All or Nothing Read online

  His buddies had careers, wives, mortgages, car payments—or some combination thereof—and wore suits. He’d known all of that, but this lunch had really made the differences clear. They had purpose—or at least obligations—and clearly weren’t enjoying it. He hated how they’d been bickering about nothing and had no ambition to become like them. Why was it suddenly a bad thing to have come from money? Wealth sure hadn’t made his life any easier, as far as he could see.

  Zach had even—apparently—lost his ability to charm women somewhere along the line. Any idea of saving the day by chatting up the waitress was bombing out. He settled in at the bar with no clear plan, other than not doing what Jen expected him to do.

  On principle. She thought he’d leave and he was going to prove her wrong. It was a start.

  “You the guy with the pint?” the burly bartender—Murray—asked. He was in the middle of pulling a beer that looked less good to Zach than it might have.

  “Yeah, that’s me. I haven’t paid for my lunch yet either.”

  “Right. Want it all together?”

  “Sure.”

  An older waitress came to the bar and plunked down her tray, sparing Zach the barest glance. “Two pints of Stonecroft and another gin and tonic.”

  “You could crack a smile, Lucy,” Murray said. “Wouldn’t kill you and you might get better tips.”

  Lucy snorted. “You could do us both a favor and put more beer in those glasses than foam. And do more than introduce the gin to the tonic this time—put some of it in there. The guy at twenty-two complained that the first one was too weak.”

  Murray snorted this time, but he put a good hit of gin in the glass. “Undo a button, Lucy, and you won’t have to complain about your tips.”

  “Huh. I didn’t think this was that kind of a bar.” Lucy swung her tray to her shoulder, winked at Zach and sailed off to her section.

  Jen came to the bar then and ignored Zach thoroughly. She was still annoyed with him, he could see that, and although he knew better than to push his luck, he’d do it anyway.

  It wasn’t as if he had much to lose.

  “So, Jen, do you know why California has the most lawyers while New Jersey has the most toxic waste dumps?”

  She spared him a glance and he sipped his beer. She sighed with forbearance as she waited for her drinks. “No, why?”

  “Because New Jersey got to choose.”

  Murray snickered. “Hey, that’s not bad.”

  Jen, though, gave Zach a hard look. “Maybe one of you could explain to me why poisoning the planet is funny.”

  Both men sobered. Zach sipped his beer. Murray put a martini and a 7-Up on the counter, which Jen claimed then sailed away.

  “I’d count that as a strike,” Murray muttered. “Unless you’re trying to score points with me.”

  “Sorry. You’re not my type.”

  “Fair enough. You’re not mine.” Murray grinned. “So, know any other jokes?”

  “All lawyer jokes. I kind of collect them.”

  “Suits me. Lemme have ’em.”

  “What’s black and brown and looks good on a lawyer?”

  Murray scoffed. “A Doberman. Everybody knows that one.”

  “Okay.” Zach settled his elbows on the bar, rising to the challenge. “What’s the difference between a vulture and a lawyer?”

  Murray shrugged.

  “The vulture doesn’t get frequent flyer miles.” Murray laughed, as if surprised, and Zach slipped into his usual rhythm. “What do you call two dozen skydiving lawyers?”

  “I dunno.”

  “Skeet.”

  Murray snorted as he laughed, then wagged a finger at Zach. “I gotta remember that one. Come on, gimme another, kid.”

  At least someone thought Zach was funny. “What’s the difference between a female lawyer and a pit bull?”

  Murray pulled a beer for Lucy as he shook his head. “Dunno.”

  “Lipstick.” The pair laughed, but Zach was on a roll. “Did you hear the one about the terrorist who hijacked a 747 full of lawyers?”

  “No,” Lucy and Murray replied in unison.

  “He threatened to release one every hour until his demands were met.”

  Lucy and Murray laughed.

  “He’s not bad,” Lucy said, then nodded at Murray. “Funnier than you.”

  “Thanks a lot. Faster than you, too,” Murray retorted and Lucy hurried away. “Know any more?”

