CHAPTER TWELVE

The sun was starting to set before Shayla finally got another text from Peter.

He’d dashed her a quick one earlier: Nobody home in Van Nuys, nothing from the aunt, going in to an unscheduled meeting on base, more later.

She’d texted him back: I’m here if you need help w anything. Chapt 2??

She knew that he’d know that stood for the second installment in the When Peter Met Lisa story he was writing as part of the let-Maddie-get-to-know-him offensive. But he didn’t text back and he didn’t text back, and she tried very hard not to keep going into the living room and kitchen, where her windows had a clear shot of his empty driveway.

After school, Tevin had dropped her car off, but that had taken all of forty-five seconds. Carter had been in a hurry as usual—her ex-husband was a gifted musician, but his time management skills were for crap—so she’d gotten little more than a “Keys are on the key hook!” shout, and waves from all three of them, as Carter zoomed off in his sweet little sports car, taking T and Frank to his place. Their shared custody meant that she had the boys every other week—Thursdays were transition days. Although odds were strong that Carter would get an out-of-town gig and drop them off early Saturday morning with an apology and a promise to pick them up again on Monday, but that was okay, because she missed her children when they weren’t around, and frankly, she never had plans. Not-writing and more not-writing. Maybe a trip to the gym or a run in the park.

Harry popped in. Yeah, but this weekend you might have plans of the sexy kind.

Stop.

He still not home?

Shayla pointedly turned her back on the window where, yes, Peter’s truck was still not in his drive.

Ooh, maybe he’s made a connection with Fiona’s aunt Susan. Maybe they’re having a drink together right now—no, maybe he’s fucking her in the law office bathroom—

“Stop!” Shit, she’d actually said that out loud. Fictional-characters’-voices-in-one’s-head was appropriately, quirkily writer-crazy. But talking back to them, out loud? Nope. That was crazy-crazy, and she was not that.

You shush me all the time. Out loud.

That was different.

No, it’s not. And your SEAL has heard you do it, and yet he still wanted you to kiss him—

“If he wanted that so much, why didn’t he just kiss me?” Damnit, she was losing it.

It was then that her phone swooshed and she lunged for it to see, yes, Peter had finally texted her. Sorry about the delay, he wrote. Problem on base, solved now. Lots of waiting around though, so I “wrote” chap two. OK if I email to have you read first?

Of course, she typed back and hit send.

Okay, with the speed of your response, you just essentially told him you’ve been sitting around, waiting for him to text, Harry pointed out.

She had been. But only because she wanted to help him find Maddie.

Riiight. Aren’t you gonna ask him if it was good? Harry asked. Go on and ask him that. You know. His sex with Aunt Susan. Isn’t that your job as the quirky neighbor? To make sure he gets a proper romance-hero-worthy fucking? Shouldn’t you make sure they hooked up, and encourage him to do so, immediately, if they didn’t? “Life is too short,” you could tell him that. Or YOLO him. While you bring him a neighborly tuna casserole.

Whoosh! Email sent, came Peter’s texted reply, with another whoosh for his thank you, hot on its heels.

Shay’s computer was on the kitchen counter, so she opened her email and started to read.

About two weeks into our ride-to-school-based friendship, Lisa called me.

“Has Mr. Jimenez called you yet?” she asked.

“Why would Mr. Jimenez call me?” I asked. He was the drama teacher. He taught English, too, but I wasn’t in his class.

“So he hasn’t called yet,” Lisa said. “Good. When he calls? I need you to tell him that you were part of this big Shakespearean drama program, and that you played Romeo. You know, on your island.”

“But that’s not true,” I pointed out. “I mean, I’ve read some Shakespeare, but mostly his comedies. I started Romeo and Juliet, but…”

“That’s close enough,” she said. “I’ll help you learn the lines. We’ve got nine whole days before opening night.”

“Wait,” I said. “What? Whoa…”

She hit me with some classic Star Wars. “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope.” And then she told me that the kid who was originally cast as Romeo got suspended for drinking—along with his bestie, who just happened to be his understudy. Mr. Jimenez was going to cancel the performances, because who were they going to find to play Romeo on such short notice…?

