussies."
"What does that even mean?"
"It means I don't give a shit about keeping things 'fair.' If somebody's hassling you, I need to know."
Unsure what to say next, I glanced toward the building and saw Pete heading toward us, as if preparing to get my door.
As friendly as I could, I waved him away and turned back to Jake. "Let's talk about this upstairs, okay?"
Jake Forever (Jaked Book 3) Page 19