  “What’s the difference between an accident and a calamity?”

  “I dunno.” Murray braced a hand on the bar, his eyes sparkling as he waited for the punch line. Lucy glanced over her shoulder as she headed back to her tables.

  “It’s an accident when a bus full of lawyers goes off the road into a lake. It’s a calamity if they can swim.”

  “Isn’t that the truth?” Jen muttered, making an abrupt appearance in Zach’s peripheral vision. “Murray, where’re my margaritas?”

  “Coming, coming.”

  “No crushed ice,” Jen added.

  “Have you got something against lawyers?” Zach asked.

  Jen shrugged. “No more than most people.”

  “Phew!” Zach made a show of wiping his brow. “But then maybe I’ve got a loophole.”

  “A loophole for what?” Jen faced him, a hand on her hip.

  “For asking you out. You might go to a movie with me.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because I’m asking. And we’d have fun.”

  She hesitated for a heartbeat, a hesitation that encouraged Zach, before she rolled her eyes. “Come on, Murray,” she said then. “Tick tock.”

  Murray had a heavy hand on top of the blender, which was whipping the drinks. “The two women at nine again? What’s this, their third?”

  “Yowzer,” Zach said. “You put real tequila in those or just introduce the bottle to the glasses?”

  “Very funny,” Murray grumbled good-naturedly. “Don’t push your luck, kid.”

  “Those two are on a lunch of no-return, that’s for sure,” Jen said.

  Zach grinned. “I like that. A lunch of no-return.”

  She gave him another of those hard looks. “A luxury for those with money and time to burn.” The tray with the margaritas was hefted to her shoulder and she was gone.

  Murray and Zach watched her go, then the older man leaned closer. “Has it occurred to you, kid, that you’re not doing real well here?”

  “Yeah. I noticed. You seem to be enjoying it.”

  “Both the jokes and their reception.”

  “Shouldn’t you be on my side? You know, support your own gender and all that?”

  Murray snorted. “I’m on Jen’s side and don’t you forget it.”

  Zach chose not to take offense at that. “So, you know the difference between a lawyer and a bulldog?”

  “Nope.”

  “A bulldog generally has the sense to let go.” Zach realized a bit too late that that analogy could have been applied to him in this particular situation, but he charged on. “How do you prevent a lawyer from drowning?”

  “Tell me,” Murray said with a smile. “In this biz, I might need to know.”

  “Shoot him before he hits the water.” Zach paused only a beat for the bartender’s laughter. “What do you call ten thousand lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?”

  “A good start,” Jen interjected.

  Zach jumped. He hadn’t seen her coming. “Hey, the punch lines are mine.”

  “Then you need better jokes,” she retorted. “What do you call an honest lawyer?”

  Zach searched his memory but didn’t know that one. “I don’t know.”

  “Me neither,” Murray admitted.

  “An impossibility.”

  Murray laughed. “I like that.”

  Jen leaned a hand on the bar while she waited for her drinks. “So, the devil visits a lawyer and offers him a deal. He says he can make the lawyer rich enough to afford everything he could ever
want, give him three months of vacation every year, ensure he lives to be a hundred. In return, the devil wants the immortal souls of the lawyer’s wife, his children and any grandchildren, to burn in hell for eternity. So, the lawyer thinks about this for a minute, then asks ‘what’s the catch?’”

  Murray laughed so hard that he had to wipe away a tear. Even Zach found himself chuckling, but Jen, he noticed, never cracked a smile. She rapped a nail on the counter. “Murray, get it together and pull me those two beers, please.”

  “Yeah, yeah, coming, Jen, coming.”

  Zach sipped his own beer, then leaned forward himself. “So, a guy goes into a brain store…”

  “A brain store?” Jen interrupted, her manner skeptical.

  “Yes. A brain store.”

  “And where would be the closest brain store?”

  “Just go with it,” Zach said with some irritation.

  “A brain store,” Jen muttered and shook her head.

