Ready to Roll

by Suzanne Brockmann

  “A truck named Wade,” Ben told her as Wade drove back toward the main road. “Look, I think if I told my older sister and brother—”

  Angel glared at Wade. “What the hell, Wade?”

  “They can help.” Ben leaned forward. “I know that they can help.”

  “I don’t need their help,” Angel said sharply. “Or your help, or your help.” Her final words were aimed at Wade. “It isn’t going to work anyway. Your stupid plan.”

  “Yes, it will,” Wade argued as he pulled his car out onto the main road.

  “She knows about your stupid plan?” Ben asked Wade but they both ignored him.

  “If you take my car and head north—” Wade started.

  “That’s not what the counselor said,” Angel interrupted him flatly. “The only option is to go to the shelter, she said. Anything else isn’t safe. She said that this stretch of time, if I leave… That’s the most dangerous time, she said, because he’ll know. Somehow, he can tell that I’m thinking about leaving. And he’ll retaliate, she said, unless I get to the shelter, fast. He’ll get desperate, and he’ll try to stop me, and he might accidentally kill me.”

  “It won’t be an accident,” Wade said tightly.

  “But he’ll do it because he wants me to stay,” Angel countered as she took her cell phone out of her purse, put the battery back in, and turned it on.

  The silence in the car was deafening, and she made a little sound that was almost a laugh. “Yeah, I just heard myself say that, too,” she said in a tiny voice. And then she started to cry. “God, I want him to be real—the Cody who cries and says he’s sorry and that he loves me, but he’s not, he’ll never be real, but I just want it so bad…”

  They drove in silence for several moment, and when Angel’s sobs turned into a series of quiet sniffs, Ben gently asked, “So the counselor wanted you to go to the shelter right now? Without even going home or—”

  “She said that he wouldn’t hurt me there.” Angel cut him off. “That he wouldn’t be able to see me or talk to me, but…” She shook her head, a picture of dejection and exhaustion.

  “Well, she’s an expert, isn’t she?” Ben said.

  Wade glared at him in the mirror as Angel said, “He always finds a way.”

  “She tried going to the shelter,” Wade said. “Two different times.”

  “And Cody somehow got inside?” Ben couldn’t believe that.

  “No,” Angel said. “But he just stands there, in the parking lot, and I know he’s out there, and it drives me crazy, so I have to look out the window. And then when I see him, he just looks so… lost. So then I go out and talk to him, and he cries, and he’s sorry—in that moment, right then, he’s honestly sorry, he is, and he’s back, my Cody from before we got married, so I go home with him. I always go back home with him even though I know, I do, that it’s not real, that he’s not real—he never was. I know that, but I’m such an idiot.”

  “Well, okay,” Ben said. “This time, no looking out any windows.”

  “It’s not that easy,” Wade said. “She needs to get far away from him. Like, out of state away.” He aimed his words at Angel. “You’re not an idiot, Ainge. Our plan will work.” He glanced at Ben again in the mirror. “She has a sister in Phoenix, but Cody knows where she lives, so…” He looked again at Angel. “If you take my car north, instead, to the city whose name we won’t say out loud—just like we planned, then he won’t find you. I promise, I’ll make goddamn sure of that.”

  “How?” Angel asked. “How are you going to do that?”

  And as Wade glanced at him in the rearview mirror, Ben knew that he hadn’t revealed to Angel the truly stupid part of his plan.

  “He’ll know as soon as I leave,” Angel continued, turning to tell Ben, “because he tracks me by my GPS. And when I turn it off, like I did today, he immediately starts texting me, unless he’s asleep, but he never sleeps for very long. And I ran to the store to get you some beer, baby only works for a very short time. He’s already texted me five times in the past two minutes—he must’ve just woken up, otherwise there would’ve been forty texts when I turned on my phone. But right now he’s saying Where are you?” She looked up at Wade, and her voice was tinged with panic. “What do I say? If I tell him I’m working, he’ll expect to see the extra hours in my paycheck.”

  “Always stick as close to the truth as possible,” Ben advised. He’d learned a lot from his years of living with his wicked stepfather. “Tell him you’re with Wade, that you’re helping him with a school assignment.”

  “That’s stupid,” Wade said with a disgusted look into the rear view. “He knows I’ve been suspended.”

