Jake Forever (Jaked Book 3)

by Sabrina Stark

  Vince shrugged. "Eh, well, can't blame a guy for trying."

  Bianca turned to glare at him. "Do I need to remind you? I'm standing right here."

  That made me pause. When it came to Vince and Bianca, I couldn’t quite figure them out. Like me, Bianca had spent a few weeks as Vince's employee, and, if the rumors were true, his main-squeeze. But what they were to each other now, I had no idea.

  Vince turned to Bianca and told her, "You wanna parade around naked? You won't see me complaining." Turning back to Jake, he added, "You want her to? Just say the word. She'd do it."

  Bianca sputtered, "I would not!"

  "Right," Vince said. "Keep telling yourself that." His tone grew sarcastic. "We believe you."

  Listening, I tried to look on the bright side. If Bianca did, in fact, parade around naked, it would definitely take the focus off me.

  But short of that happening, I was stymied on what to do. I ducked my head back behind Jake and tried to think. He stood directly between the open elevator doors, which meant they wouldn’t shut as long as he was there. I couldn’t decide, was that a good thing? Or a bad thing?

  I mean, I'd love for those doors to slide shut and hide me from prying eyes. But then what? I couldn't exactly ride down to the lobby and show my goodies there.

  Almost too late, I recalled the jean shorts, wadded up, under my arm. If Vince and Bianca would only turn away, I could put them on – I paused – and then what? Waltz forward like Jake and I hadn't just been caught been screwing in the elevator?

  I reminded myself that they hadn't technically caught us, not in the act or anything. But it wouldn’t be hard for anyone to figure it out. I shifted my stance and tried not to think about it.

  In front of me, Jake told them, "Turn around."

  Bianca called back, "Why should we turn around? We were here first."

  "Alright," Jake said. "Don't turn around. Just get out."

  Bianca made a sound of disbelief. "Well, that's just lovely. There's only one elevator. What? You want us to join you in there?"

  "Hell no," Jake said. He jerked his head toward a plain gray door, located a few paces away from the much fancier doors to his penthouse. Above that nondescript door was a classic exit sign. "You can take the stairs."

  "But we're twenty floors up," Bianca protested.

  "Not my problem," Jake said.

  Again, I peered around him. I called out to Bianca, "Oh, stop whining. You took the stairs up here, right? So, just take them back down again."

  She glared at me. "Have you forgotten my foot? It really does hurt, in case you didn't know." She gave a dramatic sigh. "But I guess no one cares about that, do they?"

  Well, I didn't care, but only because I didn't believe her.

  Next to her, Vince gave a small laugh. "You're fine," he told her. "It was two flights, and you survived those, didn't you?"

  Two flights? Oh. Of course. They'd done what any smart person would've done. They'd taken the elevator to the eighteenth floor, and then, they'd walked up only the last two. That wasn't so bad.

  Next to him, Bianca hissed. "Oh shush, they don't need the details."

  Vince chuckled. "Too late now."

  "I don't know what's so funny," Bianca muttered. She looked back to Jake and said, "Alright, fine. We'll wait in your office. But I don't know what the big deal is." Her lips twisted into a smirk. "She was, after all, practically naked when we picked her up."

  It was my turn to sputter. "I was not!"

  "Well, you sure looked naked." She gave a fake, tittering laugh. "I'm surprised you weren't arrested for indecent exposure."

  In front of me, Jake's body tensed, but he said nothing. From where I stood, I couldn’t see the look on his face, but I'm guessing it wasn't friendly, because a moment later, Vince gripped Bianca's elbow and started hustling her toward the stairs.

  Already, she was whining. "But I don't like stairs. They're always grubby. And I'm wearing high-heels."

  Vince ignored her complaints and paused to give me a boyish grin. "Keep the hoodie," he said. "We'll call it a gift."

  That grin, as harmless as it looked, didn't fool me one bit. Not anymore. Underneath all that charm, he was a total snake. But within the last hour, he had given me a ride and loaned me the hoodie, so I couldn’t exactly be rude about it.

  But apparently, Jake had no such qualms. "No," he told Vince. "You'll be getting it back."

  Vince gave a laugh. "Why?"