  “This guy goes into this brain store to get some brain…”

  “Of course,” Jen said deadpan. “It’s on my to-do list all the time.”

  Murray snickered. “Let him tell it.”

  Zach raised his voice slightly. “This guy goes into a brain store to get some brain and is confused by the prices, which are listed by occupation. ‘How much is engineer brain?’ he asks.”

  “These are human brains?” Jen demanded. “This would be a human brain store that he’s shopping at?”

  “Just go with it,” Zach repeated.

  “What’s he going to do with what he buys?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just a joke!”

  Jen snapped her fingers. “You know, come to think of it, there’s one of those places opening down the street from my mom’s house. It’s part of a national chain, a franchise of human brain stores.”

  Murray, apparently, couldn’t stop laughing.

  Zach didn’t appreciate how Jen was mucking up his joke. Or stealing his thunder. He was the one who was supposed to make people laugh.

  She wasn’t even smiling.

  He decided to ignore her. “‘How much is engineer brain?’ the guy asks and the guy in the store says it’s three bucks an ounce. ‘How much is mathematician brain?’ he asks and the guy says it’s four bucks an ounce. ‘How much is lawyer brain?’ he asks and the guy says it’s a thousand bucks an ounce.”

  Murray whistled under his breath.

  “Obviously a rare commodity,” Jen murmured.

  Zach gave her his best death glare for wrecking the punch line. “The guy in the store says it’s a thousand bucks an ounce for lawyer brain. And the guy who came into the store is surprised. ‘But why does it cost so much?’ he asks and the guy in the store…”

  “This would be the human brain store.”

  “…says ‘do you know how many lawyers we had to kill to get an ounce of brain?’”

  Murray nearly fell down laughing.

  Jen gave Zach a pitying look. “Maybe there should be a national franchise of human brain stores.” She hefted her tray and was gone again.

  “Ouch,” Murray said as he wiped away a tear.

  Zach took another sip of beer and watched Jen serve her tables. She was polite, even charming, but she didn’t smile. Which was weird, when he thought about it. Waitresses always smiled. As Murray had said, it made for better tips. He was pretty sure Jen would have an attractive smile—she was pretty enough even when she didn’t smile. “Does she ever smile?”

  “Not since…” Murray fumbled with his glassware. “Well, not anymore.”

  “Not since what?”

  “Hey, the story’s not mine to tell.” Murray held up his hands. “I just pour the beer and sign the checks around here.”

  “That’ll be the day,” Lucy said, slapping her tray on the bar again. She thunked a glass of water on the counter, shoving it toward Murray. There were pennies in the bottom of the glass. “Drain that and fish out my tip, will you? These kids are all sooooo funny.”

  Having left a tip the same way once upon a time himself—and having thought it was hilarious—Zach busied himself with the rest of his beer. Come to think of it, it had been the beer that had made it seem funny.

  “Three diet Cokes. I punched it in a thousand years ago.”

  “Coming, coming, coming.”

  Zach pretended to watch the soccer game on the television over the bar while Murray and Lucy bickered amiably. He was surreptitiously watching Jen, intrigued and mystified by her.

  He liked that she was quick with a comeback. It was more than her being cute: she was smart. (And okay, the brain store joke was based on a lame premise.) She had a bit of attitude, especially toward guys—no, especially toward guys with money. Trevor’s crack about Zach’s trust fund had really gotten her attention.

  Maybe that was why she was needling him.

  Even given her attitude, Zach was pretty sure he could make her smile. He’d cracked up Murray, hadn’t he?

  Zach was looking for a challenge, and Jen the waitress might just be that.

  * * *

  Lawyer jokes. Honest to God, how long had it been since she’d heard someone tell so many lawyer jokes? Jen rolled her eyes as she turned back to the bar and saw Trust Fund Boy still parked there, working on that pint. He was watching her and pretending not to, something that made her pulse leap a little bit.

  But she knew better.

  It ought to be illegal for a guy to be so handsome, that was for sure. And rich, too. Jen reminded herself that it was unlikely his daddy had made his fortune by saving rain forests.

