Chapter 14
Jet
Looking at Abby, Jet knew that Gavin would be going down hard even if he had planned on trying. Abby had her “win at all costs” face on, and it made him glad that he wasn’t the one competing against her. Even in a contest of trivia about himself, he couldn’t be sure that he’d come out the winner.
When Abby was determined to win, she fucking won. Period.
“Okay, folks. Let’s get this party started. First question. Who was Jet’s favorite band or artist when he was in high school?”
An easy one. Softball question, really. He and Abby had spent long hours in school studying for academic decathlons, practicing their lines for the school plays where they were usually cast as the leads, and basically just being nerds together. She’d heard his favorite band a hundred times.
They wrote their answers and Gen said, “Cards up!”
He looked at her card. It read, “The Smiths.” He smiled. That’s my girl.
He looked at his brother’s card and it said, “Himself.”
Heh. Smartass.
“That’s one point for Abby!” Gen declared, and Jet could see the momentary flash of satisfaction in her eyes before it was taken back over by determination.
God, getting the chance to watch her like this– he figured that it just might be his favorite night ever.
“Next question. What was Jet’s lowest grade in high school?”
He grimaced as he wrote. The memory was still a sore subject. Sneaking a glance at Abby, however, he saw that she was flushed with triumph. He had to chuckle. She was still self-satisfied about beating him for that grade, all these years later.
“Cards up!”
Gavin’s read, “Don’t know, don’t care.” Typical.
Abby’s read, “B+ in Mr. Krakow’s English Class, Junior Year.”
“Another point for Abby!” Gen cried.
Abby snatched her card back down and wrote on it furiously. Gen said, “Um, Abby? You already got the point,” but she kept writing furiously anyway.
She held the card back in the air. It now contained a parenthetical underneath what had been written before that said, “BTW– I got an A!”
The crowd roared with laughter and Jet couldn’t help but join them. Shit, he hated to lose as much as the next guy, but seeing Abby relish her victories so completely made the losing almost worth it.
Almost.
“Next question,” Gen continued. “What is Jet’s favorite city in the world?”
He stole a glance at Abby. Now was when things were going to get tough. She could no longer draw on her personal knowledge or their shared history. The questions were apparently moving on to public domain tidbits that Gen, or whoever on her staff had done the research, had pulled from his interviews over the years.
“Cards up!”
Jet turned his head. Gavin’s card said, “Portland.” Which actually wasn’t a bad guess, for nostalgia reasons. Jet had certainly snuck off to enough concerts there in his wild, misspent youth.
Abby’s read, “Sydney.”
His eyebrows shot up and he gave her a questioning look. “How did you know that?”
She turned her chin up. “Wouldn’t you like to know. Now stop distracting me.”
He smiled. “You’ve been keeping tabs on me. You’ve been watching me on The Tonight Show.”