Into the Night (33 page)
The entire group turned to look at her. They all started talking at once, but Shonda was the loudest. She whooped. "The quiet women always have the biggest secrets! When was this and why is the man still alive? I would have thought dear ol' Stanley would've killed him and scattered his various body parts clear across the state by now."
"Actually, Stan set us up," Teri said. "It was ... a while ago. Back when he was a little confused about our relationship. Back when he thought it was just a friendship." She smiled. "Back before I convinced him he was wrong."
"So did you and Mike... you know?"
"No!" Teri said, laughing. "It was just a date. Nothing happened. We had dinner. We talked. Mostly about Stan."
"So didn't he, like, make a move on you?" Christy asked. "Like, hey, baby, you show me yours, I'll show you mine?"
"No, he didn't," Teri said. "He's pretty shy. He was very nice."
"So how does that prove anything?" Shonda asked. "He was very nice. Hmmm. Nice. In fact, I think it proves that he is gay."
"No, it doesn't," Kelly said. "It proves that he's polite and respectful of women. Some men just need a little encouragement in the love department."
"I'd like to meet one of them for a change. The men I know need encouragement only when it comes to picking up their laundry and putting the toilet seat back down," Shonda said, and everyone laughed.
"You're Sam Starrett's wife, right?" Joan asked Mary Lou. "I met him yesterday. He's... impressive. There's got to be a lot of rumors circulating about him, huh?"
The room fell instantly silent.
No one looked at Mary Lou. It was worse than if they'd all stared at her, because this way she knew they'd actually heard the rumors. And this way she knew they thought those rumors were true. She wanted to shrink down to about an inch tall and run underneath the sofa.
"There's always a lot of rumors about everyone associated with the teams," Kelly said brightly. "How about we decide what we want on our pizzas?"
Shonda and Christy started arguing about anchovies, and the moment passed.
"I said something really wrong, didn't I?" Joan asked Mary Lou in a low voice. "I'm sorry about that. I didn't mean to..."
"The rumor is that I purposely got myself pregnant so Sam would have to marry me," Mary Lou told her just as quietly.
Joan cringed. "Ouch. That sucks."
"Yeah," Mary Lou said. "Excuse me."
She went into the kitchen, where Kelly was making a list of the various pizza toppings over by those fucking too-tempting bottles of wine. "What do you like on your pizza?" she asked.
"I'm sorry." Mary Lou set her untouched glass of juice down on the counter. "I really can't stay. I promised the sitter..."
That was a very transparent lie, and Kelly wasn't fooled. "I'm sorry, too," she said quietly. "I wasn't thinking. We just always have wine and beer and ... Sam says you're really doing well. Eighteen months sober is really great. It's quite an accomplishment."
"Thanks." Of course it didn't really compare with Kelly's accomplishments—going through medical school and becoming a doctor. Sure, she sounded sincere instead of patronizing, but Mary Lou didn't trust her. She didn't trust any of them. And she wanted to get the hell out of there.
Now.
Before she burst into tears.
"You know, I can order bottles of soda with the pizzas," Kelly suggested. "We'll put the wine and beer away and—
"Oh, no, I don't want you to do that. It's really not a problem for me," Mary Lou lied. "It's just... I'm on a diet and pizza isn't... besides, Haley was really cranky when I dropped her off at the sitter's and..."
Kelly was dubious. "Are you sure? We can—
"Very. Thank you so much for inviting me."
"Well, it was nice seeing you."
Yeah, they were both lying their asses off now. Mary Lou could practically smell the other woman's relief that she was leaving. "I'll let myself out. Please tell everyone that I'm sorry I couldn't stay."
And with that she was out of there. She practically ran down the hall and pushed her way out the front door.
She ran down the driveway and stood there for a moment, stunned that her car wasn't there, until she remembered she was driving Sam's truck.
The relief that flooded her was too much, and she stood there, at the end of the driveway, taking big gulps of fresh air as she tried not to cry.
Lord, was it too much to ask to have a friend? The only person she could really call her friend was Janine, who had moved across the country to Florida, leaving Mary Lou here, all alone.
"Mary Lou?"
Ihbraham's truck was parked in front of the house next door. He had just finished loading his lawn mower into the back, and he came toward her now, both glad to see her and puzzled as to what she was doing there.
Ihbraham was her friend.
He actually liked her. He honestly cared about her.
The realization hit her and she burst into tears.
"Wow," he said. "Do I smell that bad?"
But there must have been something in her eyes or on her face that told him it was time to kick aside the boundaries that he'd set between them. He hesitated only slightly before he reached for her.
Mary Lou clung to him, her arms tight around his waist as she sobbed into his shirt.
"Oh, wow," he said again in his lilting accent. "What's going on? Are you okay?"
For someone who was so thin, he was solid. Beneath his flowing clothes, he was all lean muscle.
And he smelled so good. Like fresh-cut grass and some kind of exotic fragrance—sandalwood. Janine used to burn sandalwood incense back when she was into psychedelic drugs.
"I need to go to a meeting," Mary Lou said, her voice muffled.
"Ah," he said, his hands warm against her back, against her head as he gently stroked her hair as if she were a young child. "That's always a good idea. Shall I help you find one? I have a blue book in my truck."
Mary Lou lifted her head and looked up at him, wiping her nose on the back of her hand. "Will you go with me?"
This time he didn't hesitate at all. "Of course."
"I hate this fucking shit."
Muldoon didn't have to turn around to know it was Sam Starrett who was standing behind him, stripping off his re-breather and other diving gear.
