“When is dinner, Evan?” Robin sighed. “Jake and I need to get back soon.”
“We can start whenever you are ready, princess.”
The term of endearment cut through Jake like a knife, conjuring up unwanted images of Robin and Evan together.
“I'm ready if everyone else is,” she said and walked to where Jake was standing, slipped her hand into his, and gave him a little tug so that he would join her at the table. Jake had the presence of mind to hold the chair out for her, but he was, again, the only one. Mia flopped down like a fish onto her chair. Michael sat as far away from her as he could get.
Slick turned to the bartender. “Let Drake know that we have one more guest than we thought,” he announced loudly. “We'll need another place setting if he can dig one up.”
Bastard. Jake took the seat next to Robin, the one with no place setting, and banged his beer down on the table. That earned him nothing but an amused smile from Slick as
another man in white shirt and black bow tie came scurrying out of a door on the far end of the room, carrying a stack of plates, linens, and silver. He quickly and artfully set the place in front of Jake.
As he hurried out again, Robin looked at Slick. “T hank s for sending the files over,” she said.
“Ah… did they help?”
“Sort of. But I noticed you had done a lot of the same work I had done.”
“Yes.” He lifted his martini glass and sipped delicately.
“I was wondering why.”
“Why? Well, I suppose because I have done that sort of thing before and you haven't,” he said and chuckled as if he was speaking to a precocious child instead of an adult.
“Yes, but you told me how to do it and I have been sending you all my analysis. It just seemed like a lot of work for you to duplicate,” she said as a man and woman appeared, each carrying a tray laden with silver-domed dishes.
“Don't worry, Robbie. We're using your figures,” he said dismissively and smiled an oily little smile. “I hope you have an appetite, Jake.”
Could the guy be any more condescending? Jake was irritated for Robin, but whatever she thought, he couldn't tell. She just dropped it altogether as the woman leaned over her shoulder and asked, “Haut-Medoc? Or Margaux?”
Robin looked at the two wine bottles she held. “What is the vintage of the Margaux?”
“La tou de Mons , 1991.”
“T hank you, I'll have that,” Robin said. The waitress poured the wine then looked at Jake.
He might be a novice at this, but he was no fool. “The same.”
“Are you a wine connoisseur, Jake? I thought you were a beer drinker,” Slick remarked.
“I am a beer drinker,” Jake said flatly.
“I can't drink beer,” Mia said, and Jake figured that she couldn't do much of anything without whining about it.
The man paused on Jake's left, leaned over with a tray,
and with his middle finger, pointed to one of two dishes. “Grilled shrimp with celery roots and remoulade, or asparagus and crab veloute soup?” he asked.
“Shrimp,” Jake said gruffly, only to be dismayed that there were only four on the plate.
“And for your salad, sir, a brie and goat cheese empanada with champagne vinaigrette, or vine ripe tomatoes and moz-zarella in basalmic vinaigrette?”
God, what he wouldn't give for a hamburger! 'Tomatoes and cheese."
“And lastly, sir, for you entree: baked Atlantic salmon and lump crab in a bernaise sauce, tenderloin of beef with polenta and a port wine reduction, or lobster tail with beurre blanc?”
He figured the beef was as close to a hamburger as he was going to get in this crowd. 'The beef."
“Really, Jake, you can get beef anywhere,” Helpful Slick chimed in. “Why not try the lobster?”
Jake pinned him with a cold stare. “I'll take the beef, t hank you.”
Slick shrugged, turned back to his soup. “Suit yourself.”
Yes, Jake thought, he would do just that, and spent the rest of the meal concentrating on using the right implement as the conversation turned to some little jaunt the four of them had taken to Vancouver one weekend. No doubt in the Lear jet, he thought miserably, wondering at the cost of that little excursion. He refused to let his imagination wander any further than that.
When dinner was served, Jake was too perturbed by the tiny little piece of beef to be interested in what they were saying, which had something to do with a mutual fund Slick thought was hot, and drifted in and out. He declined the port that was served with dessert, even though the Slickster insisted it was vintage, which he seemed to think should make a difference. Jake asked for another beer just to piss him off.
