“I’ll call Steve,” he said out loud, his words reverberating in the empty kitchen. Steve lived in California; due to the difference in time zones, it would be only 11:00 p.m. there. Better yet, why not make it a conference call with all the STUDs on the line? They hadn’t all spoken to each other at the same time since Ki’s wedding, and that had been months ago.
Yeah, there were times in a guy’s life when he needed his buddies. In a burst of energy, Deke picked up the phone and speed-dialed a number.
Chapter Thirteen
In a matter of seconds, Deke had Steve on the line.
“Steve? It’s Deke.”
“Deke! What’s going on?” Steve asked, sounding glad to hear from him.
“Hold for a conference call, will ya?”
“Hey, Deke, is anything wrong? It’s the middle of the night where you are.”
“Hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”
Steve laughed. “Gwen and I are just two old married folks, sitting here in bed eating popcorn and watching TV,” he said. Deke heard him cover the phone for a moment. “It’s Deke,” he said to his wife before getting back to Deke.
Deke said, “Hang on and I’ll call Ki next. He’s in the same time zone as you are, so I probably won’t wake him up, either. And as for calling Tripp, well, unfortunately, it’s already one in the morning in the Midwest. Let’s hope he’s glad to hear from all of us.”
Deke put Steve on hold and dialed Ki’s number at the house in Seattle where he was living and working for the summer. Ki seemed delighted that it was Deke and said that he and his wife Sydney, who was already pregnant, had just come in from a rare night out at the movies. And Tripp, when Deke reached him, complained good-naturedly that the call had interrupted something very important; when Deke heard the rustle of sheets in the background and Tripp’s bride “Egghead”—oops, Bridget—murmuring, he had a pretty good idea what. He felt a brief pang of regret for the interruption, but then, the phone call wouldn’t take long.
“What’s going on, Deke?” Tripp wanted to know when they were all on the line.
“Yeah, didn’t you have a party at your new penthouse tonight?” Steve asked.
“The party’s over, and everyone’s gone home. I couldn’t sleep, and—”
“Why don’t you drink a cup of that sleep-inducing tea of yours, buddy? Slumber Train, isn’t it called?” interjected Ki.
“Yeah,” Tripp chimed in. “Bridget tried it. Said it put her right to sleep. Trouble is, I had other ideas at the time.” He laughed.
Deke gazed at the ceiling. He wished suddenly and with a pang of longing that the STUDs could all be there with him. It wasn’t nearly as satisfying to talk on the phone as it was to be sitting around playing cards or drinking beer, jabbing each other on the arm from time to time and keeping things kind of loose and informal. Oh, he missed the good old days when he could call up Steve or Tripp or Ki at any time of the day or night; it was true about wedding bells breaking up that old gang of mine. He wished he could convey to them how important they were in his life and how nostalgic he felt.
“I guess I just missed you guys,” he said, unable to describe his feelings adequately. “I guess I just wanted to hear your voices.”
Dead silence ruled. It was as if no one knew what to say.
Steve cleared his throat. “Uh, Deke. Is anything wrong?”
No one said anything, and Deke knew they were all waiting.
Finally, against his better judgment, he blurted, “I was just thinking about all you STUDs, and how you’re all married. And how things can never be the same.”
“Holy cow,” said Ki in disbelief. “The Dekester’s getting serious all of a sudden.”
“No way,” said Tripp. “I don’t believe it.”
“Hey, you got no cause to talk about a guy that way,” Deke said, adopting an aggrieved tone.
“It wasn’t an insult,” Ki said. “Maybe it was a compliment.”
“Sure, Deke. You’ve always been serious about business matters, we all know that, but your personal style is about as unserious as it can get. So what’s going on that made you change?” Tripp asked.
Deke rolled a peanut across the counter and watched it fall to the floor. Lou wouldn’t stand for such sloppiness. He’d have to pick it up before she came back to finish cleaning up after the party, but he’d forgotten when that was supposed to be.
“Deke?” ventured Steve.
“Well, I guess you could say I’m curious,” he said cautiously.
