Page 92 of Jake Forever
My voice, when I found it, came out as a whisper. "What?"
"This."
Before I knew it, he'd swooped me up in his arms and carried me through the open penthouse doors. I laughed as he kicked the doors shut behind us and tossed me onto the nearest sofa.
And then, he showed me exactly how much he'd been missing me.
Turns out, it was a lot.
A couple of hours later, we were snuggled up on that same sofa, fresh from the shower and dressed in casual clothes. Wrapped in his arms, I'd nearly forgotten how crappy most of the day had been.
Still, there was something I wanted to get out of the way – tonight, not tomorrow.
Tomorrow, I wanted a fresh start. I wanted to put the events of today behind us – especially that stupid walk and everything that had happened as a result.
So I leaned my face against his shoulder and said, "By the way, I looked at that picture."
"I know."
I pulled back to look at him. "You do? How?"
"I got a text."
"What?" I sputtered. "From who?"
"Anthony."
I sat up. Well, that was great. I felt like I'd been tattled on or something. Trying not to sound as annoyed as I felt, I asked, "What did it say?"
With something like a laugh, Jake reached for his phone and ran a finger across the screen. He turned the phone toward me and said, "This."
I looked. Briefly ignoring what it said, I checked the time of the text. As best I could tell, Anthony had sent it on his way down the stairs.
Maybethat'swhy they'd been laughing. Those asshats.
Jake flashed me a sudden grin. "Hey, they'reyourbrothers."
Well, there was that. I looked down to study the text.Those 2 guys. Did you dumpster them, or what?
I shook my head. "Dumpster them?"
I knew what it meant. I just wasn't sure of the details. Technically, you could throw aliveperson into a dumpster. Right?
Or maybe – hopefully – nothing remotely like that had happened. I looked back to Jake and said, "You didn't." I hesitated. "Did you?"
"Nah," Jake said. "I saw them. That's it. No dumpsters involved."
"So my brothers were right?" I pulled away and sat up straighter. "That's where you went tonight?"
Jake only shrugged.
Talk about a non-answer.
There was no way I was going to let this go. "How'd you know where they were? Orwhothey were?"
"I got a tip."
Right. And I had a pretty good guess which tip he meant. "It was that text, wasn't it? The one you got in your office."