When the meal was (t hank fully) over, and Robin excused herself and headed for the powder room, Jake got up and went outside for some air. It wasn't long before Slick joined
him, with his hands shoved deep in his fag pants, staring up at the moon. “Beautiful out here on the water, isn't it?”
“Yeah,” Jake drawled. “So do you actually take this thing out, or do you just dine on it?”
Slick glanced at him from the corner of his eye. “I take it out.”
“Huh.”
“So… you've been seeing Robin, is that it?” Fagpants asked, like Jake was going to subject himself to any questions on that front. Slick chuckled in that snide way of his at Jake's silence. “Word to the wise, Jake. Robbie goes through men like water. It's a well-known fact. I wouldn't get too comfortable if I were you.”
Bastard. Asshole. 'T hank s, but you can keep your advice to yourself."
“Yeah, sure, I'll do that. But I guess you know her old man has cancer.”
It was more of a statement than a question, and Jake responded nonchalantly, “So I've heard.”
The asshole chuckled again, then turned so that he was facing Jake, a sneer on his face. “Of course you've heard. That's why you're hanging around, isn't it?”
That implication caught Jake completely off guard. He slowly squared off in front of Slick, straightening to his full height, a good three inches taller than Weasel. “You're Robin's colleague, so I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and pretend you aren't implying what I think you are implying,” he said evenly.
Slick shrugged, looked out at the water for a minute. “I don't know if I am implying anything. But I am making an observation that it seems awfully coincidental to me that some handyman managed to get in Robin's pants about the time she found out her dad was dying. She'll probably inherit a huge fortune, won't she?”
Jake's reaction was pure instinct; he took a step forward, clenching his fists to keep from hitting the fool, backing the faggot up against the rail.
“What's the matter? Truth hurt a little?” Slick asked and braced himself for the blow that was sure to come.
Robin thought the evening already sucked, but this took the cake. She stepped in front of Jake before he could do something awful, like punch Evan, which is exactly what he appeared about to do. “What are you doing?” she cried, pushing hard against his chest.
“Oh good, a fight,” Mia drawled behind her. “What did we miss?”
Must have been something good—Robin had never seen such fire as she saw in Jake's eyes, blazing down at her that very moment. His jaw was clenched as tight as his fist. “Let's get out of here,” he said sharply and promptly turned on his heel, striding for the little gangplank.
“Yes, let's,” Robin said, bewildered, but turned around to Evan, who straightened his shirt as he watched Jake stride away. “Are you all right?” she asked.
“Oh yeah, I'm fine,” Evan said. “But I'm worried about you. The man has a temper.”
“What happened?”
“Robin!” Jake bellowed from the yacht's gangplank.
Evan ignored him, smiled down at Robin. "A little too
much testosterone, that's all. Do you want a ride? Let us give you a ride home. You don't need to go with him."
“No,” she said instantly and stepped back. She did not fear Jake and never would. He would never touch so much as a hair on her head.
“I don't know, Rob,” Mia said, glancing over her shoulder at Jake. “He seems sort of rough.”
Which was precisely what made him so sexy. “I'll be fine!” she said angrily and turned away from her friends, walking to where Jake was impatiently waiting.
“I want off this tin bucket,” he said low, and grabbed her hand, pulled her along, down the gangplank. But once they were on terra firma again, Robin yanked her hand from his
grip-
His head jerked around; his brown eyes, still blazing, burned a hole right through her.
“What in the hell did you think you were doing?” she demanded.
“Give me the keys.”
“No—”
“Give me the fucking keys, Robin.”
His voice was so low and cool that it left her speechless. After a moment's hesitation, she handed him the keys. He walked around the passenger side of the car, opened the door for her, motioned for her to hurry along. Once she was inside, he got in behind the wheel, and with his jaw clenched tight, revved the engine. They backed out on a squeal of rubber and exited the parking lot in much the same way.
They rocketed out on to the Gulf highway, Jake's eyes narrowed, staring straight ahead. His expression sent a bit of a chill down Robin's spine, but she was too angry to let it go. “What in God's name were you doing? You almost hit him!” she demanded, folding her arms defensively across her middle.
