Ric smoothed her hair back from her face. “If she was with Pierre,” he told her, “then she didn’t die alone.”
She was going to kiss him. Ric saw it in her eyes, saw it coming, and he didn’t stop her. It was, after all, just a kiss.
And he was a freaking idiot, because there was no such thing as just a kiss when it came to him kissing Annie, and Annie kissing him.
She was going for that lounge chair, and damn it, he was, too, because, man, she was right—neither of them knew how long it was going to be before they could do this again.
Except this wasn’t what he wanted.
“Stop,” he said. “Stop!” as he finally disconnected his mouth from hers, which was flat-out ludicrous, since he was the one who had her up against the side of the house. He was the one pressed hard between her legs.
She laughed at the absurdity of the situation, which was his downfall, because he could never force himself to back away from her when she was laughing, even when her eyes were filled with tears. Which meant he was standing there, stupidly staring at her—an easy target—when she kissed him again.
Jesus God. “I’m not doing this,” Ric insisted.
“Okay,” Annie said, reaching down into his pants and—Gahd—wrapping her fingers around him.
“I’m serious,” he told her, closing his eyes as she touched him.
“I can see that.” She kissed him again. “Let’s go inside.”
“No,” he said, but he followed her. It was definitely the moment of truth. Once they got into his bedroom, she’d take off her clothes, and that would be that.
But Martell saved him. “Yo, Annie, you ready to go?” From the sound of it, he was taking the stairs up from the office, two at a time.
Annie managed to get her hand back before Martell came in, but just barely. Ric sat down fast. Of course, now that he’d been saved, he wished desperately that he hadn’t been.
“Everything okay?” Martell said, looking from Annie to Ric.
Annie had turned toward the window, pretending she wasn’t wiping tears from her eyes.
“You, uh, need a few more minutes?” Martell asked. “It’s pretty hot out, I should go get Pierre out of the car, if you’re gonna—”
“No,” Annie said, taking a deep breath and turning back around. “I’m ready to go, and Ric should get back downstairs. Did you see what’s going on in his office?”
“No,” Martell said. “What’s his name, Yashi, told me you were up here.”
“Don’t look,” Annie said. “It’s going to be awful.”
“Okay, now you made me curious.” Martell started down the stairs.
“I’m not kidding,” Annie called after him. She turned to Ric. “Be careful.”
He nodded. “You, too.” I love you. He didn’t say it, because it would have made her more upset, which was crazy.
“Thanks for…trying to make me feel better about Pam,” she said, and followed Martell down the stairs.
“Damn!” Ric heard Martell shout. “Why did you let me look?”
“Let you look? I warned you,” Annie’s voice drifted up the stairs, and then was gone, as she and Martell left the building.
Ric sat there, with the silence bearing down on him. It was heavy on his chest, making it hard to breathe.
He launched himself off the sofa and thundered down the stairs. “Annie!”
The craziness was hers. She was just going to have to get used to hearing him say it.
He threw open the door, but she was already in Martell’s car as he backed down the drive, transmission whining. She didn’t even see Ric—she didn’t look back—she was preoccupied with greeting Pierre, laughing as the little dog licked her face.
Ric watched as Martell’s car disappeared down the street.
“Jules just called,” Yashi reported as he went back inside. “He’s running a little late, but he should be here any minute.”
Robin sat at the desk in Jules’s hotel room, in front of Jules’s computer, sick to his stomach.
Jules was in the bathroom, getting ready for his meeting with Ric Alvarado and Gordie Burns Junior. It was a jeans–and–T-shirt meeting, but Jules had also pulled a loose-fitting, lightweight jacket out of his closet and tossed it onto the bed. The jacket was to cover the gun he’d taken from a locked case—the gun that he’d tucked into the shoulder holster he’d matter-of-factly strapped on. His donning of that holster and his quick, professional check of that gun screamed of routine and everyday, ordinary habit in a way that was both sexy as hell and terrifying.
Robin could hear him now, brushing his teeth, the bathroom door ajar.
