you can take on the job we’ll be eternally grateful. And don’t worry about her. She’ll get with the program.” He shot a meaningful look in the Rielle’s direction.
Jake nodded. He could turn down the job. He should. But for the moment at least, he was stuck.
“I’ll give you a lift,” said Sharon, taking a hurried slurp of her carrot and beetroot juice, tucking the paper cocktail umbrella behind her ear and getting to her feet. She gave Jake a pat on the shoulder and left with Rand.
What Jake most wanted to do was have an afternoon swim to clear his head and an early night. Tomorrow was going to be a big day with the road crew arriving, no Jonas, and his new job brief; but there was Rielle, somewhere at the railing, looking out on the river.
He imagined her hair picking up the breeze, long, tangled, red strands of it floating across her back. If they were going to work together, he had to clear the air, but he could barely look at her—anxiety that she might fall through the chest-high, glass balcony wall gnawed in his stomach. All he could do was wait, hopefully she’d come back to the table.
When she did, she took control of the conversation. “Did you mean what you said about me being a fake?”
He groaned. Not exactly where he’d have started their discussion.
“I can’t see any point in you lying to me either, Jake.”
He chose his words carefully. “I think you are an incredible singer and a talented performer. You’re electric on stage. I don’t think I have any right to have an opinion on anything else about you.”
She huffed. “But you do.”
He was silent. He stood by his drug-assisted opinion of her as a fake. He was completely confused by her. One moment she was the in-your-face rock diva and the next quiet introspective and shy, like she’d been on both bike rides—a different person altogether.
She said, “Here’s what I think. You’re Mr Nice Guy. You know your job but I don’t see you being tough enough to make the hard decisions, and this business is all about hard decisions. You just don’t have enough Godzilla in you. You look at Rand and you see a nice guy too. But my brother has the heart of a monster, he won’t let anything stop us from getting what we need—he never has. I don’t think that’s something you have in you, Jake, and it’s something we might need.”
She’d spoken softly but her words were hard-edged, needing an unambiguous reply. “You’re wrong, Rielle. But I’m not in the habit of turning myself inside-out to prove what I can do to you or anyone else. What you see is what you get. Take me or leave me. I know who I am and what I can do and I’m comfortable with that.”
She considered his words. “Fair enough. But you’ve already proven you have a straw heart, Jake. You won’t tell me what you think about me.”
“I’m not sure that makes me weak, Rielle. Just careful.”
Rielle laughed, her voice lifting in the breeze and drifting across the open terrace making other people look their way. What did it matter what Jake Reed thought anyway, so long as he was a competent operator. “Let’s get specific then. What’s your professional opinion of my performance in Adelaide?”
She expected him to blow smoke at her, praise her performance. Do what everyone else other than Rand and Jonas (when he was straight) did—lie.
Jake sat forward in his seat, contemplating his options. He looked like he’d rather be anywhere else but in this conversation. “Here’s what I think. Your performance was a seven out of ten.”
Her mouth dropped open.
“You missed cues a couple of times. Had issues with lyrics. You didn’t have the bungee safety hooked up on the trapeze, which made you vulnerable if anything bad happened. You were late opening the second half. You were nervous and you never settled. None of that much mattered; what did is how unhappy it made you. You were in a funk by the second half and you never recovered.”
“Shit, Jake! Don’t pull any punches!” She hadn’t expected near as frank an assessment. She’d figured he’d extract himself from the conversation, the balcony, the job. “Not even Rand knows about the safety harness. He’d have ripped into me if he did.” Jake had a ‘well you asked for it’ expression on his face. She tucked her chin down. “Thanks. That’s what I