“Curious? I should say so! Weren’t you the guy who proposed a panty raid on the Laura T. Watson Dormitory back at dear old Beckett College even after they’d long gone out of style?” asked Tripp.
“Panties are out of style? When did that happen?” Steve wanted to know.
“The day after you got married, pal,” Deke tossed in, just to keep things going.
Hearty guffaws all around. “I think Tripp meant that panty raids had been out of style for years before we ever matriculated at Beckett,” said Ki.
“You matriculated? I never had to. The girls from Laura T. Watson were ever eager to assuage my lust,” Steve tossed in.
“Shut up, Steve,” Ki said. “We’re not interested in your lust, past or present. Deke, bud, what are you curious about?”
“For your information, guys, it wasn’t a panty raid that I proposed. It was a pantry raid. Anyway, I called to see how it’s going for all of you. Your, uh, lives, and all that.”
“Hmm. I don’t know about everyone else, but life is but a dream out here in San Francisco. I’m living happily ever after with the one woman in the world who is right for me,” Steve said.
“Ditto,” Ki said immediately.
“And you, Tripp?” Deke asked.
“Bridget and I are true soulmates, though we didn’t know it for a long time.”
“Well, when you knew, what made you know it?” Deke asked, starting to feel desperate for some solid information.
“Oh, well. Something in the way she moved me, or like that,” Tripp said.
“He heard that in a song lyric,” Ki said.
“Wait a minute, everyone.” This was Tripp again. “Am I the only one who reads between the lines here? Deke, are you trying to tell us that you’ve found someone? That you’re—dare I say—in love? Say, Deke, are you planning to get married?”
Deke swallowed. “No. No, absolutely not. I take my responsibilities as The World’s Last Bachelor seriously, and it’s my duty not to give up or give in. I intend to remain a bachelor all my livelong days,” he said, as close to jesting as he could get at the moment.
“I said that exact same thing once,” Steve said.
“Me, too,” said Ki.
“So did I,” agreed Tripp.
“We all said it,” Deke said, starting to lose patience. “The thing is, is it worth trying to stay single when something comes along that might—I said might—be a good match?”
“A good match,” Tripp scoffed. “Are you talking about a woman or dominoes?”
“And if it’s a woman, it might as well be dominoes,” Steve said sagely. “You tumble, and everything falls down—splat, splat, splat—your plans, dreams, career, whatever. Finally she’s got you lying at her feet, totally at her mercy.”
Ki and Steve laughed, but Tripp didn’t.
“If it’s the right woman,” Tripp said, “it doesn’t matter if you’re lying at her feet or not. You want to be with her, no matter what. You want to love her and protect her and hold her in your arms forever if you possibly can.”
“Tripp, you sound like a romantic soul,” Deke said, never having seen his buddy in that light before.
“Well, isn’t everyone like that after he’s found The One?” Tripp asked.
“But the thing is, how do you know when you’ve found her?” Deke felt as if he were making no progress at all. They were talking in circles.
“You know,” Steve said.
“Yeah,” said Ki.
&n
bsp; “The way I know at the moment is that the woman I love is winding her legs around my waist and trying to have her way with me,” Tripp said, laughter in his voice.
“I am not,” Bridget said from somewhere very near. It was hard to imagine Bridget Emerick, aka Egghead, whom they’d all known in college, winding any part of her anatomy around any part of Tripp’s, but then love was reputed to do strange things to people.
“I think it’s time to end this conversation,” Deke said hastily.
“Such as it was,” Ki added.
“We should do this more often,” Steve said.
“We will,” Deke said, but he still didn’t have an answer to his most burning questions, such as whether he should creep down to Dorian’s apartment and insist that she let him in so he could cuddle close to her throughout what was left of the night, or whether marriage took away all the excitement in a relationship, or whether cleaving only unto one woman was ultimately boring.
“I think I’ve got to hang up. I couldn’t even begin to tell you what Bridget is doing now. Bye, guys.” And Tripp was gone.
