Page 22 of Jake Forever
Chapter 9
Trey was grinning. "Five million."
He looked absolutely thrilled. I wasn't. Still, trying to be civil, I made myself ask, "Five million what?"
"Views," he said. "On the video we shot last night."
My jaw felt almost too tight to speak. "Shot, huh?"
That word – not to mention related words, like stabbed, mangled, or throttled – well, those were dangerous concepts, considering my mood.
Screw the niceties. My mood wouldn’t get any better by making small-talk with Mister Film-a-Nipple. "Where's Jake?" I asked.
Almost immediately after watching that video, I'd left my brothers in the job-trailer and high-tailed it straight back to Jake's penthouse. Unfortunately, he hadn't been there, so here I was, one floor down, looking for him at his office.
I glanced around, but saw no sign of him, or of anyone else, other than Trey. And it wasn't like there were a lot of places to hide.
Jake's office was different than the standard business setup. Instead of rows of cubicles and desks, it was mostly windows and wide open spaces, with marble floors and upscale furniture arranged in stylish clusters.
At the far end of the space was a small graphics studio, a few work stations, and then, Jake's personal office, surrounded by glass walls that hid almost nothing. I could see why he'd gone that route. Normal walls would've blocked his personal view of the urban cityscape, including the Detroit River, which looked surprisingly nice from this vantage point.
Unfortunately, I was in no mood to appreciate it.
In front of me, Trey gave a dramatic groan. "Aw, c'mon, don’t you think that's a lot?"
I was too distracted to think. "A lot of what?"
"Views. I mean, I knew when I shot it that we had something special, but…" He chuckled. "Man, that whole scene was a major goldmine, you know?" He leaned forward, and his eyes brightened. "Did you see the nipple?"
Oh, yeah.
I'd seen the nipple, alright. Multiple times. And I'd seen the girl it belonged to. I bit my lip. Worse, I'd seen Jake carry her away to who-knows-where.
Now, I was having a hard time ignoring the fact that last night, Jake had been missing for a couple of hours, right after carrying her away. It also hadn't escaped my attention that for some unknown reason, he'd changed his pants before returning home.
And when I'd mentioned it last night, what had Jake done? He'd distracted me with sexiness. Was Ithateasy?
Who was I kidding?
Of course, I was, well, when it came to Jake, anyway.
A couple of feet away, Trey was still talking. "Bummer I had to blur it out, but I still think people got the idea, right?"
My stomach clenched. "Oh, they got it, alright."
Trey hesitated. "You feeling okay?" He leaned closer to study my face. "You look kind of like you're gonna throw up."
Ididfeel like throwing up, mostly because of that video. I paused. Of course, that slice of pizza hadn't helped.
Yes, Ihadeaten the stupid thing, but mostly because I'd been so distracted that I'd munched it down without hardly noticing, well, not until Steve, laughing his ass off, had lunged for the bet money, telling Anthony. "Told you she'd eat it."
As for Anthony, he'd been less than thrilled, acting like I'd done it on purpose, just to deprive him of ten lousy dollars, no less.
But it wasn't my fault. It was the video. It had turned my brain to mush.
Trying to forget all that, I looked to Trey and said, "I'm fine."
He gave my face a closer look. "So, are you mad or something then?"