On the computer screen, the digital video footage that had been uploaded to YouTube ended with Robin’s evil twin chugging a bottle of whiskey and tripping over the ottoman in his hotel suite—landing hard on his back, all while laughing hysterically.
He hadn’t dropped the bottle, though. As he brought it to his mouth, the footage froze into a still shot—a close-up that was undeniably of Robin’s own face. His eyes were open, and he was laughing.
It could have been worse. The amateur filmmaker—a budding directorial genius with the YouTube handle of CelebrityHunter—could have chosen to end with a still of that extremely nonflattering but thankfully almost completely nonrecognizable, two-second-long close-up of Robin’s nonresponsive private area. Of course, that didn’t mean that any of the two and a quarter million viewers hadn’t thought to hit pause at that particular moment in the download.
A little work with Photoshop to sharpen the image and, voilà. There he’d be, the perfect desktop background for millions of personal computers. Robin put his head in his hands.
“Watch it again.”
He looked up to see that Jules had come out of the bathroom.
“No,” Robin said. “I’ve…seen enough. It’s…like the ultimate out-of-body experience. He looks like me and he sounds like me—”
“He? It’s you, Robin.” Jules put on his jacket, zipping it closed at the very bottom. “You did all those things last night.”
“Yeah,” Robin said quietly. “I know.” Which was why he didn’t want to watch it again. When he watched it, he couldn’t imagine Jules ever forgiving him.
“I’ve got to go,” Jules told him just as quietly. “You do, too. You’re supposed to be meeting Annie.”
“I left her a key card at the front desk of my hotel,” Robin said. “I called and told her I was going to do that, so…If it’s okay with you, I thought I’d shower here before I, uh, go meet her.”
Jules nodded. “Just don’t be here when I get back.”
Ouch. Robin forced a laugh. “I guess you know me pretty well. I thought if I just never left, you’d come back and, well…You seem to like me better when we’re in bed, so I thought…Maybe you’d either forgive me or forget why you were angry, if we just made love for, like, two weeks, nonstop—”
“Sex,” Jules corrected him sharply. “This was sex, what we just did. Don’t get it confused with something that it’s not.”
Wow. That one really stung.
“Shut down my computer when you’re done watching that again, and make sure the door locks behind you.” Jules turned to leave.
Robin stood up. “So this is what, then? Goodbye? Thanks for the sex—see you around in a year or two?”
Jules stopped but he didn’t turn back. “I don’t know what this is,” he said, his voice low. “I don’t know anything anymore.”
“I do.” Robin’s voice shook with conviction. “I know that if you want me to watch this fucking awful video again, I’ll watch it again. I know I’ll do whatever I can to make this up to you. I’ll stop drinking. I’ve already stopped—”
Jules laughed as he turned to face him. “Are you kidding? You better watch that video another fifty times if you think you’re just going to be able to announce that you quit and—”
“I am. I did.”
“Forty-eight hours.” Jules’s anger was palp
able. “I give you forty-eight hours, tops, before you take another drink—although it’s probably going to be more like four.”
Jesus. “Your unmitigated support overwhelms me.”
“You want me to take this seriously.” Jules got in his face. “You check yourself in somewhere. You do a lockdown rehab—twenty-eight days, minimum—”
“I can’t do that, and you know it.” Robin stood his ground. “I got a movie about to premiere. I don’t need that anyway. That’s bullshit. I’m not an alcoholic—”
Jules headed for the door.
“I’m not.” Robin followed him. His own mother had been an alcoholic who’d lived and died—literally—for her next drink. If she didn’t have her gin and tonic, her hands would shake and she would become physically ill, like a drug addict needing a fix. She’d died when Robin was eleven, when she drove her car into a tree during a late-night booze run—Jules knew that. “I should know the difference between an alcoholic and someone who sometimes parties a little too hard—”
“Yeah,” Jules agreed. “You should.” He closed the door firmly behind him.
“I do know!” Robin shouted, because the alternative was to chase him down the hotel corridor dressed only in his boxers.