  “But he doesn’t know what you have to do to get un-suspended,” Ben pointed out. As Angel bent over her phone, intent on texting her reply, he looked at Wade in the mirror, waiting until the other boy glanced up again to mouth the words, You have to tell her.

  Wade jerked his gaze back to the road, muttering, “The fuck I do.”

  “Or I will,” Ben said out loud.

  “You want me to kill you?” Wade asked.

  “Angel,” Ben said, and she lifted her head to look from him to Wade and back, wariness in her eyes, “after you leave for Destination Unspoken, Wade thinks he’s gonna distract Cody and keep him from finding you by telling him that he’s gay.”

  “Oh my God!” Wade said. “Fuck you!”

  It was well deserved, because yes, it was extremely uncool to out someone like this. But Angel had to know.

  Angel, however, was confused by Ben’s ungraceful misuse of pronouns. “Wade thinks calling Cody names is going to stop him from…? I mean, yeah, that’ll piss him off, but I really don’t think…”

  “No,” Ben said. “I said that wrong. Wade’s gonna admit to Cody that he, Wade, is gay. He’s always been gay, because yes, he was born that way, just like me.”

  Angel laughed. “Well, that’s stupid, Wade. You’re gay. Right. That’s not going to work. No way is Cody going to believe that.” But then, as Ben watched from the back seat, she looked at Wade, sitting there beside her. She really looked. And she stopped laughing, fast, and then said, “Oh my God. Is that true?”

  Wade had stopped for a red light, and now he closed his eyes, his big hands clenched around the hard plastic of his steering wheel. It was, Ben knew, the moment of truth, and he more than half expected Wade to deny it.

  But somehow Wade found the courage to whisper “Yes.”

  And it was likely that Angel didn’t recognize just how epic that was—and how necessary, too. Wade’s one little, impossibly-hard-to-utter admission was, in fact, an enormous step toward an honestly lived life.

  But Ben could also see, as Wade opened his eyes and looked at Angel, that the older boy didn’t know how she was going to react. He was braced, as if he expected to be hit by a wave of vitriol and hatred.

  “Oh my God,” Angel said again, more faintly this time.

  But she was looking at her phone, and Ben leaned forward to see that another text, presumably from Cody, had come in. She read aloud, “Helping W w WHAT assignment? Answer careful bitch I’m 2 cars behind you.”

  “Jesus,” Wade said as Ben turned to look.

  Sure enough, Cody’s recently washed, shiny black truck was back there.

  “Oh my God,” Angel said again.

  “How do we explain why you’re in the car?” Wade asked, his eyes on Ben.

  “School assignment,” Ben repeated as he dialed Eden’s cell. “Ms. Standfast ordered us to take a female family member to lunch—no, better make it brunch, it’s too early for lunch. But we’re going to Burger’s Plus, because you get a discount there. That’s why Angel is with us and you picked me up and… shit.” The call went to his sister’s voice mail.

  Ben didn’t bother to leave a message—there was no time for that. He cut the connection and dialed Danny and Jenn’s landline as he told Angel, “Text that to him. That we’re going to B-Plus for brunch on Ms. S’s command,
to try to shorten our suspension time. Do it! Wade! Drive! To B-Plus! Now!”

  Jenn would be home. She had to be home.

  Please gods—as Izzy would say—let her be home.

  * * *

  SEAL Candidate Petty Officer Third Class

  John “Hans” Schlossman:

  It never occurred to me that Jake could actually drown. Not in the moment. I mean, yeah, I made that stupid joke about it, but I didn’t honestly think…

  It wasn’t until later—much later—that I realized exactly what Livingston did for me that day.

  When it happened—Wednesday, late afternoon—I was pissed at being tossed into the cold water, and I shouted for Seagull to just let Jake go, good riddance. I said that. Good riddance. And yeah, I also made that stupid joke about how maybe they both would drown.

  But really, it was a joke, and…

  In my defense, I wasn’t aware that the wind had kicked up, and that the whitecaps were making it hard for the instructors to see exactly where in the water Jake was. I assumed that because we were being watched, they’d have no trouble picking him up, so…

  (Silence.) Oh, man, I am an asshole. In my defense…? There is no defense. I didn’t try—at all—to help. Jake—my swim buddy—was so out of it that he took off his vest and if Seagull hadn’t gone after him, the instructors might not’ve found him. At least not until his body washed to shore.