“He's an asshole.”
“He's not an asshole!”
“Don't,” Jake said, sparing her a very icy glance. “Don't defend him.”
“Should I be defending you?”
“Just t hank your lucky stars you stepped in when you did or I might have killed him.”
“What did he say or do that was so horrible?”
Jake said nothing, just clenched his jaw tighter.
“Jesus, Jake, I want to understand, but right now, all my friends think you are some kind of fiend—”
“Your friends, as you call them, treated me like dirt all night!”
“No, you don't understand—”
“And that boy of yours was trying to bait me!”
She couldn't deny that; it was obvious even to her that Evan was jealous of Jake. “You have to understand, he's got an ego.”
“And I don't?” Jake all but shouted. “He's an arrogant prick and a fucking coward!”
“Well, at least he's not a bully, forcing people to his way of thinking with the threat of his fist!” she shot back. “What did he say, anyway?”
“You want to know?” Jake snapped angrily. “You want to know what that faggot implied? That I was seeing you because your father was dying!”
Robin gasped.
Jake careened around a corner, then punched it.
Clearly, he had misunderstood. Yes, of course he had misunderstood. There was no way Evan would have said such a thing. She knew him. “Nonono, you obviously misunderstood—”
“I didn't misunderstand a goddam thing, Robin!”
“Well, even if he did, which he didn't, does that give you the right to hit him?”
“It damn near gives me the right to kill him. I won't stand for any man disrespecting me.”
Oh great, it was a testosterone thing—Robin groaned with exasperation. “Shit, Jake, try and give him the benefit of the doubt, will you?”
“Why?” he roared. “Why do you insist on defending him?”
“Because he is my friend! They're all my friends!” she shouted back at him.
A red light flashed before them and Jake slammed his hand into the steering wheel at the same moment he slammed his foot into the brakes. They went screeching up the intersection, bouncing back with the force of the stop. Robin grabbed the side of the car and slowly turned to look at him. “Calm down.”
Jake laughed, shook his head. “I'm calm, baby. I'm real calm. I'm too numb to be anything else, because for the life of me, I can't figure out why someone as special as you would have friends as shallow as that.”
That silenced her. Not because she felt indignant, but because she really didn't know why.
When they got to her house—at a reasonable speed— Jake didn't say much other than good night, tossed her the keys, and walked purposefully to his motorcycle, taking off without even a glance backward.
Robin watched him disappear before wandering inside. She dropped her things on the dining table, made her way to the back terrace. There was a soft gulf breeze blowing across the lawn, making the herd of pink flamingos bounce a little. She lowered herself into a lounge chair, pondering the evening.
Jake was right, of course. Evan had been horrible, the jealousy practically oozing from him. And Mia, well, Mia had been a snob as long as Robin could remember. At the same time, while she could see Evan and Mia's faults as Jake saw them, she could also understand them. She could understand how they viewed the world because it was the same way she had viewed the world up until a few short months ago, and now… well, now, she was seeing things a little differently. She was seeing the world through Jake's eyes.
And she was beginning to really despise what she saw.
Which is why she changed into cutoffs and a T-shirt and drove to the Heights. When she pulled up into Jake's drive, she could see the flicker of a light deep in the back of the house. She tiptoed up the steps, rang the doorbell. After a moment, she could hear movement. A second later, the porch light flicked on, blinding her as the door swung open.
Bare-chested, barefoot, and wearing jeans that rode low on his hips, Jake stepped up to the door frame and leaned against it, one arm draped across his hard belly, the other loosely holding a beer bottle, the barbed wire tattoo around his bicep stark against his skin.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi.”
“Can I come in?”
Jake inhaled deeply and released it slowly as he stood behind the screen, taking her in. “Don't know if I should,” he said at last. “I think maybe I should send you back to your little group so you can sit around and laugh at the rest of the world with them.”
Ouch. “Come on, Jake, you know I'm not like that—”
“Oh yeah? Does Burdette ring any bells?”
Ouch again. “Okay, that's fair. But I've changed—and before you list all my faults, let me please say I am sorry. I shouldn't have put you in that situation.”