Instead, there he stood. Alone in Jules’s hotel room, with the silence bearing down on him. Just don’t be here when I get back.
At least Jules hadn’t said goodbye.
When Robin finally sat down at Jules’s computer, there was an e-mail alert flashing in the lower-right-hand corner of the screen.
He clicked on it. He knew he shouldn’t have. This was Jules’s personal e-mail account.
But Jules knew he was using it. He knew Robin was sitting in front of his laptop computer right now, and maybe he’d sent an e-mail from his phone, saying that he’d reconsidered, and maybe it would be a good idea for Robin to wait there for him to get back from this meeting, which he’d just found out was going to take only a few minutes anyway…
But the e-mail wasn’t from Jules. It was to Jules. It was from someone with an e-mail address of SpongeBob at some freemail account. And the subject line read RE: RC WTFO?????
He was RC—Robin Chadwick. And WTFO was Navy radio-speak for “What the fuck, over?” After playing a SEAL in Riptide, he spoke their language well enough to know that.
Robin clicked to open the e-mail, and a picture—a photo—appeared in the upper left corner of the screen. It was the same tall, drop-dead gorgeous man—Sam—who’d come into town to give Jules the bad news about Ben’s untimely death. In the picture, he was standing next to a strikingly beautiful black woman in a wedding dress. Jules, also tuxedo clad, was on the woman’s other side, and all three of them were laughing.
These were Jules’s best friends—Sam and Alyssa. A few years ago, Robin had spent a very pleasant evening with Jules and several pitchers of sangria, in a Mexican restaurant in West Hollywood, listening to stories about Jules’s former FBI partner Alyssa Locke. At the time, he’d wondered if—despite Jules’s claim of being gay—there wasn’t a little unrequited sexual attraction in Jules’s longtime relationship with Alyssa-the-Amazing. But now, looking at that photo, he could see only happiness on Jules’s face.
Happiness, and unconditional love.
And that was when he should have clicked to close that e-mail, and gone back to YouTube to do as Jules had demanded, and watch him nearly kill himself all over again.
Instead, Robin read the words on the computer screen.
Hey, it’s Alyssa, borrowing Sam’s email addy. I just thought I’d give you my 2 cents, sweetiepie.
1) I’m so sorry about Ben.
2) the tadpole is definitely gay, single, and interested in meeting you—and, yes, really cute. Really.
3) you spent years trying to talk me into dating people you thought were really cute, but I was in love with Sam, so…
4) the perfect career isn’t perfect if you’re not happy
5) I love you—you’ll always have a private sector job waiting for you, working with me
6) if you really love the fuck-up (Sam’s word, but it does seem to fit) that much, GO FOR IT!!!!
Directly beneath that was a copy of an e-mail that Jules had apparently sent this afternoon, probably while he was setting up his computer for Robin to watch the YouTube disaster. Robin had still been in Jules’s bed, hoping that Jules would climb back in.
He hadn’t, much to Robin’s disappointment. SpongeBob, Jules had written.
I’m not offended. I hear you. Thank you for being such a good friend. I’m probably going to do something really stupid, but God help me, I love him.
Robin’s heart was pounding. Jules loved him. Jules loved him.
Even today, when I’m so angry with him—when I’m so hurt by what he’s done that I’m practically bleeding from the ears, I still love him with every breath I take. I know exactly who he is and what he is, and God damn him, I love him anyway. He’s an alcoholic and a liar—he lies to himself most of all—and I don’t know if he really loves me enough to try to make this work—or if he’s just going to bulldoze over me and break my heart. Again.
“I’m not an alcoholic,” Robin said, but of course there was no one in the room to argue with him. I don’t know what I’m going to do, Jules had written, and now Robin’s heart was pounding for an entirely different reason—fear.
I suspect I’m better off without him. And yes, I know what I’ll be giving up if I don’t make myself walk away. I do hear you, and I’ve obviously got a lot to think about. I love you guys. Stay safe. More later.
