Page 100 of Jake Forever
"How long?" I asked.
"A few minutes." She gave a weak laugh. "We'd barely pulled into the driveway when Bishop gets this phone call." She shrugged. "So here we are."
"Who was the call from? Jake?" I felt myself frown. "Funny he didn't mention it."
She shook her head. "It wasn't from Jake. It was from Joel."
"Their brother?"
"Yup, that's the one."
Joel was their youngest brother. Whenever I pictured him, I thought of the quiet kid he used to be, way back in our hometown. But these days, he wasn't a kid anymore.
Now, he was in his early twenties, and from what I'd recently discovered, a bit of a bad-ass – not surprising, considering he was a Bishop.
I sat on the edge of the bed and said, "You know, I saw Joel just a few weeks ago."
She looked surprised. "Really? Where?"
"Here in Detroit. Get this," I said. "This bigtime sports agent…" I paused. "Vince Hammond. You ever hear of him?"
Selena nodded. "You worked for him, right?"
"Yeah, for like five whole minutes. I’m surprised you remember."
"It wasn't just that," she said. "Bishop mentioned him on the drive."
"He did? Why?"
"First, finish your story," she said. "I'll tell mine after."
"Alright. Well, anyway, a few weeks ago, Vince Hammond was trying to sign Joel, you know as a client."
Selena rolled her eyes. "Yeah. I heard."
"From who?"
"From Bishop, who heard it from Joel, in a roundabout way."
I leaned forward. "Well, I didn'thaveto hear about it. I was there."
"No kidding?"
"No kidding. But only for a few minutes, because I wasn't invited. Basically, Jake and I crashed the meeting, hoping to stop Joel from signing. And do you want to know why?"
"Lemme guess," she said. "Because Vince is a crooked snake, who's gonna ruin Joel's life?"
"Uh, yeah. Pretty much. How'd you know?"
"Like I said, Bishop mentioned him."
"Oh, right. So anyway," I continued, "we show up at the restaurant where they're meeting, and Joel's not listening to anything we're saying. He basically tells me and Jake to shove it." At the memory of what happened next, I couldn't help but smile. "But then, Vince starts talking about getting Joel modeling and acting gigs."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah." At the memory, I had to laugh. "You should've seen it. They're sitting around this table, and Vince is talking about modeling and stuff. And suddenly, Joel flips out, knocks over the table, and storms off, leaving Vince covered in his own lunch."
In my mind, I could still see it. "It was like curly noodles and stuff. The guy looked like a total idiot."
