The Wild Zone Read Online Free PDF Page A

rage, but I’ve always wanted curves. Like, what did you say her name was—Kristin?”
    “Yeah, she’s pretty hot.”
    “She doesn’t mind about your brother . . . ?”
    “What about him?” Hadn’t he just told her she was beautiful? Why was she asking about Jeff again?
    “Well, you said he instigated the bet. What if I’d picked him? She’d really have been okay with that?”
    “I think they have a pretty open arrangement.”
    “Really.” It was more statement than question.
    “You finished that drink yet?” he asked, aware Suzy’s eyes had drifted back toward Jeff and standing up to block her line of sight.
    Suzy took one last gulp, then lowered her now-empty glass to the table. “All gone. Lead the way, Dr. Rydell.”
    Will tried not to enjoy the sound of that as he tucked a twenty-dollar bill beneath his beer glass and followed after Suzy as she zigzagged her way through the tables toward the front door. He saw her acknowledge Jeff and Tom with a sly nod, then wave good-bye to Kristin as she walked past.
    “Shit,” he heard Tom mutter. “Can you believe that?”
    Will waited for Jeff to say something, but there was only silence. When he reached the exit, he looked back, hoping for a thumbs-up from his brother. Instead Jeff stared right through him, as if he weren’t there. He was still staring when Will turned and followed Suzy into the night.

THREE
    “S HIT ,” TOM SAID AGAIN . “Did you see that stupid grin on his face? Like he just swallowed a goddamn canary. I’d like to bust that grin wide open, man.” He banged his fist against the marble countertop.
    “Leave it be,” Jeff advised.
    “You need something over there?” Kristin asked from the other end of the bar.
    Jeff shook his head no.
    “I mean, it’s one thing to win the bet, man,” Tom continued. “But you gotta be gracious about it. You can’t go walking around like you’re the Second Coming, for shit’s sake. The goddamn cock of the walk.”
    Jeff almost laughed. What did Tom know about graciousness? Although he was strangely grateful for Tom’s anger. It spared him from feeling more of his own. “I think you’re mixing too many metaphors there, Tommy boy.”
    “What the hell are you talking about? You trying to tell me you’re not pissed?”
    “Hey, what’s done is done.”
    “Well, we don’t exactly know that, do we?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I mean, we don’t know where they’re going or what they’re gonna do when they get there,” Tom explained. “Assuming they do anything. Suzy Pomegranate could be giving little brother the kiss-off right now, and how are we gonna prove otherwise? We’re just supposed to take his word that he scored?”
    “You think he’d lie about it?”
    “Wouldn’t you?”
    “Wouldn’t have to,” Jeff said.
    “Yeah? Well, she didn’t pick you, did she? So, I guess it’s a mute point.”
    “I think you mean ‘moot,’” Jeff corrected him.
    “Whatever,” Tom said, pushing himself away from the bar.
    “Where are you going?”
    “I’m gonna follow them.”
    “What? No. Get back here. Sit down. You’re drunk.”
    “So what?”
    “So, they’ll see you, that’s what.”
    “No, they won’t. You don’t think I learned anything in Afghanistan?”
    Jeff said nothing. The truth was he didn’t think Tom had learned a damn thing in Afghanistan.
    “You coming?” Tom asked, shifting impatiently from one foot to the other.
    Jeff shook his head. There was no way he was going to go chasing after his brother. No way he’d give the kid that kind of satisfaction. It was bad enough he’d been upstaged and humiliated by Will all through their formative years. But to have to relive it all over again now, here, on his own turf . . . I should never have let him back into my life, Jeff was thinking, signaling Kristin for another drink. He should have told Will to get lost when he’d first shown up on his doorstep ten days earlier. He should have slammed the door