Into the Storm (16 page)

Jenk glanced at him. “Eventually she’s going to figure out that Lyle is a lying piece of shit.”

“Eventually the polar ice caps will melt. You gonna be celibate until
that
happens, too?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Jenk scoffed.

“Said the man who’s getting ready to be crowned the stupid king,” Izzy pointed out.

“If I’m so in love with her,” Jenk mused, the
her
in question being Tracy, “why am I even thinking about going home with another woman?”

“Because you’re not a fool,” Izzy said. “Yeah, maybe pining away for her is romantic, but it’s also fucking stupid. What do you think
she’s
doing tonight?”

Jenk shook his head.

“She’s seeing her ex tonight, right?” Izzy pressed him. “Right?”

“Right,” Jenk said. “But—”

“Fuck but,” Izzy said. “She’s definitely seeing this guy—and I mean that in the how could she miss seeing him when he’s right on top of her, going,
oh baby, yes baby, come now baby, I’m right behind you, I missed you sooo much…
”

“Thank you for that image,” Jenk said.

“You know,” Izzy mused, “I had a girlfriend where the sex after we broke up was a hundred times better than it was when we were officially seeing each other. Renee. She was into some na-a-a-sty shit.” She still called him every now and then, although he’d learned—the hard way—to just say no. But oh, Renee, Renee…

Except this tangent, lovely as it was, wasn’t helping Jenk who, although he wouldn’t admit it, was looking for a good excuse or a solid rationalization so he could go home tonight with Lindsey.

“Look,” Izzy said. “Maybe Tracy’s the one. And in a couple months when she’s finally done having breakup sex with what’s-his-name—”

“Lyle.”

“Right. Maybe after she’s dumped Lyle for good, you guys’ll hook up, and it’ll be great. And birds will sing and flowers will bloom and you’ll marry her, tra la, tra la, and live happily ever after—which, I should point out, includes never, ever having another encounter with a gorgeous, smart, funny, sexy-as-shit woman who wants to rock your world for a night or two, no strings.” And that one clearly hit home, so Izzy added another “Never, ever again,” for good measure. Unless, of course, Jenk was a cheating bastard like Knox, who was already messing around on his third wife.

Jenk stopped pretending that he wasn’t watching Lindsey as she laughed at something Alyssa said. A few more brews, and he’d surely give in. Izzy ordered him another.

“You think that’s really what Lindsey wants?” Jenk asked. “No strings?” He frowned slightly, as if he suddenly had an issue with the concept. Or as if he were maybe realizing that a couple of nights wasn’t going to be enough to cross everything off his “Want To Do” list, as far as Lindsey was concerned.

“I’m good with body language, and I’m virtually certain that she wants tonight.” Izzy stood up. “But there’s this really cool new way to find out what other people are thinking,” he told Eminem. “You go up to them, and you talk to them. It works almost every time.”

Dinner was exquisite.

Tracy had ordered the veal. Lyle had ordered a three-hundred-dollar bottle of wine, most of which she’d single-handedly killed.

Dessert was something called Double Death by Chocolate—mousse in a chocolate-encrusted pyramid, with a cookie crust that was beyond divine.

The entire meal probably cost as much as one month’s rent.

For her, not for Lyle, who still lived in Manhattan.

Tracy dabbed at her lips with the fancy cloth napkin. She’d agreed to have dinner with him on the condition that they not speak—at all—about his hopes for a reconciliation until after dessert.

It hadn’t left much to discuss, but Lyle could fill hours talking about himself, about his work.

He didn’t used to be such a pompous ass.

Well, okay, maybe he did. He’d always loved to hear himself talk. And he’d always considered himself—probably correctly—to be the smartest man in any room. But at least, back when they’d first met, he’d been able to laugh about it.

He’d still been spending his Wednesday evenings doing pro bono work back then, before his ambition to make partner became the driving force behind every breath he took.

He now cleared his throat. Tracy hated the self-important way he did that, signaling a change of subject. But it was time. It was now officially after dessert, and Lyle was getting down to business.

“I want you to come back home. I
need
you to come back, Tracy.”

She put down her napkin. “Why would I want to do that?”

“Because you love me,” he told her.

