Rachel Dyken - The Wager

He blamed his brother’s impending marriage. Everything had gone downhill since his brother had proposed to Jakes childhood best friend.

“Pardon?” The air Marshal stiffened, jolting Jake from his morose daydream—or nightmare, however one wanted to look at it.

“Look!” Char nodded her head in Jake’s direction. So was this how he was going to die? By Char’s hand—a woman scorned. Well, technically it would be by the air marshal’s disturbingly soft peanut-feeding hands. How the hell had he ended up starring in his own TV melodrama?

“Sir, calm down.” The air marshall’s eyes widened as he stood and hit his head on the ceiling, cursed and then ran away up the aisle. Jake’s eyes followed him. Damn, what was his problem? Was he really that concerned about Jake’s impending death?

“So…” Char’s eyes narrowed. “You allergic to anything, Jake?”

“Ha ha!” he croaked. “Yeah, right. What, you gonna poison me? Sorry, babe, I’m kind of on the right fide of pwerfection.”

Char’s bow-shaped mouth dipped into a scowl.“Yeah, there went my apology.”

“For what?” Jake straightened in his seat. Maybe if he moved around he could breathe easier?

With a muffled curse Char shrugged and looked away.

Was it hot in this airplane? What the hell was happening with his mouth? His hands had begun to itch something fierce. He looked down and froze, staring at his hands.

His very swollen, Mickey Mouse hands.

“HOLY SHWIT!” He jerked violently against the seat. “My wands, my wands!”

“Wands?” A lady turned around and stared at them both.

Char nodded solemnly. “Please excuse my friend. He’s under the impression he’s the tooth fairy.”

Full-on panic set in as it got harder and harder to breathe. Was he having an allergic reaction or was he just freaking out? Nothing like this had ever happened to him before. He looked up the aisle and noticed his grandma was strutting down it with some sort of object in her hands. Great. Now he was going to get knifed by his own grandma. Would flying experiences never be normal for him?

“Don’t worry, Jake!” Grandma pointed at him and nodded. “Grandma’s got this.” She raised her hand high into the air. Jake closed his eyes. Maybe this was just a bad dream? Maybe he wasn’t really zip-tied, maybe he was having a nervous breakdown and—

“Son of a bwitch!”Jake wailed as Grandma stabbed a needle through the hole in his jeans directly into his thigh. Well, if he didn’t die he would surely pass out from the pain. So many things to look forward to.

When the pressure subsided and the needle was gone—thank God—he opened one eye then two, to see Grandma standing in front of him with what could only be described as a torture device in her hand.

“He was allergic as a small boy. I wonder if the stress did him in…” She tsked and then motioned to Char. “Thank you, my dear. I don’t know what we would have done if you hadn’t have told Randall here that Jake was going to die.”

“You’re a hero, ma’am.” Randall’s lower lip quivered as he nodded his head and looked down at the ground.

You’ve got to be shitting me.

All eyes turned to Jake.

He would have sworn the plane around him fell into a deathly silence. To be fair it was an extremely small silence, since the flight from Portland to Seattle was less than an hour.

“Jake.” Grandma sighed. “Don’t you have something you need to say to Char?”

You’re insane? You almost killed me? I want to strangle you? Grumbling, he turned to look at her—really look at her. Damn, if she wasn’t still irritatingly beautiful. He could almost feel her silky hair as if it ran through his fingers. And that mouth? It was enough to drive any man to distraction. Even in his current condition he wanted to touch her lips and…

Where the hell had that thought come from?

Must be the allergic reaction.

Long chestnut hair fell in waves across her shoulders. Her blue eyes widened just a bit as his gaze fell to her full, pink lips. Only they weren’t widened in concern; if anything she was trying not to laugh.

“No.” Jake glared. “I think she knows exactly how I feel about her.”

Char’s smirk fell as her eyes turned icy. “He’s right.” Her gaze flickered back to Grandma. “He said all he needed to say the night after he slept with me and then left me a note on my pillow saying thank you. Isn’t that right, Jake?”

He should have seen the slap coming. But to be fair, he was still in shock that Char would air out their dirty laundry in front of God and everyone.

So when he felt the air whoosh by his ear, he did what any man would do. He ducked. Too bad his grandma wasn’t one to give up easily.

The second slap was a backhand and it burned like hell.

“I’ve raised you better than that!” Grandma Nadine thrust her finger in Jake’s face and shook her head.

With a huff she straightened her jacket and ordered Randall, the weepy air marshal, to untie Char, explaining that really, the issue was not with her but with Jake. Feeling wronged, Jake began yelling at the air marshall about Char saying bomb on the plane, only to get into more trouble for repeating the word again.

The final nail in Jake’s coffin was when Grandma looked Randall in the eye and said, “She saved his life.”

The next hour was the longest of his life.

His breathing was raspy. His face was most likely still swollen from both the reaction and his grandma; never had he felt less like a man. And it was all Char’s fault.

Jake’s gaze was literally burning a hole into the back of her head. Lucky for her, every time she turned around the Jake she was used to seeing was puffy and sweaty—totally ruining the sex-on-a-stick mentality she’d always associated with him.

She waved her fingers in his direction.

His eyes narrowed as he jerked against the seat again. Char sighed and twisted around her right shoulder, to see Beth sitting in her seat, happily sleeping. Had she really missed that entire drama? Worst. Sister. Ever.

“More wine.” Grandma Nadine handed her empty cup to Char. What the heck was she supposed to do with it?

A flight attendant appeared out of nowhere and filled the glass to the brim. How the heck did a person get that kind of service on such a short flight? They weren’t even in first class!

