Page 22 of Best Served Cold

“How’s your job treating you, Patricia?”

My father clears his throat, and I decide it’s time for me to end this farce. I fold my napkin and place it beside my nearly untouched plate of food.

“Thanks for dinner,” I say, pushing back my chair. “It was?—”

“I have a plan for getting Sophie back,” Jonah insists in a tight voice, saving me from spouting a platitude I certainly wouldn’t have meant.

“Why not just leave her alone?”

As far as I know, he hasn’t seen Sophie since their showdown at Silver Star. The last time I saw her was the Sunday following the phone incident. I’d stopped by her aunt’s house to give her a CD I’d burned for her. Yeah, a CD. Which was obviously a mistake, because she admitted she only has a CD player in her car. I had no business bringing Jonah’s ex-fiancée gifts anyway, except I can’t stop watching that video of her tossing the ring at him. I’ve memorized all of the details, including the look of disbelief on my brother’s face. But my favorite part is the way Sophie changes on camera, transforming from a woman who always says yes to one who doesn’t take shit from anyone.

That’s what I was thinking of when I chose the songs for her CD. They were angry, mostly, meant to pump her up and keep her feeling strong. The worst thing that could happen is for her to go back to him.

I’m certain he’s texted and called her, but if he’d made any headway, he would have said so.

Truth is, I’m glad to have gotten Sophie wrong, and not only because it’s driving Jonah crazy that he’s not getting what he wants. That’s probably the real reason why he’s hatched some half-assed scheme to charm her.

“She’s my fiancée,” he says tightly. “I’m not going to let a misunderstanding get in the way. I should never have texted those women and given them the wrong idea. That was my mistake. But they’ve obviously filled her head with lies.”

I know he’s full of it,heknows he’s full of it, and my father undoubtedly knows the score too. But Jonah’s mother would take his word for it if he said the Earth was as flat as a pancake.Hell, she’d tell him what a good boy he was as he drove them toward the nonexistent drop-off.

“What are you going to do?” I ask.

I half expect him to saywouldn’t you like to know?But he actually answers.

“I’m going to make a grand gesture,” he says. “At Buchanan Brewery.”

I bristle at the thought. The Sophie on that video would have told him to go screw himself, but I have no idea what’s happened to her since. What if she’s been crying into her soup? What if she’s close enough to cracking that Jonah showing up with an armful of red flowers and a mouthful of lies would convince her to accept the ring she threw at him?

I can’t stand the thought. It would be impossible to look her in the eye ever again, because I’d know…

There’s a fire inside of her, and she’d be smothering it to become my brother’s compliant little wife.

Unease makes the back of my neck itch.

“Sounds romantic,” my stepmother says, and it takes me a second to realize she’s talking about Jonah’s terrible grand gesture idea.

“Really?” I say. “I think it sounds a lot like stalking.”

“Robert,” my stepmother says in a harsh tone.

“Patricia. I thought you’d like some advice on how to keep your darling son out of the slammer.”

She gives me a withering look, her lips squeezed into such a tight line there are little cracks running through them. “We certainly don’t need advice from a delinquent likeyou.”

I got charged with public intoxication once, when I was in my early twenties, but it was dropped. She acts like I tried to bulldoze a group of nuns.

“Actually,” Jonah says, apparently oblivious to every single thing that’s been said since he last spoke, “I was hoping you’d help me, Rob.”

A strangled laugh spills out of me. “Are you fucking serious?”

“Rob,” my father warns.

“Sorry,” I reply, my gaze still on my brother. My knee has started jiggling under the table. “Are you serious?The last time you asked for my help, you lied about what I’d be helping you with.”

“So…this time you’d know everything. I was hoping you’d, you know, serenade her. I want to do something really romantic.”

The injustice of this makes my ears burn, but I set my jaw and fist my hands, waiting for the worst of the anger to pass.

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