  "Because she doesn't need 'gifts' from someone like you."

  Vince shrugged off the insult. "Suit yourself." Once again, Vince, with Bianca in tow, began walking toward the stairway door. Just before it swung shut behind them, Vince called out over his shoulder, "Hey Jake, if you're more than five minutes, give us a call. We'll come back and join the fun."

  Well, that wasn't disturbing or anything.

  Peering around Jake, I stared at the door. I lowered my voice and asked, "Did that mean what I think it means?"

  "If it does, he can piss off." Jake turned around and reached for my hand. "Now come on, let's get you inside."

  Five minutes later, I was alone, soaking in a hot bath. As for Jake, he'd gone downstairs to meet with Vince and Bianca. About what, I still had no idea. In all the commotion, I'd forgotten to ask.

  But now that I was alone, I was more curious than ever.

  I also couldn’t help but wonder why Vince was looking so happy all of a sudden. I'd seen him confront Jake on several occasions. Every single time, Vince had been royally pissed off for reasons that made a lot of sense.

  Over the past few months, Jake had cost Vince and his clients a ton of money, mostly by making those clients look like total idiots. They'd lost their tempers. They'd lost fights. And then, they'd lost it, literally.

  I recalled one guy – some hotshot basketball player – who'd been caught beating the crap out of a taco stand two days after losing an impromptu fight with Jake.

  It didn't help, of course, that until then, the guy had spent most of his free time cultivating a bad-ass, tough-guy image, mostly by bullying people half his size.

  Now, his image was toast, along with his endorsement deals – except for, sadly, a regional taco chain that had made a mockery of the whole situation.

  Soaking in the tub, I was still trying to make sense of it all when I heard my cell phone ring. I sat up in the tub and looked around.

  And then, I sighed.

  My phone was still in the pocket of Vince's hoodie, now lying across the bathroom counter. From the tub, I couldn't even begin to reach it. But I definitely needed to.

  Ever since leaving work, I'd been waiting for a call from my boss, telling me whether or not I still had a job.

  Hoping for good news, I scrambled out of the tub and almost ran, naked and dripping across the tile floor. I dug out the phone and glanced at the display. I didn't recognize the number, but that didn’t stop me from answering with a breathless, "Hello?"

  A male's voice, low and smooth, responded with a phrase that had become painfully familiar. "Hey Babe."

  Oh, crap.

  I recognized that voice, and unfortunately, it didn't belong to my boss, or to Jake, for that matter.

  Chapter 24

  I stood, naked and dripping, clutching my cell phone with slippery fingers. I didn't bother to hide my irritation. "What do you want?"

  It was Rango, my asshat of an ex-boyfriend. A few months earlier, the guy had caused me all kinds of trouble when our relationship had crashed and burned like the disaster it was.

  He'd trashed my apartment. He'd crushed my car. He'd turned up in odd places to give me all kinds of grief. But those days were over. Or at least, I thought they were.

  A few weeks earlier, Jake had kicked Rango's ass spectacularly – and secured a promise from Rango's mobster of a stepdad that Rango would finally leave me alone. In fact, until this phone call, my life since then had been blissfully Rango-free.

  On the other end of the phone, Rango gave a low ch
uckle. "So you're still mad about the car, huh?"

  It wasn't just the car, but I didn't want to get into it. So all I said was, "You paid me for the car. Remember?"

  "Nah. Sorry. Don't remember that."

  That made me pause. He had paid me, in cash, no less. He'd given the money to Jake, who'd passed it to me in crisp hundred-dollar bills.

  Oh, no.

  I closed my eyes and let out a sigh. Maybe the money hadn't come from Rango. Before I could stop myself, I said, "So you didn't pay for that? Are you serious?"

  Rango paused. "Wait. You got money for that thing? How much?"

  That "thing" was a cute little Ford Focus. It was the only car I'd ever owned. The way I heard it, Rango and his friends had crushed it for fun in a night of drunken stupidity.

  At the image, I wanted to crush something of Rango's in return. Like his face, for starters. I was still doing a slow burn when Rango spoke again. "You know, come to think of it. I'm pretty sure I did pay you. So, uh, we're good, huh?"

