Page 152 of Jake Forever
"Sure you did. I saw you at the steakhouse. Remember?" I gave him an annoyed look. "And thanks a lot for coming in to gawk at my apology. Did you guys enjoy the show?"
Suddenly, Steve was grinning. "Oh yeah. It was freaking awesome."
Well, that was special. It was nice to know that my brothers got such a kick out of seeing my humiliation. But in light of the whole elevator thing, I didn't want to make a big stink about it, so all I said was, "So, who won the bet?"
"What bet?" Anthony asked.
"At the restaurant," I reminded him, "you said you had a bet."
"Oh,thatbet," Anthony said. "Eh, we both lost."
"Yeah," Steve said, "it kind of sucked, actually."
I shook my head. "What do you mean?"
Steve cracked open his new beer and tossed the other one to Anthony. Turning back to me, he said, "Well,Ibet that you'd hit her with something, and Anthony here—" Steve lifted his beer-bottle in Anthony's direction "—bet on a food fight."
I stared at them. Okay, I hadn't always been the most mature person in the world. But even I had my limits. I was still staring. "How old do you think I am?"
Steve shrugged. "Hey, we were just thinking what we'd do."
I paused. Now, that made a weird kind of sense.
"And just so you know," Anthony said, "Steve was right. We didn't get the chance to eat."
"What happened?" I asked, recalling how they'd left so suddenly. "Did the inspector call or something?"
"For work?" Anthony said. "Nah. That's not it." He looked to Steve and said, "You wanna tell it, or should I?"
Knowing my brothers, I was almost afraid to ask. "Tell what?"
"About that lady," Anthony said. "The one who gave you such a hard time."
Oh. Her.
After my apology, she'd spent the next hour running Melanie ragged, while she proceeded to lecture her younger dinner companions about choosing the right career, so they didn't end up working, as she had put it, a dirty, low-level service job.
Melanie, who had a bachelor's degree in philosophy, hadn't been amused.
But at leastIdidn't have to deal with that woman ever again. After my apology, I'd kept myself firmly behind the bar, where I made drinks on auto-pilot while contemplating my next career move, which I wasn't willing to discuss just yet.
Right now, I had a more pressing topic of conversation. With growing nervousness, I asked my brothers, "What about that lady?"
They were both grinning now. Steve said, "You hear about her van?"
Okay, now I was really nervous. In my mind, I saw visions of spray paint and punctured tires, courtesy of my brothers. True, vandalism wasn't exactly their style, but their smiles were definitely on the evil side.
Speaking slowly and carefully, I said, "What about her van?"
Steve laughed. "It was stolen."