That was when Lisa told him that not only was I an accomplished actor, but that I’d already played Romeo, so I’d just need to brush up on my lines.

Lisa was a really good actress, so of course he believed her.

I told her I wasn’t willing to lie, and she said, “It’s not lying, it’s just bending the truth. Stretching it.”

“That I’m qualified because I’ve read some Shakespeare…?”

“No, because I’m going to meet you over at Hiroko’s right now, and we’re gonna rehearse the crap out of the audition scene. That way, you won’t be home when Mr. Jimenez calls, so when you do talk to him, in school tomorrow, you won’t be lying when you say you know the part inside and out.”

“Audition scene?” I was not happy about that. “There’s an audition?”

“Tomorrow afternoon,” she told me. “It’s Friday, so that gives us the entire weekend for you to learn the rest of the play.”

First it was I’d have nine days to learn lines that were in iambic pentameter, and now it was the weekend? Except, the way she’d said it, we’d be spending that time together. I was slowly warming to the idea.

“The audition scene is Act One, Scene Five,” Lisa told me. “Where Romeo and Juliet meet.”

“Wherefore art thou Romeo?” I asked. “The scene with the balcony?” I’d seen the Bugs Bunny version, at least.

“Nope,” she said. “The scene at the party. With the kisses. There are two. Kisses.”

She knew damn well what she was doing when she dropped that statement there. I’m pretty sure she was the one who picked that scene as the official audition, because yeah, Shakespeare wrote some kisses into R&J’s flirty first encounter.

And since I was already madly in love with Lisa…

I met her at Hiroko’s and we rehearsed the scene, kisses included. And I auditioned for Mr. Jimenez without actually directly lying to him, which was good, because I’m not sure I could’ve done it, even with all of those ongoing promised liplocks.

In short, I played Romeo to Lisa’s Juliet in high school. And I kissed her about four thousand times which was really nice, but sadly didn’t magically turn me into her boyfriend, the way I’d hoped it would.

Throughout the run of the play, she continued to date her douchebag sports hero boyfriend. In fact, she stayed with him—Brad—until graduation, when he broke up with her in a spectacularly douchie way.

That’ll be Chapter Three.

Here’s a link to that scene from R&J. It’s pretty fun. Lisa killed it. I was okay, but only because she was so good.

Please be safe.

“I love it—it’s a poem,” Dingo said as Maddie finished reading aloud the scene in question. “A sonnet—it rhymed. Did you notice?”

Maddie looked up from the screen of her phone and over at him. “Yes. Did you not just hear me reading it? And rhyming?”

“Yeah, but some people who shall remain unnamed—Fiona—didn’t appreciate literature. Did you know that I ended up writing a paper for her on Romeo and Juliet, because she didn’t seem to notice or care just how much Shakespeare had it going on.”

“Romeo and Juliet is massively stupid—they were both idiots. And Fiona’s an idiot, too. I read that paper—and I definitely wondered who wrote it because I knew she didn’t. I’m impressed, but only because I didn’t know you could even read.”

“Ha-ha, you’re so funny.”

“Ha-ha, you’re not.” Maddie shut off her phone, plunging Dingo’s car into semi-darkness in the lot of the truck stop just north of the San Diego city line, where they’d stopped for the night.

It had taken far too long today to cash that check Hiroko had given them, since the bank where Ding had been certain he’d be able to cash it had flatly refused to accept his ID.

They’d wasted a shitload of time arguing about using a payday loan place—which ended up also not cashing it.

Plan C involved them driving around and trying to find Dingo’s stupid friend Daryl, so they could ask him to cash the check for them.

They’d finally found Daryl, and then began a search for an ATM, because it was already dark and his bank was closed.

But they’d finally—finally—gotten the money, minus five bucks for Daryl’s help, and instead of immediately hitting the road, they spent a few dollars on a bag of potatoes, and then had to drive around to find a Whole Foods with a café microwave that actually worked. It was The Martian diet—several microwaved potatoes, plus a package of overripe cherry tomatoes that had been marked down to 43 cents. Half were rotten, but the other half were delicious, and with the potatoes, Maddie’s stomach finally stopped grumbling and growling.

