Worth the Fall (9 page)

“What did you do?”

“Nothing
too
big.”

“Jenna.” Max actually sounded a little threatening.

Jenna glanced toward Ben as if he was going to take care of this.
 

“Don’t look at me, Sunshine. I’m guessing what you did and you know we have rules about that.”

Max all but gasped. “You didn’t.”
 

 
“You never said I couldn’t. Ben told you about the rules and you called him a chicken. But, you know, a worse word.”

I was trying to figure out what was going on between the gasping and allusions and self-censorship.

“This is true.” Ben gave him one of those completely unapologetic shrugs friends do when they really have nothing else to say. “This is what you get for questioning my manhood.”

“Your manhood is coming up a lot today,” I said, not really sure what we were talking about.

“It’s true.” Ben took a swig of his beer and grinned. “Still comfortable. Also, ignoring the non-mixed company joke potential in that statement.”

“Jenna?” Max prompted.

“Yes. It’s on my website. It’s already become a meme. My teens have started captioning it and passing it on. I wouldn’t suggest checking out #OfficerMax today on Twitter.”

Oh. My. Gosh.
 

Did Jenna have a death wish?

If she did, she was working overtime on it. She pulled out her phone and called up Twitter. “Here’s a few of my favorites.”

Max snatched the phone and paged through, horrified noises coming out of his mouth as he clicked one link after another.

“Hug me, I’m a cop? I’d climb a tree for that too? Officer Max can—” Max’s eyes widened and he set the phone face down on the table. “I’m not sure your audience is strictly teens at this point. Jenna, how could you?”

“But, Officer Max, you said nothing I could put on my website that was true would embarrass you. You said Ben was being a
pansy
for not letting me post pictures of him.”

“I didn’t think you’d do this!”

“It’s not like it isn’t already in the newspaper.”

Max stabbed a finger toward the phone. “Officer Max, Seducer of Kittens? That’s just wrong, Jenna. Just plain wrong.”

“I bet you’re wishing you were in on the rules now.” Ben leaned back, angling toward Jenna, and slid an arm over the back of her chair
 

 
“Whatever these rules are, I want in on them now.” I glanced toward the phone afraid of what would happen if the Underwear Situation was online as I tried to build my brand. That would be quite a brand all right. “I want it retroactive back to when we met as I wasn’t offered the deal ahead of time.”

“I want what she said.” Max crossed his arms, the glaring spread out now to all three of us.

“So, no more #OfficerMax tweets?” Jenna actually looked upset. “What will I tell the Camisoles?”

I glanced at Ben, already aware he was an expert Jenna Interpreter.

“Her fan group,” he answered under their argument.

“You’ll come up with something.”

“But, Max. They love you. I have people who have read my books just because of you. When you were one of the cops who went to speak about gun violence in schools to worried parents after the scare three towns over, people donated to those families all week.”

I could see Max’s inner battle in his expression—no dimple in sight. Of course he was the type of guy who wanted to do good things. That’s why he was a cop. But he also didn’t like becoming one of Jenna’s characters. I was betting the Officer Max tweets were even larger than life than anything Max could stumble into.

There were probably t-shirts and fangirl sites. I needed to Google this immediately. I glanced toward my bag wondering if I could pull out my phone without adding to the table tension.

This was seriously the best meal ever.
 

And, thank goodness I’d retroactively invoked my privacy rights.

“Jenna, I’ll make you a deal. We’ll let Kasey decide.” He smiled at me, obviously trying to win me over with his charm. Trying to convince me to vote pro-Max. “As a matter of fact, I went out on a really interesting call last night. A landlord situation—”

“Down with Officer Max!” I pumped my fist in the air. “You totally don’t need those stories. Friendship is far too important! And, Twitter is so 2009.”

Everyone was looking at me like I’d lost my mind.

“I’m just saying,” I continued. “Maybe Max doesn’t like his exploits blasted over the internet.”

“Obviously.” Max cocked an eyebrow at me.

“And, I’m sure the police department doesn’t want him becoming some internet poster boy.”

“This is a good point.” The cocky grin was back.

“And what about the innocents? Those poor people Officer Max rescues who don’t want their story going international with a bunch of teenage girls?”

“I don’t know.” Max tapped his chin as if thinking that one over. “The one last night was pretty good. She didn’t even know what day it was.”

“I’m sure she knew what day it was.”

“We almost had an indecent exposure situation on our hands.”

“I doubt that’s what happened.”

“Oh, it was close.”

“I’m sure the poor, innocent, covered girl knew what day it was and—”

Jenna had set down her Diet Coke and was watching us like a tennis match on crack. “This sounds even more dangerous than the kitten situation.”

Max nodded. “This culprit had sharper claws.”
 

Now he was just out of line. “How would you know?”
 

“Excuse me.” Jenna leaned forward. “Could you guys slow down a bit?”

That’s when I noticed she’d pulled out a little red notebook again. Ben shook his head like he knew what was going to happen next.
 

“Max,” Jenna tapped her pen against her chin. “Did you arrest Kasey last night?”

“If I arrested Kasey, would she have been here bright and early to assault another inanimate object?”

I kicked him under the table. “Oh look. A third inanimate object I attacked this week.”

“Is there something you two would like to tell us?” Jenna smiled what I’m sure she thought was a reassuring smile, but I saw the evil pixie gleam underneath.

I eyed the notebook. I eyed Jenna’s smile. “No.”

“Well, actually—”

I kicked Max under the table again.

“—No.”

“Max, I’ll give you twenty dollars to tell me what’s going on.”

