Dirty Work - Regina Kyle Page 0,63

concentrate on Operation Get Jake Back. No, that makes me sound like a bounty hunter. Operation Miami Vice? I grimace. Not much better.

Never mind. I’ll figure out the name later.

“Okay, first on the agenda—”

“What’s that?” Erin’s head swivels to the open window across the room.

Aaron’s eyes follow her. “What’s what?”

“That music.” She crosses to the window. “Can’t you hear it?”

I can, now that she mentions it. It sounds like...

“‘Twist and Shout,’” Aaron confirms, unfolding his lanky body from the chair and joining Erin. “The Rolling Stones, right?”

I wince. He’s only a few years younger than me, but sometimes it seems like an eternity.

“Beatles, you idiot,” Erin corrects him, smacking him on the shoulder. “Haven’t I taught you anything?”

She turns her attention back to the commotion outside, which is growing louder by the minute. “Holy shit. Is that what I think it is?”

Aaron waves me over behind his back, not taking his eyes off whatever the hell is happening on the other side of the window. “Boss, you’ve got to come over here and see this.”

I glance longingly at my spreadsheet. Every second wasted is a second farther away from Jake. “Is it more important than our morning meeting?”

“I don’t know about important,” he says, still not tearing his gaze away from the window. “But it’s a lot more interesting.”

“If I indulge you, will you both quit goofing around so we can get back to business?”

“Trust me.” Erin turns to face me, her eyes wide and a shit-eating grin splitting her face. “You don’t want to miss this.”

“Fine.” I can’t imagine what has my coworkers so amped up, unless someone’s down there handing out free lattes and warm chocolate chip cookies, but I might as well give in and do what they’re asking. The sooner I get this over with, the sooner I can give them their assignments and send them on their way. And the sooner I can send them on their way, the sooner I can get back to Operation Jake in the Box.

I cringe at my own bad pun. Strike three. Naming covert ops is definitely not my superpower.

As I approach the window, Aaron and Erin part to make room for me, like I’m Moses and they’re the Red Sea. The music is deafening now, the final strains of “Twist and Shout” shaking the glass.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” a familiar voice booms over a loudspeaker as the Beatles give way to Wayne Newton and the opening bars of “Danke Schoen.”

“You’re such a wonderful crowd. We’d like to play a little tune for you. It’s one of my personal favorites. And I’d like to dedicate it to a young woman who thinks I don’t know how to have fun.”

I slowly lower one butt cheek to the windowsill, needing something to keep me vertical since my legs, which have turned into overcooked spaghetti, are threatening to collapse out from under me. It can’t be him. It can’t. No matter how much I want it to be. I must be hearing things. The Jake I know would never make a spectacle of himself on a busy New York City street in broad daylight.

Or would he? Maybe I’m not the only one who’s had a change of heart. Maybe this is his way of telling me he’s willing to bend, too.

I flatten my palm against the glass and look down. All those classic, clichéd symptoms of shock—slack jaw, shortness of breath, pulse racing like a hummingbird on heroin—come at me with the force of a ten-ton truck. Or a two-ton SUV pulling a flatbed trailer. Because that’s what’s stopped in the middle of 31st Street, almost directly below my window.

But this is no ordinary trailer. It’s covered in electric blue Astroturf, fake pine trees and tacky plastic flowers. At the back are three wide, semi-circular steps leading to a platform packed with dirndl-wearing women—no, wait. Are those the drag queens from the diner? I’m almost positive that’s Cher with the accordion. And Marilyn Monroe on her left, holding Roscoe’s leash as he dozes at their feet, totally unfazed by the music blaring from the two huge speakers behind him.

And in the center of it all is Jake, wearing gray pants, a white T-shirt and a strangely patterned black-and-gold vest. My heart does its predictable flip-flop. He looks damn delicious, even from forty feet up and in clothes that can only be described as dorktastic.

He lifts his head and his eyes scan the facade of my building. When they find me in the window,