It was only then, after dinner, that they’d hit the road. Only to have extreme fatigue set in, because they’d been up since dawn.

“Maybe you should drop ’em a quick text,” Dingo said quietly now. “Your da and his girlfriend.”

“My mother showed me pictures,” Maddie told him. “Of Romeo and Juliet. From high school. We talked—at length—about the fact that schools never do the good Shakespeare plays, they always do the same old stupid ones. And she never told me—ever—that the kid in those photos, playing Romeo, was my father.”

“That’s…weird,” he said.

She turned to look at the outline of his profile in the dim parking lot light. He’d built another wall with piles of stuff between them, but she still had a clear shot of his face. “What if he’s lying?”

Dingo turned to look at her. “Seems unlikely. Especially since GAH can corroborate the story.”

“How would I know that she wouldn’t lie, too. For him.” Great-Aunt Hiroko had obviously liked Maddie’s father more than she’d liked Lisa.

Dingo sighed. “You know, love, it’s all right to be mad at your ma. Not telling you that your father was right there in the pictures she was showing you is pretty mean. Selfish-like. Like, she didn’t want to tell you anything good about him at all, so she just didn’t tell you anything. That’s not fair. I know I’d be mad.”

“I always thought that she loved him, but that he didn’t love her—us—back,” Maddie said. “But what if he was the one who loved her? What if she just kept using him, the way she used him in today’s story, so she could do that play? What if she was the terrible one?”

“Your dad seems pretty smart,” Dingo said. “Self-aware. Like, yeah, okay, he caved to the pressure and played Romeo, but he knew exactly what was going on. And, you know, they say love is blind, but it’s hard to imagine someone as smart as him falling in love with someone truly terrible.”

Maddie shot him a look. “Like you with Fiona?”

“Me and Fee,” Dingo said with another heavy sigh, “was never my proudest moment. A perfect example of the flesh being weak. Thanks ever so much for bringing that up.”

Maddie laughed. “You’re lucky she didn’t kill you—like tear off your head and devour you after sex.”

“Well, there’s still a chance for her to do that tomorrow—the tearing-my-head-off part. The sex is long over and done. I’ve decided to embrace a vow of celibacy for a few years.”

“A few years?” Maddie laughed. “Yeah, that vow’s gonna last. Until the next time you go to the beach and meet some pretty blond girl in a bikini and—whoa! What’s that? Is that…?”

“Earthquake! Shite! Hold on!” Dingo confirmed, knocking his wall away to reach for her. “It feels like a big one!”

Pete was in the kitchen when the tremors started.

He’d washed again after returning home late from the base, and he was wearing board shorts and flip-flops and little else, his hair still damp from his shower.

He was gazing into the fridge, as if hoping something more exciting would magically appear when the unmistakable shaking started.

Shayla! Shit! And Maddie! Jesus, did Maddie know what to do in a quake? He had no idea—he also had no idea where she was, but he hoped to hell she was somewhere safe.

He swiftly closed the refrigerator door, making sure it latched, and moved away from the kitchen cabinets and into the doorway that led to the living room. If it was going to be a big one, the cabinet doors would come open and dishes and glasses would turn into missiles. Likewise, keeping his distance from the front windows was smart, and Jesus, the shaking was so intense, the walls seemed to ripple as his furniture jumped and shook. As he figured out his next move, he braced himself against the doorframe—if he hadn’t, he might’ve fallen down.

The power went out, plunging him into darkness—and great, it wasn’t just his house, it was the entire street at least.

Throughout the neighborhood, car alarms had triggered and were going off, but they sounded almost faint beneath the quake’s roar. Movement of the earth’s plates was never a quiet thing. Still, he heard a crash from behind him in the kitchen—and he didn’t need light to know that Maddie’s new computer had been out on the counter. With his luck, that had been what he’d just heard hitting the floor, probably along with the empty mugs from the coffee that he’d shared with Shayla last night.