“Who would have thunk that Tripp and Bridget—? Well, thanks for calling, Deke. Talk to you later,” Steve said, and he hung up, too.
“Well, it’s just you and me, Deke,” Ki said. “Any chance you might wing out to Seattle and visit Sydney and me?”
“Maybe. I never know what I’m going to be doing. Say, Ki. Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”
“I guess not,” Ki said, though he sounded doubtful.
“Is it—is it boring to be married?”
Ki laughed. “Here I am, happily married to Sydney Taylor, who is already pregnant and has presented me with a ready-made family in the form of two kids that she inherited. Not only that, but she’s worked as a government agent extraordinaire and is a master of disguises. Marriage to my wife is nerve-racking, but it’s definitely not boring,” he said.
Deke had the feeling that he’d asked the wrong person.
“Well, thanks for telling me,” he said.
“No problem. I’ll call you if I’m ever in the Atlanta area, okay?”
“Sure,” Deke said, feeling more dispirited than ever.
“Say, Deke, I happened to think of something.”
“At least, even with the hubbub around your house, you’re still able to think,” Deke said.
“Yeah, well. The hubbub is the reason I decided to surprise Syd with tickets to spend a romantic week or two in Paris. Only we can’t go.”
“Gee, that’s too bad, Ki. But Paris? Paris where?”
“Paris, France, you idiot. We were going to fly over on the Concorde. Can you possibly use the tickets?”
Deke was stunned. “You’d give them up?”
“Well, like I said, we can’t go. I’m worried about Sydney. What if she goes into labor on the plane? What if the baby is born in France? I never should have bought the tickets, but I thought it would be a romantic last fling before the baby was born.”
“I wouldn’t feel right taking them,” Deke began.
“Didn’t you tell us that Paris was your favorite city when you bummed around Europe?”
Deke’s mind flashed to Dorian after the first time they’d made love. Her voice had been dreamy when she’d described her ultimate fantasy of a week in Paris and making love whenever she felt like it. It sounded pretty good to him, too.
“Okay, okay, you’ve got yourself a taker. Do I really have to leave tomorrow? Actually, it would be today, wouldn’t it?” Deke said, glancing at the clock.
“You’ll catch the Concorde out of Miami at eight o’clock at night,” Ki said.
“It sounds wonderful. I can’t believe you’ve offered it. Thanks, Ki.” Already he was imagining walking arm-in-arm with Dorian alongside the Seine, her eyes for him alone.
“I can’t believe I’ve offered it, either,” Kit said with more than a little irony. “But the tickets are yours. I’ll take care of the details so that all you have to do is pick up the plane tickets at the Miami airport. I envy you, Deke. Being pregnant is pure hell.”
“You’re not pregnant, Ki. Sydney is.”
Ki groaned. “Keep reminding me.”
They hung up after saying a quick goodbye, and Deke picked the peanut up off the floor and tossed it into the trash.
Paris! With Dorian! He couldn’t wait to tell her.
The only trouble was, he didn’t want to wake her up. She might not appreciate it, especially since there would be a lot to do getting ready to fly out of Atlanta for Miami early this afternoon.
He socked his right fist into his left hand. Finally he had a handle on keeping their relationship light and easy and fun. The key was to keep doing the unexpected, which he had to admit was easy for him, coming by the aptitude naturally.
He couldn’t wait to see the expression on Dorian’s face when he informed her that they were going to leave for Paris. He smiled to himself in anticipation.
He’d tell her the good news in just a few hours.
* * *
DORIAN PAUSED AS SHE crossed the narrow bridge over the babbling brook separating the forest glade from the highway. The wildwood beyond rang with laughter and the notes of a silver-toned harp.
The tall figure on the opposite bank was clear in the moonlight, his jaunty feathered cap at odds with his obviously dejected mood.
“Ho, who goes there?” cried the man as Dorian reached the middle of the bridge. “No one crosses the bridge unless I say so.”
“Pray, let me pass, for I have business on your side of the stream,” said Dorian.