  I made a sound of disgust. "Nice try."

  His tone became flirty. "Well, how do you know that I didn't pay you?"

  I didn't know, and that was the problem. But I did know one thing. If I wanted the whole story, I was talking to the wrong guy.

  To Rango, I said, "I know what I know."

  In truth, I didn't know squat. But Jake was just one floor down, and one way or another, I'd find out what had really happened.

  "Yeah?" Rango said. "Well, I know something, too."

  Against my better judgment, I said, "What?"

  His voice became low, with a hint of sex. "You want me back. Am I right?"

  Ick.

  At the thought, I almost threw up in my mouth. Rango was a hot-shot D.J. with a big local following. He was rich, good-looking, and charming when he wanted to be. Lots of girls wanted him. Me? Not so much.

  "Whatever you're smoking," I told him, "you might want to give it up. It's affecting your judgment."

  "Aw come on," he said. "I saw Jake with that other girl, so I figured you were like, available again."

  The words, as stupid as they were, found their mark. I knew which girl he meant. Nipple Girl, obviously.

  I felt myself swallow. He'd better be talking about Nipple Girl, because if he meant someone else, I had bigger problems than six million views of Jake with a drunken hussy.

  In the calmest voice I could muster I said, "You thought wrong. Because Jake and I are together. And we're staying together."

  I bit my lip. At least, I sure hoped we were staying together.

  Rango gave a low chuckle. "So you don’t mind sharing, huh? You should've mentioned that when we were together. I mean, I like to party as much as the next guy."

  "Yeah. And I like waffles. So what?"

  Ignoring me, Rango launched into some side story about his DJ gig. As he talked, it slowly dawned on me that I was standing there, utterly naked, in Jake's bathroom, listening to a total jackass.

  I pulled the phone from my ear and stared down at the thing.

  Why had I even answered? But I knew why. Thanks to what was obviously a new phone number, I hadn't known it was Rango calling.

  I wouldn’t be making that mistake again.

  When I returned the phone to my ear, Rango was still blabbing, saying something about his new condo. He finished by saying, "So, uh, you wanna get together?"

  "No," I said. "Definitely not."

  "If you want," he persisted, "we can meet on the sly, talk, have a few laughs, see what happens."

  "Nothing's going to happen," I told him, "because we're not getting together. Not now. Not ever. And Rango, seriously, don’t call me again. I mean it."

  And with that, I disconnected the call, tossed the phone onto the folded bath towel that I'd placed by the tub earlier, and crawled back into the steaming water.

  I'd barely settled back in when my cell phone rang a second time.

  With a muttered curse, I reached down to grab it off the towel. I looked at the display and frowned. Again, I didn't recognize the number, but it was definitely different from the last one.

  Was it my boss? Finally?

  Unwilling to take the chance of missing him, I answered with a tentative, "Hello?"

  "Hey Babe."

  "Oh, crap," I muttered.

  Rango gave an oily laugh. "What? You're not happy to hear from me?"

  "No. And I wasn't happy the first time either."

  "Eh, you know what they say. If at first you don’t succeed—"

  "What? Make an ass of yourself?"

  "I haven't heard that phrasing before," he said, "but hey, you always were the smart one."

  Now, I knew he was full of crap. I hadn't been smart. About Rango and too many other things to count, I'd been excessively stupid.

  It was a real shame, too. It wasn't that I didn't have brains. It was just that I hadn't spent a whole lot of time using them.

  But now, I was turning over a new leaf, and Rango's words had me thinking. There had to be more to this story. The first call from Rango made a weird kind of sense. But two calls? Back to back?

  I knew the guy. He never tried this hard.

  He had to be playing some angle. But what kind of angle, I just didn't know. Determined to cut to the chase, I said, "What do you want?"

  "I already told you—"

  "Cut the crap," I said, sitting up straighter in the tub. "This isn't about me, and we both know it. You want something. What is it?"

  Rango paused. With a smile in his voice, he said, "Hey, are you naked?"

  I froze. I was, in fact, naked. But there was no way on Earth that I was going to admit it. "Oh shut up," I said. "Just answer the question."

