Page 118 of Jake Forever
"It's true," I said. "So just tell me. What happened?"
He looked at me for a long, serious moment, as if trying to decide if I was lying.
Again, I reached out and touched his arm. When he didn't pull away, I gave his arm a gentle squeeze. "Just tell me, okay?"
I glanced to the nearby sofa. "Why don't you sit down? We'll talk it out. Can I get you a drink or something?"
"I don't need a drink," he said. "I need Jake to fix this."
"Fix what?"
Through clenched teeth, he said, "Vince dropped me. And I know Jake was behind it."
I let out a long, weary breath. I should've seen this coming. A dozen small details drifted into place, giving me a pretty good idea of what had happened.
I recalled that strange meeting yesterday, where Vince and Jake had hammered out some sort of truce. Obviously, the truce had something to do with Joel.
But what exactly were the terms? If Vince agreed to drop Joel as a potential client, what would Vince want in return?
Instantly, the answer popped into my brain. Of course. For months, Jake had been messing with Vince's clients, costing them endorsement deals and who knows what else. It slowly dawned on me that over the past week or so, Jake hadn't been messing with a single one of them.
In fact, other than those encounters with Dorian and Ronnie North, Jake hadn't really been messing with anyone.
Had he given all of that up to save Joel from Vince?
In front of me, Joel said. "See? You know what happened. Don’t you?"
"Actually, I don’t know anything for sure, honest." In a weird sense, it was true. Yeah, I had some pretty good guesses, but until I had confirmation, there was no way I'd be throwing more gasoline on the brotherly fire.
Joel's gaze hardened. "You know more than you're saying. I can see it all over your face."
I resisted the urge to look away. "Honestly, I'm really not sure. Things have been kind of crazy lately. Have you tried calling him?"
Joel practically snorted. "You think he'd answer?"
"I know he would." And I did. Jake was a lot of things – a trouble-maker, a brawler, a smart-ass. But in his own crazy way, he loved his brothers, and he was no coward. If he was available, he'd answer.
With something like a laugh, Joel reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. He scrolled through the screen, pressed whatever, and waited. A moment later, I heard Jake's voice. Unfortunately, it wasn't the live version. It was just his voicemail greeting.
As the greeting played, I looked to Joel and said, "You're gonna leave a message, right?"
With a cold smile, Joel waited for the greeting to end, and then he spoke into the phone. "Hey, asshole. Call me. I'll be waiting." He disconnected the call and said, "There. You happy?"
Actually, I wasn't, and not only because of this. But it seemed insensitive to say so. Whatever was bothering me, it paled in comparison to what was going on with Joel.
Again, I glanced to the sofa. "Sure you don't want to sit down?"
Joel gave me a hard look. "What I want is foryouto call him."
I hesitated. "Me?"
"Yeah. Are you gonna do it or not?"
I looked past his anger and saw the kid I used to know. He was hurting. That much was obvious. So I ignored his rudeness and said, "Sure, um, yeah. I'll do it." I held out my hand for his phone. "What do you want me to say?"
"Not frommyphone," he said. "Fromyourphone."
I blinked up at him. "What? Why?"