Ben laughed. “Twenty dollars is a lot for Jenna.”

“Don’t.” I warned under my breath.

Max gave me this look that told me I was in a lot of trouble. “I told you to behave.”

“I was behaving. That wasn’t my fault.”

“What wasn’t?” Jenna prompted, her pen leaving an inky dot across her page.

I watched him make the decision, watched him fold it back up in his head and put it away.

“I’m afraid I’m not allowed to disclose some of what goes on at work.”

It was silly, but I was thankful. Jenna was the first girl I really felt I could be friends with since moving here. I’d had classmates in grad school I Facebooked with. You know, the people you studied with, but outside of class everyone was so busy with work and family and keeping it together that you didn’t hang out. At work, I stepped into a manager role right away and had to keep a bit of distance from the other people in their twenties because a bunch of them reported to me.

But, glancing at Jenna and the life she had, I could see myself trying to wedge my way into their merry little band.

You know, if they didn’t decide I was certifiably insane first.

Just as I was trying to come up with the next topic of conversation to get things moving as quickly as possible away from my bare-butted breaking-and-entering situation, the pizza showed up.

Thank goodness for small favors.

With the food came some type of ongoing toppings argument I could barely follow until we were down to the last slice.

“Ben, are you going to need the van again today?” I dipped my pizza crust in ranch dressing as they all looked at me funny.

I wasn’t going to defend myself. It was good and that’s all the excuse I needed.

“No. Next weekend I’ll have to come by and do some more packing. But I think we got enough out of your way that you can start to settle in, right?”

“Definitely.” I was in awe. He’d even cleaned. I’d been able to smell the bleach when I’d gotten there that morning. “So, I’ll drop you guys all back at Ben’s, get my stuff from Jason’s, and return the van if no one else needs to move anything.”

“Wait.” Jenna set her pizza down. I’d already learned when she wanted to discuss something she got rid of whatever was in her hands. “You have to go to that guy’s place?”

“Most of my stuff was already there.”

“How much stuff?”

Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on how you looked at it—not much since Craigslist had snatched up most of my belongings.

“Only five boxes.”

“All your clothes fit in five boxes?”
 

“Well, plus one box of shoes, some books, and don’t forget the two suitcases we moved today. But yeah, that’s about it.”

“I’ll go with you.” Jenna’s hands had fisted on the table. I almost wanted to see what it was like to set a hundred pounds of rage loose on someone. The whole world probably underestimated the Power of the Pixie.

“You don’t have to do that.” Part of me really wanted her nowhere near this. To not meet Jason and see what an idiot I was. One of them had already seen that in action. The other part did not want to go alone.

“Oh, I’m coming. That’s what friends are for.” She picked up her pizza. Obviously, that was the end of the discussion.

“I’m coming too.” Ben shrugged. “Someone has to move the boxes. Plus, if Jenna’s going to go on the offensive, someone’s gotta move Jenna.”

“Hey. You know how I feel about bullies.”

Ben leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. “That’s why I said I’d go too. Not that I didn’t think you should go.”

“Great.” Max tossed his napkin on his plate and stood. “One more stop and we’re done for the day.”
 

I watched him head toward the men’s room while Ben and Jenna discussed where they were going to put all Ben’s clothes they couldn’t store for the next three weeks.

Somehow, without even noticing it, I’d gotten a posse—and a pretty rocking one at that.

Life was looking up.

TWELVE

We pulled up to the curb and parked the van in a commercial loading zone.
 

“I’ll wait here in case a cop comes by.” Max slid the side door open and hopped out. “It’s probably best if I stay out of sight. Who knows what that idiot will accuse you of if you show up with me in tow?”

Oh. I hadn’t thought of that. But, it was probably true. I could see another 911 call in our future if Jason saw Max. He’d probably call in a counter-terrorist group on a conspiracy report.

We rang and went through the whole who-is-it-it’s-me thing and a long pause before Jason finally rang us up. He probably didn’t know if he wanted my stuff out more than he didn’t want to deal with me.
 

His building—the one that had seemed so clean and modern just three days ago—felt sterile and ugly now. The warm charm of Jenna’s world had ruined me forever.
 

I’d expected Jason to be waiting at the door, my boxes there and ready to go. But when we got to his floor, the door was shut. With an internal eye-roll at the power play, I slid the key he’d given me into the lock and turned.

Or attempted to turn it.

He’d managed to change the locks in the seventyish hours since our fond farewell. Heck, he’d probably had it done before we even had dinner.

What did he think? I was going to copy the key and break in and steal his hidden collection of weird Hallmark cards?

Maybe.

Orrr
not.

I pounded on the door, counted to thirty, and pounded again.

“I’m not really seeing the draw yet.” Ben said under his breath before Jenna smacked him in the gut.

One door down on the opposite side opened.

Great.

“Hi Mrs. Gershwin. How are you?”

“What’s all the racket you’re making? Kasey Lane, why are you pounding on that door?”

“Sorry, Mrs. Gershwin. I’m just here to pick up my stuff.”

Her gaze moved from me to Jenna and Ben and back. “Finally left the jerk, did ya? Can’t say I’m surprised. Should have done it forever ago. No good that one. All selfishness. Why don’t you just let yourself in? I’ll come down if you need someone to witness you don’t take anything that isn’t yours.”

“Well, he’s in there. But, he’s changed the lock.”

“In my day, a man wouldn’t have changed the lock on his woman unless she was bringing home something besides the groceries. You can do better. Is this one single?” She pointed a shaky finger at Ben.