  Still smiling, he said, "You are. Aren't you? Don't lie. I can hear the splashing."

  Even more self-conscious now, I held myself very still. "Yeah? Well, maybe I'm doing dishes. You ever think of that?"

  "Nah. I don't hear any dishes. Just you." He gave a low chuckle. "Is there room for two?"

  "Yeah," I snapped, "and Jake's gonna be here any minute."

  "Nope. Sorry. He's still downstairs."

  I felt my eyebrows furrow. How did Rango know that? And then it hit me. Bianca, trouble-maker that she was, had to be feeding him information. Of course.

  Suddenly, it all made sense. If I hooked up with Rango, Jake would finally be free, and Bianca would move in for the kill.

  My jaw clenched. The kill – that was sounding like a fine idea. Envisioning Bianca's neck, I squeezed my phone a little tighter. Too tight, as it turned out. It popped out of my grip and landed with a sickening splash in the soapy water.

  "Son-of-a-bitch!" I hollered, diving down for the thing. A split-second later, I plucked it out of the water and tossed it onto the nearby bath towel. I scrambled out of the tub and began frantically drying the phone off.

  As I fumbled around, I could hear Rango, on the other end, laughing his ass off.

  The sound of him should've been a relief, because it meant that the phone was still working. But I was too far gone to be relieved about anything. Letting my anger get the best of me, I responded with a string of profanity that would've made a sailor blush.

  Rango was still laughing, even louder now. "You dropped it, didn't you? Oh man, I wish I were there. I bet you're cute as hell."

  My heart was pounding, and my mouth was tight. I wasn't cute. I was homicidal.

  "Hey, I know," Rango continued. "Send me a picture, okay? C'mon. Don't even think about it. Just do it."

  I was still desperately drying off the phone, not that it probably needed it. I saw no more signs of water – at least not on the outside. Still, I gave the phone a few more swipes with the towel and held it up for a closer inspection.

  Surprisingly, it looked okay. And it was still working. So that was good, right?

  "I'll tell ya what," Rango was saying. "Come on over. I'll give you a new phone. A nice one, too." He gave another laugh. "You won't believe this, but I've got
like a dozen right here. Come on by. You can take your pick."

  I could almost see it, Rango sitting there, surrounded by a slew of new phones. He owned a few small businesses, so it actually made sense. For all I knew, he'd acquired a cell phone outlet as part of what he used to call his "diversification plans."

  I held up my middle finger. Diversify this, Jackass.

  Out loud, I told him, "Screw your phones. And while you're at it, screw you too, Rango."

  "Hey," he said, putting some real sleaze into it, "sounds good to me. I'll be waiting."

  With a sound of disgust, I ended the call. And then, not wanting to take any chances, I pulled up the display and blocked this latest phone number, along with the first one while I was at it.

  Frowning, I imagined Rango sitting somewhere, surround by a dozen phones. "Only ten more to go," I muttered.

  Standing there, naked and dripping all over Jake's fancy tile floor, I looked longingly at the bathtub. Suddenly, it felt sullied by the whole Rango thing, and I was almost tempted to simply get dressed and be done with it. But I still had conditioner in my hair and needed to rinse it off, unless I wanted to embrace the greaser look, which I definitely didn't.

  So, reluctantly, I crawled back into the tub and dipped my head backward, under the bath water. It had barely reached my forehead when I heard, once again, the dreaded sound of my cell phone ringing.

  Screw it. It could ring all it wanted. I wasn't answering. Or at least, that was the plan, until I recalled that I still hadn't heard from my boss.

  With a sigh, I reached for my phone. This time, I held it outside the tub as I checked the display. Once again, the number was unfamiliar.

  Reluctantly, I answered with a wary, "Hello?"

  "Hey, Babe."

  "Shit." I ended the call and returned the phone to the driest part of the towel. Hurrying now, I finished rinsing my hair and practically leapt out of the tub, feeling dirtier, mentally anyway, than when I'd gotten in.

  By the time I'd dressed and dried my hair, the phone had rung at least seven more times from seven different numbers. Each time, I forced myself to answer. And each time, the caller had been Rango.

  Apparently, he hadn't been lying about the phones.