  The thing was that her mother would hate him. It was a gimme.

  The problem was that Jen might not. She’d learned plenty from Steve about men who were used to getting what they wanted, even more about them knowing how to turn on the charm to, well, get what they wanted. She’d also learned from Steve how little emotional investment these kinds of men made, even when they insisted otherwise.

  How else would it have been so easy for Steve to toss her back once he’d discovered that she was defective merchandise? He’d obviously never given a damn about her personally, roses and pretty pledges to the contrary. She’d been a prize, though she wasn’t sure why. She just knew that her status had been rescinded once she’d been diagnosed with cancer.

  She hadn’t seen him since. Just the realization reminded her how much that had hurt, how being abandoned in her time of need had made her treatment and recovery so much more challenging.

  The big problem was that Jen didn’t trust herself to not make the same mistake all over again. She had this idea that it would be better to learn from her mistakes, rather than make them over and over again.

  Even if it meant being lonely.

  This guy, for example, was trouble with a capital T. She was aware of him in that dangerous way, especially since he’d started trying to charm her, and she felt that little warning surge of adrenaline when she made him smile.

  Once you want to make someone laugh, in Jen’s opinion, you’re half gone. She wasn’t going any further. She marched back to the bar with purpose, wishing he’d finish his beer and vamoose before she had to pick up another round of drinks. She doubted she’d be that lucky. The kitchen bell rang with the salads for the margarita girls, who’d have to be poured out the door at some point this afternoon.

  “A glass of red and a glass of white, Murray,” she said, ignoring the hunk watching her so avidly.

  “Isn’t that a Billy Joel song?” Trust Fund Boy asked.

  “Nah,” Murray said. “That’s a bottle of red and a bottle of white.”

  “Sad song,” Jen contributed, unable to keep herself from saying something.

  “Why do you say that?” the hunk asked.

  She gave him her most withering look. “It’s about divorce.”

  “It’s about reconciliation, in a way, or making peace with change.” He shrugged and Jen found herself fascinated by a glimpse of emotion she hadn’t expected. S
he lingered, knowing she shouldn’t. “Divorce isn’t always bad.”

  “You divorced?” Murray asked the question Jen wanted to ask.

  Trust Fund Boy shook his head. “No. My parents. It was a good change for my mom.”

  Murray snorted. “And your dad?”

  To Jen’s surprise, the hunk paled a bit. “Less good for him,” he said grimly, then drained his glass.

  Something changed in him, some spark was extinguished. Jen saw the change and couldn’t explain it, not any more than she could explain her urge to reach out to him.

  Danger, danger. She picked up her tray and should have bolted, but instead she found herself trying to make him smile one more time. “So, what do you call a lawyer with an I.Q. of 75?”

  Murray looked up with relief. “Hey, I don’t know that one. What?”

  “Your honor.”

  “Ouch!”

  The hunk gave Jen a dark look, then pushed to his feet. “I’ll square up with you now,” he said, pulling out his wallet. “I’ve got to go.”

  So much for making him smile.

  “Hey, thanks for the jokes,” Murray said, jovial as ever. Maybe he was a bit more jovial because of the change in the hunk’s mood.

  Or because he was leaving.

  “Like I said, I collect them. What do I owe you?”

  Jen hesitated, not knowing what she’d said. It was clear to her that she was responsible for the change in his attitude, clear that she’d somehow pretty much pushed him out the door. She wasn’t sure how or why, and she instinctively wanted to make amends.

  It didn’t count that she’d wanted him to leave as little as five minutes before.

  It was, however, a bad sign.

  Learn from your mistakes. Jen stifled the impulse to make nice, picked up her tray and went back to her tables. This time, she didn’t feel his gaze following her, and despite herself (and everything she knew) she was intrigued.

  “Miss? Miss? Can we order, please?”

  Jen hurried to table seven, apologizing for the delay. She glanced over her shoulder, her pen hovering over her order pad. She completely missed the fact that the woman wanted salad instead of fries with her chicken sandwich.