Beneath that was, presumably, a copy of the e-mail Sam had first sent to Jules, several hours earlier.
I’m assuming you’ve seen this, but in case you haven’t…
There was a live link to the YouTube.com footage, of course.
I heard what you said in the car, but holy fuck, Squidward, you sure know how to pick ’em. I’m probably going to offend you, but I gotta say it—you sure you’re not confusing love with lust? Maybe I’m wrong about this, but I’m pretty sure you’ve gone a long time without getting any on a regular basis, and that can do funny things to the human brain—particularly the male one.
Again, I’m probably gonna offend you big time here, but I think I know what you’re looking for (Alyssa with a penis?) (only half kidding), and I do understand that Ben wasn’t it. I thank God for that, considering the current circumstances. But I can’t believe it’s crazy-ass RC, either.
Right now Lys is shouting at me not to do it, but I got to tell you that my old team’s in the neighborhood doing drills, and one of the tadpoles has set my highly honed gaydar aflame. I’m not going to give you his name in an email, but after your vacation’s over, I highly recommend you drop in at Coronado. I think he might be your type—tall and blue-eyed. (Holy fuck, did I really just type that?) Lys says he’s even cuter than RC.
Jules had told Robin that Sam—and it was definitely Sam writing this e-mail—was now in Spain, working with Alyssa to track down a rumored suitcase nuke. No doubt SEAL Team Sixteen—which was Sam’s “old team”—wasn’t just in the neighborhood to do drills, but rather to provide any backup that might be necessary should the civilian team need assistance.
As for the tadpole that Sam had mentioned…A tadpole was a young, new member of a SEAL team. Apparently Sam was trying to set Jules up with a gay SEAL. One who was, according to Alyssa, who’d confirmed it in her message at the very top of the e-mail, cuter than Robin.
“Like hell he is,” Robin muttered.
But that wasn’t all Sam had to say.
I know you hate the whole “don’t ask, don’t tell” bullshit that this tadpole brings with him to the table, but think about what you’ll get with RC. You’ve got to know that your career won’t survive a relationship with that crazy fuck-up. Even if he goes into rehab and dries himself up, this YouTube shit’s not gonna go away. It’s going to haunt him forever—any time he so much as farts in public. And that’s not
even taking into consideration the scandal that’ll hit when he’s finally outed—and he WILL be outed sooner or later, count on it. Idiot like that’s gonna fuck it up royally, too.
You could risk it—keep your relationship with him on the down low, but that’s some fucking irony, huh? I know you want to be in an open relationship, but even if RC came out tomorrow, you’d STILL have to keep your affair with him jammed in the closet. You know this—don’t fool yourself into thinking there’s a way this will work. No way are you going to be picked to replace MB if you’re in a public relationship with RC. You WILL be passed over. You know it.
MB—Max Bhagat. Holy shit, was Jules really up for that kind of a promotion? He hadn’t mentioned it to Robin at all.
I’m not saying that you can’t be in an open gay relationship and win this position—you can. As long as it’s with some nice, quiet, anonymous civilian. Or even some military hero who eventually resigns his commission and comes out when he joins the civilian world. (And this kid I’m talking about already has a job waiting for him with me and Lys—that’s a guarantee. He’s a solid operator.)
I just want to make sure you think about what you’ll be giving up. It’s a huge deal, Squidward. You’re gay and you’re out—and you will be in charge of THE most important counterterrorist unit in the U.S.
Or you can be tabloid fodder.
Is the fuck-up really worth it?
Sam signed off with Stay safe. Love, SpongeBob.
Robin closed the e-mail and went back to YouTube, where he clicked on the link to replay the footage that CelebrityHunter had posted there just this morning. Since he’d viewed it last, there had been another additional quarter of a million hits to the site.
And as he watched himself knocking over a pile of deck chairs by the hotel pool, as he watched himself teetering on the rail of his balcony, twelve stories above the ground, shouting “I’m the king of the world!” all he could think was no.
Force of Nature Page 34
