Page 52 of Jake Forever
Chapter 20
Inside the elevator, I held out my hand, palm up. "Alright, lemme see it."
"My phone?" Jake gave me a hard look. "Where's yours?"
I made a sound of frustration. "What doesthathave to do with anything?"
"Just tell me. Where is it?"
I knew exactly where my phone was. It was up in Jake's penthouse, inside my purse, on the small table near the entryway. But that was hardly the point.
I wanted to scream in frustration. But instead, I took a deep, steadying breath and said in a voice that was far calmer than I felt, "I'm not looking to make a phone call. I want—"
"Why'd you leave it?"
The questions were coming so hard and so fast that I was having a hard time keeping track. "Why'd I leave what? My phone?"
As an answer, Jake reached into his back pocket and pulled out a cell phone. Nothiscell phone.Mycell phone. Silently, he held it out vaguely in my direction, as if to say,"You want it? Well, there ya go."
Well, that was rich. So all along, he'd known exactly where my phone was? If so, why the third-degree?
I stared down at the thing, still in Jake's possession. "You took my phone?"
Given where I'd left it, it felt like a huge invasion of privacy. What was he doing, anyway? Going through my things? And why?
Feeling ready to explode, I snatched the phone out of his hand and shoved it into the front pocket of my borrowed hoodie. I glared up at him and waited for some sort of explanation.
Jake looked down at the hoodie and frowned, as if noticing it for the first time. From the look on his face, he'd also noticed that the hoodie was a few sizes too big and obviously not my own.
But he said nothing about the hoodie. Instead, he lifted his gaze to my eyes and said, "You gonna answer my question?"
At this point, I didn't even know what question he meant. But I did know one thing. I'd had just about enough of this.
"No," I told him. "You answer my question first." To drive the point home, I spoke very slowly and clearly. "What were you doing with my phone?"
"Screw your phone."
"Oh yeah?" Suddenly, I felt like crying. "Well, screw you, too, Jake."
He had no reaction, not even a flinch. That shouldn't have been surprising. Jake had a long, public track-record of pissing people off. A basic "screw-you" would be nothing to him. And pathetic or not, I wasn't willing to go any further.
As a kid, I'd seen my own parents go through the whole name-calling thing. That wasn't going to be me, not if I could help it.
So I took a deep breath and tried again. "What were you doing? Checking my text messages? Reading my email? Because I have nothing to hide, and even if I did…" I threw up my hands. "Well, I don't, okay?"
At this, he gave a small laugh. "Right."
"God, what is your deal today?"
But part of meknewwhat the deal was. And it had to do with that stupid picture. For the second time, I held out my hand. "Your phone. I need to see it."
When he made no move, I added, "What's the big deal? You hadmyphone. So fair is fair, right?"
After a long, tense moment, he finally reached into his front pocket and pulled out his own phone. Silently, he dropped it into my open palm.
I went to work immediately, sliding my finger across the smooth screen. As usual, I was greeted with the password-prompt. Assuming he hadn't changed it, the password was my name.
I paused. But what if hehadchanged it? How humiliating wouldthatbe, to try my own name and have it fail?