“Nay, I’ll see you tumbled into the water first. Who are you, and what is your business?” The man was strong, powerful, and handsome in a rugged, rangy way. He was dressed all in green, a true denizen of the forest.
“I wish to lend my skills to a band of merry men who live in this greensward,” Dorian said bravely.
“If you are looking for Robin Hood, then you have met him,” said the man.
“You? You are Robin Hood?” Dorian asked in a tone of disbelief.
“Aye. And who are you?” he demanded, biting the words off sharply.
“Dr. Feelgood is my name. I have brought you tea.”
“Tea! Surely you jest,” he said, peering at her in the glimmering moonlight.
Dorian smiled bewitchingly. “Share a cup of tea with me, good Robin.”
“Alas and alack, you would delay my return to yon merry men,” he said, his eyes beginning to twinkle.
“Nay, rather I would like to meet yon merry men,” she said, tripping across the bridge and confronting him on the large flat rock where he stood.
“No women are allowed to take part in our revels, dear lady. And is it truly tea that you carry in your basket, or is it stronger stuff?”
“‘Tis tea, of course. I’ll pour a cup for each of us.” She spread a small cloth on the rock as he stood by.
Dorian looked so lovely, so enticing. Robin knelt beside her as she poured the tea.
His hand stayed hers as she lifted her cup to her lips.
“And to what shall we drink, my lass?”
“To revels. To merriment. To love.”
He stared at her familiar face with its piquant chin, the irises of her eyes bordered in heliotrope. “Marry, I do believe I know you,” he said wonderingly.
“Marry? Marry? Marry?” Dorian repeated like a broken record. Suddenly a mynah bird flew out of the trees and landed on her left shoulder. It whinnied like a horse.
“The word marry is merely an expression of the times,” Robin Hood explained earnestly.
And then Deke woke up, covered with sweat.
He sat up in bed, momentarily confused. He had been dreaming about Dorian, and about himself, and he would have had to be a fool not to know that the merry men in the forest represented the STUDs.
Merry married men, he told himself as he headed for the bathroom and a shower. Good heavens, he was confused. He didn’t want to marry anyo
ne. He wanted to continue on his merry way, a confirmed bachelor until the day he died.
Or at least, that’s the way he had felt until he’d met Dorian Carr.
He glanced at the clock as he came out of the bathroom. It was eight in the morning, too early to call her after a party that had ended late. But he dialed her number from the bedside phone, anyway.
Dorian answered, her voice foggy with sleep.
“Hey,” he said into the phone. “I miss you.”
In his mind’s eye, he saw her rolling over onto her back; she always slept on her stomach. He pictured her pale hair tousled on the pillow, all fragrant and tangled and silky to the touch. He imagined himself burying his face in it, his hands tunneling beneath the bedclothes to pull her close, and all the sweet intimacy of the moments afterward.
“Deke, it’s so early,” she protested. “I want to sleep a while longer.”
“Well, you’d better wake up. I have good news,” he said, scarcely able to contain it.
“What is such good news that it couldn’t wait until I was wide awake?” Dorian asked crossly.
“Lishen, baby,” he said, lapsing into his Humphrey Bogart voice, “wanna meet me on the Champs-Elysées in Paris?”
“Deke, I am not in the mood for jokes,” Dorian said.
“No joke. I’ve got a hankering to drop by the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa. Not to mention going for a stroll in the Bois de Boulogne. Pack a bag and let’s go.”
“Deke, I’m going to hang up now,” Dorian said.
“Hey, wait a minute. What will it take to convince you that I’m serious?”
“You’re not serious, Deke. And I’m in no mood to play along.”
“Well, I’ve got two tickets on the Concorde that say I’m as serious as a man can be,” Deke said, beginning to lose patience.
Dorian yawned. “I’m going to go back to sleep for an hour, Deke. I’ll call you later.” And she hung up.
Deke stared at the phone for a long moment before replacing it in its cradle. He wanted to laugh because Dorian clearly didn’t get it. He couldn’t wait to see the look on her face when she finally believed that they were really going to fly to Paris tonight. Oh, this was fun. This was really fun.
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