Page 51 of Don't Game Me
An hour later, Jake sat in his car in the parking garage. He checked his phone for the fifth time in the past few minutes. No message from her.
He’d texted Becca twenty minutes ago to make sure she made it back to the hotel.
The last thing Jake wanted was to hurt her. Yet, he’d done it anyway. He was the worst asshole ever.
He shouldn’t have promised Noah they’d go for a run this morning. The absolute last person he wanted to face right now was Becca’s big brother. He texted Noah:In traffic. On my way.
If only he were in actual traffic. He shoved the key in the ignition and grabbed a can of Red Bull out of the cup holder. He chugged the nasty stuff, needing a turbo charge to do this run. Jogging on little sleep and ramped up on caffeine seemed like a pretty bad way to start this big day.
Now he had to get his mind straight to hide from Noah what happened. During the drive, he played out scenarios to smooth things over with Becca. All held low odds of working.
Two miles into their jog, Noah reached out and grabbed Jake’s arm, stopping him. Noah rested his hands on his legs, panting. “What’s up your ass today?” He rolled his watch and whistled. “We just did a nine-minute mile. I haven’t done a nine-minute mile since high school. Are you trying to kill me before the ceremony? Or prove I really am Superman?”
“Sorry. You okay?” Jake hadn’t realized he’d been moving so fast. He’d been trying to erase the picture of Becca’s disappointment from his brain.
“Hurts my ego you asked, but I’m not a sprinter.” He pulled upright with a deep breath and stared at Jake critically. “It’s a girl problem, isn’t it?”
“I don’t have girl problems. I drank Red Bull before I came.”
“You’re a mess today. Your socks don’t match. You showed up late. You weren’t aware of how fast you were running. You only drink Red Bull on emergency days when you didn’t have any sleep. Red Bull makes you nuts. No sleep and morning stress…yeah, girl problems.” His face darkened. “Did you and my sister…?”
“I kept Becca out of reach of jerks last night like you asked.”Just not me.He hated lying to Noah. He’d never been this deep is mistruth.But you didn’t exactly lie, at least not yet.
“You better sure as hell not’ve last night…”
“I worked late on the Germany marketing issue. Woke up around two or so and worked. Got jacked on Red Bull.” That part was true.
“You work too hard. I benefit, but take a break once in a while.” Noah clapped him on the shoulder. “Promise me you didn’t lose the rings.”
“Got ’em.” In his tux bag in the trunk of his car.
“Did you finish your best man speech?”
Shit. No. Supposed to finish it last night. He faked a smile. “Yes.”
“Liar. You may be able to bullshit your way through any public talk, but this is my wedding.”
“I’ll come up with some embarrassing tidbit about you.”
“Don’t use the thing from undergrad that involved the cheerleader and a dare. That was awful. I’ve had some serious crash-and-burns, but that one wins. Best we leave that in the long-ago past. How’d it go getting Becca back to her hotel last night? Any battle scars?”
“Nah. We survived.”Don’t look at him. Jake stretched. His mind granted him a montage of images of how he’d “helped” her.
Noah frowned. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Maybe a few small battle wounds, then?”
More like a colossal kick in the gut for being an asshole. “Did you know Becca took some sort of job or internship that’s treating her like shit?”
Noah shook his head. “That’s weird. I thought she had a full ride for her master’s degree. They begged her to come to Berkley and offered her everything under the sun, including housing. She’s brilliant behind a computer, you know.”
“I don’t get why she’d take a job on top of school, at least not without letting you or your parents know. She also said something about being in San Diego and not Berkley. It was a slip-up she tried to fix, but…I don’t know.” He massaged his forehead. “Something’s not right. Something beyond the two of us being at each other’s throats.”
15
Good job.