  My lack of action is indefensible. I was careless and stupid and… incredibly selfish.

  A Navy SEAL can be none of those things.

  * * *

  “Hey, guys!” Jenn called. “Here I am! Sorry I’m late!”

  Everyone turned and looked at her. Ben, Wade, Wade’s giant brother Cody, and Cody’s ghost-like wife, Angel. Ben hadn’t explained in detail, but Jenn knew enough to recognize that this impromptu little meeting was all about Angel.

  Cody O’Keefe was a danger to his own wife.

  That was not hard to believe, looking at their body language. Angel was standing there, nearly folded in on herself, and Cody’s posture was pure threat and defiance.

  And derision. He was looking at Jenn with openly displayed mocking and disbelief. At least Ben and Wade had the good manners not to stare and laugh.

  Jenn knew she looked disheveled. That was default for her these days. But right now she knew she looked particularly odd. She was wearing Danny’s too-large flip-flops, for one. Her own were MIA, and she’d found Dan’s in the kitchen while she was on the phone with Ben. Her T-shirt was Dan’s, too. It was blue and too tight across her baby-large breasts, with something written on the front. She looked down to find the logo for BSG—Battlestar Galactica—and the words “You may refer to me as GOD” displayed across her chest. Oh, good. It was a well-known quote from the kickass character Lieutenant Starbuck, but if you didn’t know the show, it would seem odd at best.

  At least Jenn was wearing her own pants—yoga length and stretchy with an elastic waistband that fit her still-baby-expanded girth. And yes, these days, also, she could revise that to at least she was wearing pants, period.

  Yay?

  Danny had been doing the Colin Shuffle in the kitchen when Jenn had rushed in. She’d grabbed the spare test kit from the drawer and a small box of chocolate milk from the fridge—she never knew what might make Ben’s blood sugar do its diabetes dance. She’d also snatched the baseball cap off Dan’s head—it, at least, said US Navy SEALs—kissed Colin’s sad little face, shouting, “Ben needs me to meet him at Burgers Plus, like, five minutes ago! There’s a Thing happening, something with Wade’s sister-in-law Angel, and Ben needs me to help him help Wade!” as she rushed out the door.

  “Wait! Help Wade?” Dan and Colin followed. Dan, too, raised his voice so she could hear him over the baby’s yowling. That child had lungs. “What’s going on? Need us to come, too?”

  “No, I’m sure I can handle it,” she’d told him as she got into her car. “B-Plus is very public.” And she, too, had a very large set of lungs, should she need to shout for help. “But speed is of the essence!”

  “Be careful,” Danny’d said, trusting her enough to let her go alone.

  Now, Jenn smiled brightly as she moved to stand beside Ben, looping her arm around his waist. “I’m ready for our take-your-sister-in-law-to-brunch brunch. With luck and a little restraint we’ll get through this without any fighting so that Angel and I can glowingly report our success to Ms. Standfast at the high school and get these boys back to class, where they should be.” She suspected this report-to-Ms.-S thing was something Ben had made up, but she’d make an honest kid out of him by following through. It certainly couldn’t hurt to show his and Wade’s extracurricular efforts to resolve their differences, even if they were uniting for painfully dark reasons.

  She aimed her smile at Wade’s older brother, whose scowl had deepened. “I’m sorry, you must be Cody,” she continued. “I’m Jenn. Gillman. My husband, Dan, is Ben’s big brother. The Navy SEAL. Well, the other Navy SEAL, since Ben’s sister Eden is married to a Navy SEAL, too.”

  Subtext: Lotta big, strong Navy SEALs around, pretty much all the time. Jenn kept her cheerful tone going. “But I think today’s meal is supposed to just be the boys and their—” she glanced at Ben as if for confirmation “—how did Ms. S put it? Positive female role models, right?”

  Ben nodded, even though Jenn had just completely made that up. “Yeah, yes, that’s exactly what she said.” His lie was so effortless and smooth, it was a little disturbing, and Jenn made a mental note to have a further discussion with the boy. Later. They’d be talking, in depth, about a lot of things, later.