Tracy just shook her head, wishing she hadn’t had all that wine. “It’s not that simple,” she insisted. “You know, I’ve been seeing someone.”

That was not quite true, although there had been that night when Weeble—Mark—had kissed her. She’d actually had another man’s tongue in her mouth, which was a first for her.

Lyle nodded gravely as if he actually believed her. “And of course there’s your job. Your mother told me you’ve found work that you like? For some kind of company that provides…security guards, is it?”

Trust Lyle to make it sound as if she worked dispatch for Rent-a-Cop. And yet he’d always insisted that she have a job, no doubt afraid that if she stayed home all day, she’d start sleeping with the building superintendent.
No, Lyle, it’s
you
who screws everything that moves.
Tracy just flirted. Always and endlessly. She’d gotten so good at it, she hardly knew she was doing it. But she was—passive-aggressively getting back at Lyle for his indiscretions.

“Troubleshooters Incorporated provides personal protection. Personal security. With a focus on counterterrorism. Our assignments take us worldwide. We save lives.” Not that the receptionist would do much travel or lifesaving. But still. And now was probably not the time to admit that she was on the verge of being fired.

If she was going back to Lyle, he was going to have to work for it.

“I can see that it’s going to take more than promises,” he told her, “to convince you—”

“Frankly,” Tracy said, “the only thing I’m convinced of, is that if I do come back to New York, it will only be a matter of time before you’re fucking your newest paralegal in our bed.”

The waiter was right there, refilling their glasses with Tunisian well water, or whatever it was that Lyle drank these days, but he didn’t so much as blink.

Lyle wasn’t happy about either her language or her lack of discretion—wasn’t that hysterical—and he waited until the man had glided away before he spoke. “I give you my word. That won’t happen again.”

She laughed. “And I’m just supposed to believe you? Last time when you promised, that was just a promise. But now, you’ve given me your
word
so—”

“I’m giving you more than my word,” he told her, reaching into his inside jacket pocket for…A jeweler’s box. Dear God, had this actually worked? He pushed it across the table. “Tracy, we’re so good together. My life doesn’t work without you. Marry me.”

Had he really just said…? Tracy opened the box, and sure enough, it held a ring with a diamond the size of a small planet.

“I know I’m not perfect,” he told her, with, God, real tears in his eyes. “I’ll never be perfect. But I love you, and I know we can make this work.”

We
can make this work. Not,
With a great deal of restraint and therapy and hard work to keep from giving in to constant temptation,
I
can change and not be a cheating son of a bitch who can’t keep his pants zipped.

But when she saw the inscription engraved on the inside of the ring,
Tracy and Lyle forever,
she found herself nodding, even as she started to cry. This was what she’d wanted for so many years.

It was too late, it was too late…
How could it be too late? This
was
what she’d wanted. She missed living in New York in Lyle’s expensive condo with doormen who knew her name.
How are you today, Miss Shapiro?
She missed dining at expensive restaurants like this one.

And she missed being part of a
we
. God, but she hated living alone.

She must’ve said yes. Had she really said yes? Because he ordered champagne, a bottle to go, and the check, and his car.

And he kissed her as they waited outside, as only Lyle could kiss her, and she was both laughing and crying as he pulled her with him into the backseat.

He popped the cork right there, telling his driver to get them to the Hotel del Coronado as quickly as possible, and they drank directly from the bottle.

Of course, Lyle being Lyle, he couldn’t wait even twenty minutes, and he pulled her so that she was straddling him as she kissed him, never mind the driver watching in the rearview mirror before he closed the privacy partition.

One hand fumbled with his pants, the other reached for the ceiling control to the radio. Loud music came on, then he used both hands to free himself, to slip her panties down her legs. God, God, God, it had been too long.

He thrust, hard, into her, and God help her, but it felt so good.

Lyle may have been a rat-bastard, but he’d become, very rapidly after they’d first hooked up, an exquisite lover, even while delivering a quickie in the backseat of a car.

He remembered just where to touch her to set her on fire, and when he laughed at her response, she knew she’d given away the fact that she hadn’t had sex in ages, that she hadn’t been with anyone else since she’d packed her bags and left him.

“Ah, Tracy,” he breathed, his voice rough.

