Page 41 of The Bet
“How about you?” he asked Izzy.
“I don’t like hotdogs. Anyway, we’ve already made plans, haven’t we, Jacob?”
“But I’m hungry.”
“NYB,” he said, trying to appeal to the babysitter. “On the Upper West Side. They do the best burgers in all of New York and you can get a huge plate of salad, and you get to pick anything you want.” Jacob suddenly didn’t seem too excited by that. “And you get to fill your own ice-cream bowl and put anything you want on it!” That seemed to do the trick.
“I wanna go!”
“I thought you might.”
NYB was touted as a child friendly place, and had won rave reviews for its salad and ice-cream parlors. He wasn’t so keen on the noise, what with it being full of families on weekends, but the burgers were amazing.
Izzy snorted. “I prefer not to pay overinflated prices.”
“Lunch is on me.”
“No, thank you.”
“C’mon, Izzy,” Jacob pleaded.
“Yeah, C’mon, Laronde,” he said, easing into his usual Xavier-The-Stud-Stone smile. “A nice fat piece of meat might put a smile on that face of yours.” He was fully aware of the innuendo, but he wasn’t at all prepared for her answer.
“I’m a vegetarian.”
How could he forget? A vegetarian. Of course, she would have to be. No alcohol, no animal products. Fuck. He hoped she wasn’t one of those virgins-until-she-got-married types. “They’ll do some … some … green stuff, I’m sure.”
Jacob giggled. “Like grass, you mean?”
“Vegetarians don’t eat grass, Jacob.” Ouch. She sounded pissed, and pissed wasn’t going to get him in her good books. He gave her the once over, when she was glancing at her cell phone.
He didn’t know what it was—a sudden change in the weather, or a lack of sexual activity, or the fact that she was so obviously not interested in him, but damn it if Laronde didn’t look more attractive each time he saw her. On the flipside, she was cold, possibly frigid even, and a smile wouldn’t go amiss on that pretty little face of hers either. His gaze fell to her lips, and he wondered what it would take to make her face light up.
“You want to go with Xavier?” she asked Jacob.
“Yeah. I’m staaaaar-ving. Can we go now?” Jacob asked.
“Sure, kid.”
“Lemme just get my bag of toys.” He raced away, leaving him and Laronde staring at one another. It was a deja-vu moment, taking him back to the party in the summer, when Petra had spilled her drink over her. Laronde was in the same jeans and leather jacket, with her nearly-dry tousled hair hanging down, and looking at him as if she wanted to scalp him.
“Have I done anything to offend you?” he asked, trying to warm the atmosphere between them.
“I had plans to take Jacob to the park this afternoon.”
“We can still do that.”
“My plan didn’t include you.”
“That was very selfish of you.”
“I think it was very selfish of you to change our plans to suit you.”
“Why do you have such a problem with lunch, with me coming along?” he asked, walking towards her, unable to keep that grin from spreading across his face. It was a thing with him, that hardened expression on her face was like an ultimate challenge, and he was determined to make it soft again. “And are you always going to be pissed when you see me?” he asked, ignoring the seething look on her face when she didn’t say anything.
“It depends, are you always going to show up wherever I go?”
He chuckled, because she was so dangerously close to the truth and he needed to deflect it. “Don’t flatter yourself, Laronde.”
