Page 9 of Jake Forever
Chapter 4
Jake gave me a cocky smile. "Hey, I wasn't arrested."
"Yeah," I said, "but I didn't know that, did I?"
Three hours – that's how long I'd been waiting at his penthouse. Threelonghours, wondering if he was okay, wondering if he'd been dragged off to jail, wondering if this time, his luck had finally run out.
I'd spent most of those hours glued to my computer, where someone had been live-streaming the commotion outside the convention center. In my mind, I could still picture it – the red and blue flashing of police lights; the crowd, dazed and confused, pouring out of the building; random paramedics treating people on the scene for various cuts and bruises.
In front of me, Jake was saying, "I tried to call."
"Yeah, but I didn't have my phone."
That was another thing. In all the commotion, I'd forgotten my purse, which meant I was missing not only my cell phone, but my wallet and everything in it.
I considered all the things I'd lost – my driver's license, my one credit card, and even my paper punch-card thingy for my favorite coffee shop. Bad timing, too. I'd been just one punch away from a free latte.
I gave a little shake of my head. Who cared about the latte? I wasn't worried about some stupid drink. I was worried about Jake.
I looked over at him, standing just inside the door to his penthouse. He looked surprisingly fine, all things considered.
Into his silence, I tried to explain. "So if youdidcall, I had no way of answering."
His eyebrows lifted. "IfI called you?"
"I'm not saying you lied or anything."
"You sure about that?"
"Of course I'm sure." I made a sound of frustration. "It's just that I forgot my purse."
Jake removed his jacket and tossed it onto a side chair. "I know."
"Really? How?" I paused as I noticed something new. "Wait a minute…" I gave Jake a good, long look. He was wearing different clothes. At the convention center, he'd been wearing dress slacks and one of his designer shirts. Now, he was wearing jeans and a plain T-shirt.
The shirt wasn't what surprised me. By now, I was used to that. Jake carried spares with him wherever he went, mostly because his shirts had a funny way of getting torn, bloodied, or otherwise destroyed as he fought his way from one crazy scene to another.
But normally, his pants stayed on. I looked down at his jeans. "You changed your pants."
"Yeah. So?"
"So why?" I asked. "What happened?"
He gave a casual shrug. "The usual."
Except it wasn't usual. That was my whole point. "Did they get dirty or something? And since when do you carry around spare pants?"
"I don't," he said. "I had some in the office."
His office was right here in this building, one floor down. "So you've been here? In the building? For how long?"
Part of me realized that I was giving him the third-degree. But I really wanted to know. In fact, Ideservedto know. I'd been going crazy with concern.
If he hadn't paid some stranger to drag me off, I could've seen for myself hours ago that Jake was perfectly okay. Who knows? Maybe in some small way, I could've helped.
Hey, it could happen.
When Jake said nothing, I pushed the issue. "Seriously, how long have you been back?"
