Chapter 33
I looked toward the sound and spotted Jake, standing in the now-open door to the stairwell.
Thank God.
I breathed a sigh of relief. "You're back."
He moved forward, and the door swung shut behind him. He bypassed Steve and Anthony to join me near the open penthouse doors. He wrapped an arm around my waist and turned to face my brothers. "You coming or going?" he asked.
Steve's gaze drifted to the nearby elevator, and then to the stairwell door. After a long, silent moment, he turned his gaze back to me. From the look on his face, it was obvious what he was thinking. There was no way out of here – or at least, no way that he was eager to take.
I glanced at Anthony. Unfortunately, he had the same look.
Trying to smooth things over, I gave my brothers a tentative smile. "About the stair thing, I might've been exaggerating just a little."
Neither one of them smiled back.
I gave Jake a sideways glance. Talk about awkward. Did he realize what we were talking about? It was hard to tell, and thankfully, he didn't ask.
I looked back to my brothers. They were eying the closed stairwell door with grim resignation.
By now, I was starting to feel almost guilty. "If you want to stay," I offered, "we can order more pizza."
"Screw that," Steve said. "I'm just hoping to keep thelastpizza down." He looked to Anthony and said, "Twenty freaking flights."
"Yeah," Anthony said as he began trudging toward the stairwell door. "Man, this sucks."
I bit my lip. Probably, I should've retracted the elevator story instead. If nothing else, it would've saved them a walk down the stairs.
But there were two things that stopped me, even now. One – it would've been an outright lie, which would've boosted the odds of my brothers not believing me. And two – if I'd even hinted at anything to do with that elevator, Jake would almost certainly know exactly what we'd been talking about.
Did Ireallywant him to know that I'd gone blabbing about our sex life to my brothers? No. Definitely not, even if ithadbeen for a good cause.
And then, there was the more serious problem. If my brothers were still heading out for trouble, I needed to stop them.
I turned to Jake and said, "I'll be right back." I left his side and followed my brothers into the stairwell. When the door shut behind us, I lowered my voice to ask, "Hey, where are you guys going anyway?"
"Down," Steve said, not looking too happy about it.
I gave him an exasperated look. "Well, obviously. But you're not gonna go looking for those guys, are you?"
"The ones in that picture?" Steve said. "Hell no. That'd be a waste."
My shoulders sagged in relief. "Good. I'm glad you're being smart about it."
"Yeah, no shit," Anthony said. "You ask me, the dudes are dead. No fun looking now."
I stared at him. "What?"
"Yeah," he said. "Be a waste of time." He turned to Steve and said, "Unless you're up for dumpster-diving. You wanna?"
Steve gave it some thought. "Could be interesting."
I was still staring. "You guys are joking, right?"
"Eh, hard to say," Steve said. "Dumpster-diving…" He made that familiar waffling motion with his hand. "It's kind of hit-or-miss, you know?"
"No, I don't, actually." I gave him a serious look. "You're just messing with me, aren't you?"