  Wade chimed in, and his deception skills were world-class, too. “We’re also both supposed to talk about something we’re afraid of, which is kinda bullshit, because really the biggest thing any guy is afraid of is admitting that we’re afraid.”

  Looking at Wade while he said that, and knowing what Jenn now knew, her heart broke. This boy’s entire life was surely one giant terror-fest, since at any moment his secret could be discovered. And God, she was so freaking emotional right now, but this would’ve killed her regardless—the fact that he had to hide his true self from the world. She kept her smile firmly plastered on her face as she blinked back the tears that filled her eyes.

  “Well, how about I start,” Jenn said, tugging Ben with her toward Burger Plus’s front door, hoping their movement would make Wade and Angel follow, leaving Cody behind on the sidewalk. “I’m terrified that this three-month colic thing isn’t going to end. Colin, my baby, he cries constantly, and…”

  Shoot, Cody reached out and grabbed Angel’s arm. Wade had her by her other arm and had started to follow Ben and Jenni inside, but they now stopped because Cody was planted. And not letting go.

  In fact, his grip on his wife was so tight, he was surely going to leave marks.

  And the look on Angel’s face was one that Jenn would remember for the rest of her life. The woman’s expression was one of thorough defeat.

  “No,” Cody said, and the word was an absolute. “Not today. I worked late last night, and right now I need you at home. I need breakfast, now, before I have to go back in.”

  “Well, why don’t we bend Ms. S’s rules so you can have brunch with us,” Jenn started to say.

  But both Wade and Angel jumped on top of her, with their “No!”

  “It’s okay,” Wade added. “We can reschedule.”

  “I’m sorry, baby,” Angel told Cody, her voice contrite but shaking slightly. “I should’ve checked with you.” She glanced at Jenn as if recognizing how 1950s she sounded. “With your schedule. I didn’t realize you weren’t going right back to work, early this morning. This was… impromptu, and…”

  Wade chimed in again. “That was my fault,” he apologized to his brother. “When Ms. Standfast called, I figured we should just get this over with, so… Sorry, man.”

  Cody was looking hard, not just at Wade and Angel, but at Ben and Jenni, too. He was no idi
ot, and he knew something was up. But his only comment was to disparage his wife. “Who the hell says impromptu?”

  “I do,” Jenn said, still faux cheerful. “In fact, I say it all the time.”

  She felt Ben touch her arm in a warning not to, what? Call Cody out for being a stupid ass-hat?

  “Get in the goddamn truck,” Cody roughly ordered Angel, then stabbed a finger in Wade’s direction. “Get your ass home, too.”

  He didn’t wait for Wade’s mumbled yessir, he just walked away, pulling Angel with him, except, wait, that wasn’t a simple yessir that had come out of Wade’s mouth. The boy had ornamented it with a muttered you stupid asshole.

  It was not quite Jenn’s word choice, but it was close and she found herself smiling at Wade.

  Ben’s finger’s tightened slightly, and Jenni realized that she’d stopped hiding her indignation. Still, she couldn’t let it, or Angel, go without doing or saying… something.

  “Angel, let’s plan to talk later,” she called to the woman, working to make her voice sugary sweet. “I’ll call you so we can set up a date for lunch—something more convenient to your schedule. We need to get these boys back in school. All right?”

  But Angel barely even glanced at her as she pulled herself up into the passenger side of Cody’s truck. She sat there, staring straight ahead as he pulled out of the Burgers Plus lot.

  “Is she going to be okay?” Jenn asked Wade and Ben. Ben, too, looked to Wade.

  “For now, yeah,” Wade said. “Because with a little luck, he’s really going back to work. I saw his schedule on the counter in the kitchen.”

  “So she misses out on a chance to have a nice meal—and to do you a favor—because he can’t pour his own bowl of Cheerios?” Jenn allowed all of her pent up indignation to drip from her voice.

  “It wasn’t about breakfast,” Ben said quietly and Jenn wondered, not for the first time, exactly what he’d lived through before Dan and Eden had gotten him away from his drug addicted mother and her last awful husband. Ben turned and asked Wade, “Is Angel gonna tell Cody…” But then he glanced at Jenn, clearly unwilling to finish his thought.