Except, he hadn’t been to the Bug in a long time. And not just because he now had a fifteen-year-old for a housemate. Over the past few years or so, even the several hours’ investment into a no-strings bar hookup had seemed too labor-intensive.
And even though there was no way in hell that he was going to have any kind of a thing with a woman who lived across the street—complications and repercussions would abound, and breaking up would involve having to move house—he was suddenly curious about Shayla’s lack of ring. Maybe she was allergic to metals. Was anyone allergic to gold? He didn’t think so. It just seemed so freaking unlikely that she was divorced. Widowed, maybe, but then wouldn’t she have kept wearing her wedding band?
He got some answers with an easy fishing expedition. “You, uh, talk about, um, shitty exes like you have direct experience. Or is that just, you know, research for your books…?”
She glanced at him as she slowed to make the left turn into the mall parking garage, again whispering a small shh before she answered. “My ex is actually a friend. At least he is now. Okay, maybe he’s more of a frenemy, but we definitely get along. We have to. The boys need us to.”
And now Pete was curious about what kind of fool would fuck up his marriage to this woman.
Shayla was still explaining. “And FYI, it’s never going to end. I’m going to be eighty and attending Tevin’s as-of-yet-unborn son’s son’s wedding, and Carter is going to be sitting right there, too. With whatever number child-bride he’s up to by then—Ding! That’s the kind of snark I make sure I leave out when I’m talking about him to the boys.” She laughed as she glanced at Pete again. “I’m going to blame you for that. I think there’s something about you being so honest with me that makes me a little too honest in return. I just…Well, silly me, I thought forever actually meant forever, so I was…blindsided when he told me it didn’t.”
“Lisa completely vaporized my heart,” Pete found himself saying. It was weird. He hadn’t meant to say that. He’d just opened his mouth and the words had fallen out. He was almost too shocked to be embarrassed. “Whoa. Sorry. I’m…”
Shay glanced at him again as she continued down another level. “Vaporized,” she whispered back. “That is a fantastic word. It’s called a broken heart, but it feels more like a complete Alderaan than…Well, it feels like it’s just gone, with this weird empty hole in its place. But Carter didn’t do that to me. It was my best friend, Kate, who vaporized not just my heart, but, really, all my internal organs. And part of my brain, I think.”
Jesus. “Your ex cheated with your best friend…?”
“What? No! God!” Shayla laughed. “Noooo. No, no, no, no, no! Two completely separate incidents! Sorry, sorry, sorry, I so didn’t mean to imply that! Wow, and I’m supposed to be a professional communicator!”
But then there they were. At the spot where the maroon sedan had parked, and she fell immediately silent.
Because the car was gone.
“Fuck.” Pete quickly added, “Sorry.”
“The word is in my vocabulary, Lieutenant, and it seems entirely appropriate. I mean, phooey! Fudge!” She shook her head. “Nope. Not the same.”
He found himself laughing again, and she was smiling, too, but her smile was tinged with her concern. “We probably could’ve guessed that Dingo’s car wouldn’t still be here,” she continued. “I’m sorry if I wasted time and…somehow made it worse.”
“No,” Pete said. “It was worth the shot. And you definitely…aren’t…making any of it worse. Not even close. I appreciate your…friendship. Sincerely. But, I’m the one who’s taking up too much of your time. We should get you home.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Petty Officer First Class Izzy Zanella looked around the tidy little living room of the bungalow that he’d helped his buddy Grunge—AKA Lieutenant Peter Greene—move into just a few short months ago.
It was surreal. Not just the fact that Grunge finally lived off-base in a real house with a yard and everything, but that he lived there with his teenaged daughter.
That had been the shocker—the fact that the SEAL officer had a fifteen-year-old daughter that he’d never so much as mentioned to Izzy. Or to anyone else, apparently.
At least not until that day, two months ago, when Grunge had asked Izzy out for lunch, which was as eyebrow-raisingly unusual as if Grunge had told Izzy he’d pick him up in a limo and give him a wrist corsage, too.
Still, Izzy’d gone and they’d sat outside at everyone’s favorite little Greek restaurant in downtown Coronado where Grunge had exploded his informational mortar round. “Lisa, my ex—well, we were never married, but…Anyway, she was killed in a car accident and now I’m getting custody of our daughter, Maddie.”
Whaaaa…?!
The first Izzy had heard of Grunge’s ex, Lisa, had been a few months earlier, in a passing conversation. The SEAL officer had referred to her only as a former girlfriend who’d been into musical theater. He’d definitely skipped the whole got-busy-and-had-a-baby-with-her part.
But Izzy managed to push away his indignant hurt—how do you not tell a close friend about something as enormous as the fact that you’ve got a daughter? You don’t, ergo he and Grunge were not close, and probably far less friends than Izzy had thought, as well. But boo-hoo, he’d been mistaken. His poor widdle hurt feelings were nothing compared to Grunge’s—someone the lieutenant had once cared about, deeply enough to make a baby with, had been killed in a car accident.
So Izzy’d said, “Oh, man, Pete, I’m so sorry. How can I help?”
Turns out Grunge had wanted to borrow Ben, Izzy’s wife Eden’s teenaged brother—who was living with them full-time these days. Grunge wanted help in picking out a teenager-appropriate rental house.
He’d also hoped that Ben could become Maddie’s insta-friend, but as Ben had pointed out over the past months of trying, these things just couldn’t be forced. Apparently Maddie hadn’t warmed to Ben—or vice versa. And although Ben had gone above and beyond with his attempts to befriend the girl, she continued to shut him out.
Which brought them to here-and-now, with Maddie AWOL, and Grunge getting more silent and tight-lipped as each hour passed, until he’d announced that he was hiking over to the high school because he couldn’t just sit still any longer.
Izzy had volunteered to go with, but Grunge had asked him to stay and try to break the password on the shiny new laptop computer he’d bought for Maddie—to see if she’d left any clues behind. Clues like what, Izzy didn’t know, but he was pretty certain she hadn’t left behind a Word doc called Itinerary of Where I’ll Stay When I Run Away. Still, he’d done as Grunge asked by calling all of the various gearheads and hackers that he knew, both in the SEAL Teams and out.