Wordlessly, Grandma Nadine grasped the cup from Char’s hand and took a long sip. Her red lipstick covered every square inch of the plastic cup’s rim, marking it as hers and only hers. Truly, there was more lipstick on the thing than on most Sephora clerks.

“Now, Char. I know Jake is an ass—”

Char snorted. Grandma Nadine could be her flying partner any day.

“But…” Grandma sipped the wine again. “He’s my ass.”

Char choked on her laugh.

“Now wait…” Grandma sighed heavily. “Not my ass as in my ass; he’s his own ass. He comes by it honestly. I coddled him too much when he was a child. He was terrified of everything, you know.”

“Oh?” Char pretended not to be interested as her heart thumped against her chest with the information Grandma was bestowing upon her. “I didn’t know that.”

“Oh, honey!” Grandma laughed. “He was afraid of his own shadow when he was a boy! Slept with his parents for the first six years of his life!”

Jake’s poor parents.

“At any rate…” Grandma sipped her wine again. Her jewelry clanged on her wrist as she flicked her hand this way and that as she spoke. “It is my job, my curse, to do right by him. To help him along, make him the man he was supposed to be before it’s too late.”

Char’s heart sank as she whispered. “You’re dying?”

“Me?” Grandma laughed. “Oh, honey, God don’t want me yet. He told me so just this morning.”

So Grandma talked to God. Wonder if that meant she was trying to save Jake’s soul, too.

“So…” Char exhaled and wiped her hands on her jeans. “What’s your plan?”

“Oh.” Grandma emptied her cup like a rock star and gave it back to Char. “That’s easy. I already cut him off. All he has is the money in his trust fund. I fired him, too. Though he doesn’t know that yet.”

“Umm.”

“How sweet.” Grandma patted her leg. “You’re concerned for him, I can tell. Don’t worry; he’ll land on his feet. Asses always do.” She paused. “Or is that cats?” She shook her head and tapped her chin with finger. “At any rate… he’ll be fine.”

“So you’re ruining him for his own good?” Char asked.

“Absolutely.” Grandma leaned over, her pert breasts spilling partially out of her low-cut V-neck. How the hell did she keep her body looking like that? Seriously. Grandma Nadine could sell her brand of awesome and people would flock.

“Everyone, and I do mean everyone,” Grandma smiled and placed her perfectly manicured hand on Char’s arm, “deserves a good ruin. It keeps them thankful. I’m going to ruin him, and in the end, he’s going to be a thankful and happy and fulfilled and…” She looked behind her. “Not uglier than sin—oh good lord, that boy used to be beautiful. Now he puts this stuff in his hair and gets facials and…” Grandma shrugged. “Ruin and dirt. He’s going to get both. By the time I’m done, he won’t know what happened to him. And if that doesn’t work…” Fascinated, Char could only wait for what pearls of wisdom would drop from Grandma Nadine’s mouth next. “There’s always seminary.”

“You’d send him to a seminary?”

“Absolutely not!” Grandma looked offended as she pressed her hand to her chest. “He’d offer to go in order to appease me and get back in my good graces—and God’s; mustn’t forget him. Jake’s been pissing him off for years. Bless his whorish heart…”

“Um, I don’t think you should say ‘whore’ and ‘God’ in the same sentence.”

“Posh.” Grandma waved her off. “I’m tired now. I’m going to rest my eyes. Goodnight.”

Apparently the conversation was over. Either that or the three glasses of wine had done Grandma in. She was snoring in seconds. Within the next twenty minutes they landed, and thus ended the weirdest and most terrifying flight of Char’s existence.

* * *

The very second the FASTEN SEATBELT sign went off, Char bolted from her seat. Grandma jerked awake and yawned.

“There already?”

“Yup.” Char wasn’t trying to be rude but she really wanted to put this nightmare behind her. As fast as humanly possible she went back to her seat where Beth was waiting patiently.

“We have to go, now!” Char ordered her sister. “Grab our stuff. We don’t want Grandma Nadine to think—”

“Char!” A familiar feminine voice yelled. “Char! I need help!”

Panicking, Char made a beeline—over chairs even—to Grandma’s side. The old woman was sitting patiently in her seat.

“Yes? Is it your heart? Are you sick? Are you—”

“My bags are heavy and I do believe I’ve had too much wine.”

Shock of the century. Last time Char had drunk that much wine in the course of twenty minutes she’d found herself face down in a dog bed next to a lab named Lucifer, who’d clearly taken advantage of her all night if the hair in her mouth was any indication.

“Carry them?” Grandma Nadine smiled so sweetly Char had no choice but to oblige. Which was exactly how she found herself at baggage claim an hour later with Beth, Grandma, and a swollen Jake in tow. 

The sunglasses weren’t helping. Staggering to the baggage claim, Jake tried the best he could to keep his eyes focused on the carousel; the minute his bags came he was bailing. Grandma was a grown woman. She could find her own damn hotel, and if he had to face Char again he’d either lose his mind and do something crazy, like stare at her lips, or strangle her. Truly, it was a toss-up at this point.

“Jake?” Grandma called to him. “Jake, did you find my bag yet?”

“No,” he ground out, “probably because I’m not looking for it. I’m looking for my bag. You can find your bags and go to the nice little hotel you always like in downtown Seattle.”

Grandma grabbed his hand and squeezed it. “Oh, I already have a place to stay!”

“Fantastic.”

Grandma released his hand and pulled out her cell phone. “Yes, just the one limo, please. Perfect. Yes, we have two passengers.”

She waved to Char and another girl. Char ignored him completely, which was fine; he didn’t want to even remember this day had occurred. He walked to the other side of the baggage claim and watched as Char and the girl with her grabbed their bags and walked off. Good riddance. He just wanted to go to sleep.