And she forgot about the driver, forgot about the traffic, forgot about the fact that a diamond ring didn’t mean a damned thing—that it wasn’t a magic talisman that would keep him either honest or true.

Lindsey had caught the attention of a particularly persistent jarhead.

Jenk just sat at the bar, afraid to jump in and come to her rescue.

Some women didn’t like being rescued, and he knew for a fact that Lindsey could take care of herself.

As he watched, she spoke to the man—a Marine corporal—and the smile and nod she gave him as she moved away was clearly a dismissal. Yet still he followed her across the Ladybug’s little dance floor, clearly smitten.

He stopped her with a hand on her arm. He was a little too drunk and a little too rough, and Jenk found himself on his feet and halfway across the room before he even knew he was moving.

Of course, Lindsey chose that exact moment to look over at him and…“Here’s my boyfriend now,” she said, turning and pointing to…Jenk? “Hi, honey.”

“Hi,” he said, closing those last few steps between them. “Honey.”

She slipped her arm around his waist, which left him with his arm around her shoulder, his hand against the smoothness of her bare shoulder. Eee Gods. She snuggled even closer. “Mark, Frank, Frank, Mark,” she introduced them, and Jenk found himself shaking the hand of one very disappointed Marine.

“You’re a very lucky man,” Frank-the-Marine told Jenk with the super-seriousness of the seriously inebriated. “I, too, have a total thing for hot Asian chicks.” He lowered his voice conspiratorially. “LYFMs, you know?”

The son of a bitch wasn’t kidding. He wasn’t making a joke—an offensive one at that. He was dead serious, and he’d just called Lindsey…“Hey, honey,” Jenk asked her. “You want I should beat the crap out of this SWDW for you?”

She got the beginning. “Stupid, white…?”

“Dickless wonder,” he finished for her, “which is what he’ll be when I send him crawling out of here, crying for his mommy.”

Frank wasn’t impressed. In fact, he bristled. “I’m not afraid of you, junior.”

Oh, no he didn’t. Dude was batting a thousand. Jenk could see from Lindsey’s face that she expected him to lose it.

Instead, he smiled at her. “Honey, I’m thinking I’ll just kill him instead. Do you know, did I already use up my monthly allotment of Marines?”

“Oh,” she said. “Yeah, I think, um…”

“See,” Jenk told Frank, “the military spends so much money training Navy SEALs, we’re each given a certain number of, well, they’re called Transgression Points.”

“You’re a Navy SEAL?” Frank was looking a lot less belligerent at that newsflash.

“We get twenty points a month. They’re good for everything from running red lights, or getting faced and busting up a bar, to murder—well, manslaughter, because you really can’t plan to do it. Well, you can, but…Anyway. Twenty points works out to be either two civilians or five Marines. Right? Because Marines are, you know, subhuman?”

“I think you already got your five for December,” Lindsey played along beautifully.

“Aw, shit. Already?” Jenk complained.

She nodded, making the most perfect
too bad
face. “The thing at the mall. With the truck?”

It was all he could do not to kiss her, she was that good. “Damn,” he said instead. “That’s right. I got four in one stomp of the gas pedal. Bad move. And then number five was that other corporal who offended you with that Amy Tan joke.”

“You’re a Navy SEAL?” Frank asked again.

“Yeah,” Jenk said. “But hang on, okay? Don’t go anywhere. My friend Izzy’s here somewhere. He’s a SEAL, too. Maybe he hasn’t killed all his December Marines. He probably wouldn’t mind killing you for me, considering you called my fiancée a little. Yellow. Fucking. Machine.” His last words were through clenched teeth, and Frank actually blanched.

“I’m, like, so not yellow,” Lindsey said, a pitch-perfect imitation of a Valley Girl. “I mean, look at my arms. Yellow? I don’t
think
so. I don’t know which of the Western explorers is to blame—Marco Polo or what
ev
er—but the genius who came up with
yellow?
Seriously color-blind?”

Frank was gone. Out the door. It was going to be a long time before he came back to the Bug.

“I guess you don’t have a problem with
little,
” Jenk noted.

She laughed, but he could tell she was still pretty pissed off. “I’m sorry about that. Thank you, though, for not killing him and getting yourself in trouble.”

“Does that happen a lot?” he asked.