“What, or maybe I should be asking who, exactly, is Boat Squad John?”
Pete glanced over at Shayla as he grimly drove toward the Grill and his confrontation with Schlossman. “It’s a long story, and we’re almost there.”
“Give me the log line.” At his blank look, she added, “Describe it in a tweet.”
He shook his head.
“You’re not on Twitter—not a big surprise. Okay, remember back when you were a kid, did your grandma get TV Guide?”
“Neither Grandma nor TV Guide made it to the island,” he told her. “But yeah, pre-island. TV Guide was on her coffee table.”
“Those little blurbs—a single short sentence—about a show or a movie are called log lines,” Shayla told him. “Friendly alien encounter turns ugly when a plan to enslave humanity is revealed. Man discovers his biological father is a notorious serial killer. Quirkily named boat squad of Navy SEAL candidates…what?”
“Surprise instructors with their grit and determination and unswerving loyalty to their misfit teammates,” he finished for her. “They started out as total underdogs, and finished up Hell Week at the very top of the class. It was…inspiring.”
“And Hans Schlossman was one of them?” she asked, but then answered her own question. “Hans is German for John. Were they really all named John?”
Pete nodded again. “Or a variation. The squad’s de facto leader was an enlisted kid named John Livingston. His nickname’s Seagull, for obvious reasons. His swim buddy was Jon Jackson—nicknamed Timebomb. There’s Q—John Pilkington. Doe—John Capano. And finally John Schlossman—his nickname’s Hans. He was the squad’s great big whining clod of dogshit stuck to their proverbial boots. He learned a lot that week, and, well, certainly impressed me the most.”
“Ouch,” Shayla said, giving him that soft-eyed look of empathy that made his chest feel tight. “So if he did mess with Maddie, that’s gotta hurt even worse, because you liked him so much. I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah, I’m not sure I liked him,” Pete said. “But I liked that I was wrong about him. Or that I thought I was wrong about him. I don’t like that this proves I was right, you know, from the start—and yeah, you’re right, I’m lying. I liked the asshole. Fuck.” His stomach hurt.
“You’re an extremely interesting man,” Shay said with a laugh but then asked, “What exactly did he do? Hans.”
“He requested to be medically rolled, to keep Boat Squad John intact.” Pete knew she had no clue what that meant, so as he braked to a stop at yet another endless red light, he expounded. “One of his squadmates got hurt, so he pretended he was hurt, too. When a SEAL candidate gets injured, he’s not kicked out of the program, he’s rolled back, into a newer class, so he’s allowed to heal before he continues with the training. The catch is that he’s got to do Hell Week all over again. So if a man gets rolled on the last day of Hell Week, he’s particularly screwed. That’s what happened to Timebomb. And the entire rest of Squad John—led by Seagull, but including Hans—they asked to be rolled, too. They were all willing to do Hell Week again, simply to keep Boat Squad John together. That’s a pretty huge thing.”
Shayla nodded. “I can only imagine.”
“It’s what we want—what we’re looking for during BUD/S,” Pete told her as the light finally went green. “Men who understand what it means to be part of a team. That kind of loyalty is…” He shook his head. “Hard to find.”
“Loyalty’s a lot like love,” Shay murmured. “And love is…crazy. It happens or it doesn’t. You can’t force it—or control it. Love just is. Trust me, I’m a romance writer—I’ve given this a great deal of thought. People can’t make themselves fall in love, and they also can’t stop themselves from falling in love. And sometimes it’s awkward and inappropriate—like if one person’s only fifteen and the other’s twentysomething. But that age difference is pretty meaningless if they’re twenty-five and thirtysomething.”
“So you think it’s okay for Maddie to date a grown man?”
“Of course not,” she said. “There’s a reason we have laws about age of consent. She’s a child in the eyes of the law. But truthfully, neither one of us knows her very well. It’s possible she’s mature beyond her years. It’s also possible that she’s completely messed up, and using sex for power, or as a way to prove to herself that she’s of value. But whatever the case, it’s also possible that she truly loves this guy. And if she does, if it’s real, then she’ll still love him when she’s eighteen. And if he’s got any kind of moral compass, he’ll recognize that and behave accordingly.”
As Pete signaled to make the left turn into the parking lot for the Grill—it was nearly full, but there were a few spots near the Dumpster—Shayla continued, “Remember Dingo’s reaction to finding out Maddie’s only fifteen. If telling people—men—that she’s older is part of her MO, it’s entirely possible that she approached Hans. Which brings us back to your personal experiences as a young man, asking for ID when a pretty girl implied that she wanted to get busy with you in the back of your car.”
He smiled grimly as he pulled into the lot and backed into the space. “I’ve never had sex in the back of anyone’s car.”
She rolled her eyes, thinking he was being cute with semantics. “In the back of your truck, then.”
“Car, truck, motor vehicle,” he said. “Nope. Well, an RV once, but it had a king-size bed, so I don’t think that counts.”
“Definitely not,” she said. “So, wait. You had a car, but you and Lisa really never…?” She quickly backpedaled. “I don’t mean to pry or be creepy. She just seemed like…” She started again. “Her character, at least in the way you’ve been telling the story, with her just showing up in your car—taking what she wants…I just thought…”
Pete shook his head. “We didn’t hook up until we were both in college, and by then, we lived in dorms. And after Lisa, I was…well, careful. And older. Sex in cars is a teenaged thing.”
“Yeah, you don’t read enough romance novels,” Shayla told him. “It’s not just a teen thing. It’s a symbol of I want you and I can’t wait. It’s hot.”
“Yeah, but that’s fiction,” he argued. “In real life, don’t you get, like, a cop shining his flashlight through the car window, which—maybe it’s me—feels like a mood killer.”
She laughed and her eyes sparkled, and she even blushed a little, and his body shifted—just slightly with a Hello, I’m alive—as he realized they were sitting here talking about sex. And he’d forgotten for that brief moment that they’d come to the Grill to find out if Hans fucking Schlossman was sleeping with Maddie.
But then Timebomb Jackson’s pale blue late-model sedan—a remarkably sedate method of transport, considering Jackson’s love of both state-of-the-art weaponry and technology—pulled into the parking lot and took the spot on the other side of the Dumpster.