Page 4 of Double Trouble
Jake ripped his blazer sleeve free of my grasp. “You’re not my manager right now.”
“Doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”
“I’m just going over there to say hello.”
I tipped my head at him, the ‘oh really’ motion he always hated because I was usually right. “Be my guest, then.”
And so, I watched as Jake strode over there and said a few words with the clearly-embarrassed Cin and her date. Cin’s dates reaction was less visible as his brunette-headed back was to me.
I threw some water down my throat and chomped on some ice cubes, annoyed. Not of Jake’s gall, but of my own stupid certainty – that I should’ve gone with him.
Always playing it safe.
I massaged my hand with the plates in it, scowling. Was that all my life was gonna be now – one extended safe snore?
I was halfway up, when Jake came storming back.
“Guy’s an asshole,” he declared before he was even in his seat.
“Really or is it because he has his arm around the girl you want?” I indicated their table, where Cin’s date now had his arm around her.
“Doesn’t look like she’s enjoying it,” Jake said.
I peered at her. I’d never claim to be some kind of expert of the ongoing enigma that was the female mind, but if Cin’s tensed shoulders and pulled-away body meant what I think it did, then she wasn’t liking what her date was doing one bit. “You may have a point.”
A squeal distracted me from my staring session. “Jake! Owen!”
It was Mary-Belle, one of the usual blondes that served us here. She was beaming as if Christmas, her birthday, Kwanzaa, Hanukah, Halloween and Thanksgiving had all happened to land on the same day. “Ugh, I cannot believe no one told me you were here! It’s just like them.” Her blonde head momentarily stopped bobbing so she could glare at the clump of her fellow waitresses, chatting obliviously at the hostess desk.
“We just got here, actually,” I said. “But it’s great to see you.”
As she dipped to hug us, her arms and sugary cinnabon-esque scent simultaneously enveloping us, over her shoulder I checked on Cin. She looked to be imperceptibly trying to inch away from her date, although he didn’t seem to be getting the picture.
“What happened to you?” Mary-belle was cooing, bending over to peer at Jake’s fading scab.
“Just a fight cut. We’ll have the usuals,” he said, a bit too curtly.
As Mary-Belle’s high-watt smile fell, I cut in. “Sorry for the rush. We’re just starving.”
“Of course!” Smile back on, she hurried off.
“Could you be a little less obvious?” I asked Jake, who was still staring at Cin, not even trying to hide it now.
He shrugged, his gaze not budging. “It’s a free country.”
I stabbed at some puny ice cubes in the glasses of water that had been here when we were seated. “Thought we came here to cool off.”
“She doesn’t like him. Look – she’s leaving.”
“To the bathroom,” I said. “Just face it. There’s one girl on the planet that you’re attracted to that you can’t do anything about.”
Jake’s stare followed her as she left down the hallway to the restrooms. “You’re attracted to her too.”
“Yeah, I just don’t think that automatically makes me have to do something about it.”
I tossed some more water down my throat so Jake wouldn’t see it. That secretly, part of me was itching for an excuse to go to the bathroom and accidentally-on purpose bump into her. I could see it, her rosebud lips parting in a shy smile, my ‘Oh, hey, how’s it going? Kind of random, but you should check out one of Jake’s fights sometime’.
Back at their table, Cin’s date looked unsettled. I pretended to be drinking out of my water cup while I watched him in the circle of its glass bottom. Her date whipped a look around, then, apparently satisfied, shoved a hand into his pocket.
“Check out their table,” I said quietly to Jake.
As I watched, I had to admit, it was fast, the cough and hand flick he did next. Anyone else who hadn’t been watching the whole thing would’ve missed it. That he had slipped something into her drink.
The next moment, I was on my feet, over there.
“What the hell was that?” I demanded.
Her date had a baby face, power-blue eyes and too-big lips that gaped at me uncomprehendingly. “Huh?”
Jake grabbed him by the collar. “What you put in her drink, shitface.”
“Uh, guys?”
It was Cin, standing at the edge of the table, goggling us.
“They’re lying,” the man said. “I was just coughing and-”
“Ok.” Jake let him fall to his seat, grabbing Cin’s glass and hoisting it to his mouth. “Drink it, then.”
The man’s eyes bounced around us to Cin. “They’re lying.”
Jake shoved it into the opening between the man’s lips. “Drink it.”
Another bounced around look and the man stumbled out of his seat and backwards, his gaze imploring Cin. “They’re lying, I-”