"You know what lives in caves?" Sam asked. "Bats— which are the fucking creepiest mammal on the face of the earth, except they don't live on menace of the earth, do they? They live beneath it."
Bats were actually kind of cool, considering they used sound waves to navigate as they moved through the air at high speeds. But Muldoon kept his thoughts to himself, seeing how Sam had come up against about a hundred of them flapping in his face just a few hours ago without flinching or making a single sound. He was allowed to rant about it now.
"And those white bugs," Sam continued. "And fish and lizards. White with no eyes. Jesus." He laughed. "Listen to me complain. Like I wouldn't give damn near anything to be able to stay here and just keep training like this for the next, oh, five, ten years. Or better yet, go directly from here to Afghanistan to kick ass. Yeah, give me angry terrorists. Just please don't make me go home."
He'd sat down to strip his wet suit from his legs, and now he just sat on the ground, rubbing his forehead as if he had a massive headache.
"Anything I can do?" Muldoon asked.
Sam laughed, a burst of disgusted air. "Yeah, I wish. Make my life go away, will you?" He stopped himself, running one hand down his face. "Shit—sorry, Mike."
"Are you sure there's not—"
"Yeah, I'm sure." Sam cut him off. "I'm the one got myself into this mess, I'm gonna have to get myself out. It's just... it's not going to be fun."
Muldoon nodded. "I'm here if you want to talk."
"Right," Sam said, hauling himself up off the ground. "Talking will really help."
"Hey, you were the one who told me to talk to Joan," Muldoon pointed out.
"Yeah, how's that going?"
"Not so good," he admitted.
"What a fucking surprise." Sam gathered up his gear, and with a nod, he vanished into the night.
Chapter 14
"Got a minute?"
"Heck, Mike, I've got a full hour," Joan said into her cell phone, reaching for the remote control and muting CNN. "And the only reason I can't talk longer is because I'm meeting my grandparents for lunch."
"That's great," he said. "I'm glad you found the time to do that."
She kept her eye on the headlines that ran constantly beneath the news. "Yeah, I'm smack in the middle of what we in this business call 'the lull before the storm.' Just try talking to me tomorrow, bub. In fact, let me apologize now for the fact that I'm going to be able to give you only twelve and a half seconds when you return from wherever it is that you are right now—that unnamed, secret place where you and your brothers in arms are doing unnamed, secret things that will help you be better prepared to fight terrorists."
Muldoon laughed. Even over the less-than-perfect cell phone speaker his laughter sounded too rich and warm. He sounded close, too—as if he were curled up inside of her ear.
"What's up, my brother from another mother?" she asked.
"I'm really just checking in," he told her. "I've got a little time to kill, too. I guess I just wanted to make sure that Steve was still getting the job done for you."
"He is," Joan said. "He's been very nice. Not as nice as you, but..." CNN cut to commercials and she was able to drag her eyes away from the screen. "Speaking of nice, do you know there's a rumor going around that you're gay?"
Muldoon choked. "What? "
Boy, he actually sounded surprised. She was sure he'd just laugh, sure he'd be aware of the rumors. "Oops. Never mind."
"Hold on," he said in his commanding officer's voice. "Wait. You can't drop a comment like that and then go never mind. Where did you hear that?"
"Is it true?" she asked.
He laughed in disgust. "What do you think?"
"I think if it's not true, why do you care where I heard it?" she countered.
"I'd kind of like to know who's spreading rumors about me."
"What are you going to do, go beat 'em up?" she asked. "Or—I know—hah! Go have heterosexual sex in front of them?" She laughed.
"Yeah, right," he said. "You are so not funny this time."
"Oh, but I am. I crack-a myself-a up," she admitted. "I was just picturing..." She laughed harder.
"What?"
"I was just picturing..." She couldn't stop laughing.
"What?"
"We were looking for a really flashy way to kick off the President's appearance next week, thinking about some kind of SEAL demonstration, and John Grotto, he's a major player in the White House communications office, he kept saying, 'We want to do something unusual. Something that's never been done before.' Quick, let me send an email to John suggesting ... Wow, it puts a new spin on the idea of a demonstration, doesn't it?"
He laughed, and she could almost see him roll his eyes. "I'm so very glad I amuse you."
"Don't take it personally. It's really just... Sex is really very funny, don't you think?"
"Funny isn't the word that comes to my mind—
"No," Joan said, trying her best not to start laughing again. "I know. You're right. When it's just two people and there's passion and maybe even real, honest love and the room is dimly lit—very dimly lit—then it can be pretty serious. But public sex? No, thank you. No way. It's just not... I mean, have you ever watched a porno flick?"
"Urn..."
"Of course you have. Everyone's seen at least one and probably only one because, let's face it, you watch one and you never want to have sex again, let alone ever watch another porno movie. It's not sexy at all. It's hideous. At best, it's funny—laughably funny. There's lots of odd positions with strangely placed and therefore freakish-looking naked body parts. And there's grunting and all kinds of strange and very unsexy noises and... Have you ever watched yourself have sex?"
"Uh..."
"Well, no. Bad example," Joan said. "Because look at you. You probably don't have a bad side. You probably look terrific from all angles. But I had a very intense relationship in college with a guy who liked mirrors and I swear to God, I had to keep my eyes closed or I wouldn't be able to stop laughing. I was like, 'God! What the hell is that?' "
Muldoon was laughing. "I think laughter is an important part of sex."
"Laughter, yes," she said. "But mirrors, cameras, or twenty thousand people watching from the bleachers—no, thank you. Kind of ruins the moment for me."
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