Chapter 45
"Hey, don’t be mad," Steve was saying. "We did it for you."
"Yeah," Anthony agreed. "You should be thanking us, not griping about it."
I gave them a look. "You stole my phone."
"Nah," Steve said. "We just borrowed it, like I told you."
Did I really need to point out the obvious? "It's not borrowing if you don't ask permission."
Sitting across from me in Jake's penthouse, Steve was making another pizza sandwich. "Hey, you got it back, didn't you?"
Yeah. I did. And I wasn't letting it go. Even now, I was clutching it so tight, I was half-surprised that it didn't shatter.
I looked to my brothers. "About Rango, how many times did you call him, anyway?"
Steve grinned. "A lot."
Stupidly, I couldn't stop myself from grinning back. The look on Rango's face had been so priceless I almost wanted to giggle.
How twisted was that?
"See?" Steve said. "You liked it. We knew you would."
"I wouldn't gothatfar," I told him.
Steve shoved the pizza sandwich into his face and started chewing. "Sure you would. You just don't wanna admit it."
I was still smiling. "Oh, shut up." I paused as a new question popped into my head. "And why wouldn't he just block my number?"
"Good question," Steve said. "Want us to call and ask?"
"No," I blurted out. "Definitely not." Deliberately, I changed the subject. "But about those sounds…" I hesitated, unsure how to put this. "Was it, like, from a movie or something?"
If so, I definitely didn't want to see it – or hear it again, for that matter.
Next to Steve, Anthony laughed. "Notonemovie.Twomovies."
I gave him a confused look. "What?"
"Yeah," Anthony said. "We took a regular porno, and threw in some bits from this old farm show. A cartoon, actually."
He leaned back, looking unusually proud of himself. "We got Trey to help us. He got a total kick out of it."
No surprise there. Cows did have nipples, right?
Still clutching my phone, I sank back onto the sofa, trying to pretend that everything was okay. I wasn't eating, and this time, I didn't care one bit whether they saved any for me.
I didn't want pizza.
I wanted Jake.
It was just past nine o'clock, and my bartending shift had ended an hour earlier. Even at work, I'd gone through the motions with a distracted mind and an aching heart.
WherewasJake?
And how pathetic was I, sitting around waiting for him to return, like the sad sack that I was? If I had any dignity at all, I'd probably be packing my bags and moving my stuff out of his place.