He couldn’t see Shay’s house in the pitch-darkness. He knew it was stupid as fuck to move, but he scrambled across the room on his hands and knees—the shaking immediately pushed him down to the still-moving floor—and out the front door.

The row of shrubs that lined his front path tripped him, and he went down, hard, but used his momentum to roll farther out onto the lawn and away from the windows, as the tremor finally, blessedly stopped. The postquake “silence” was filled with those car alarms and barking dogs—and despite that, it still felt quiet without the low-pitched rumble.

As Pete pushed himself up, his eyes were already adjusting to the blackout—it seemed to be contained to just his neighborhood because he could see the haze from lights just a few streets away, which was good. “Shayla!” He ran across the street to her house. None of her windows seemed to have broken, either—that, too, was good. The entire quake had lasted maybe twenty-five seconds—from experience, he was guessing it was around a five, maybe five-point-two. Not exactly small, but certainly not the Big One.

Still, Shayla wouldn’t know that, its being her first since she was a kid. “Shay!” He banged on her front door, but she didn’t open it, didn’t answer.

Pete ran around to the back and—

There she was.

Her back door hung open—she’d made it out of the house and was sitting in the middle of her yard, her face lit from the screen of her cellphone.

“Shay! You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said, looking up at him and sounding extremely normal, like riding out a five-point-two was no big thing. “Are you?”

“Yeah.”

She held up her phone. “Maddie’s okay. The boys and Carter are, too. I tried to call them, but I got one of those weird busy signals, but then I remembered that texts often get through when calls don’t, so I texted, and they all just texted me back.” Her thumbs moved across her phone. “I’m texting Maddie that you’re okay. She was shaken, pun not intended, and worried about you—I mean, she didn’t say that, but…She was definitely worried. I was just about to go check on you. I texted, but you didn’t answer.”

“I don’t have my phone.” Pete sat down next to her. She was sitting, tailor-style, right on the ground, dressed in what must’ve been her pajamas—a barely there white tank top over boxers that were covered with little flowers, possibly pink ones. Her arms and legs were bare but she didn’t seem to notice that the night air was cold.

She’d managed to put on sneakers before leaving her house—no doubt she’d had them right beneath her bed. For such a rule-follower, it was weird that she hadn’t stayed put in a doorway, but then he realized that she’d come out here so she could check on her kids, and go rescue them single-handedly, if she’d had to.

Her phone whooshed with the sound of an incoming text that she immediately read. “What?” She looked up at Pete with an expression of outrage and disapproval. “Tevin says that was only a four-point-nine on the Richter scale. Seriously?”

He had to smile. “My guess was a little higher,” he told her. “But just a little. The amount of shake also depends on depth—how shallow it is. And the location of the epicenter.”

“Tevin says it was about a half mile east of us.”

“That sounds right.”

“So Southern California’s still here.” She chose to embrace the good news rather than be pissed that the quake wasn’t as big as she’d thought. “No need to go into Zombie Apocalypse Prevention Mode.”

He smiled again at that. “Nope.”

Her phone whooshed, and she looked down at it and laughed. “Earthquake selfie,” she said, showing him a photo of her sons, their heads together, making wide-eyed, openmouthed faces into the camera. She used her flash to take a similar photo of herself, smiling as she sent it back.

He wanted that, he realized. That easy, friendly, intensely devoted relationship that Shayla shared with her boys—he wanted that with his daughter. But the odds of ever having it were slim to none. Even if Maddie did a complete about-face and suddenly welcomed a relationship with him…He was a lot of things, but unlike Shayla, funny and fun-to-be-with weren’t on the list.

Right now, however, he’d settle for being glad that Shay thought Maddie had been worried for his safety.

Also? “If Maddie felt the quake,” Pete said, “that means she’s still somewhere local.”

“So not in Manzanar,” Shayla said. “Or Sacramento.”

“I’m betting Los Angeles didn’t even feel this one,” Pete told her. “Manzanar and Sacramento are both much farther away.”

She gave him some serious side eye. “I knew that. I’m not that geographically challenged.”

He laughed. “My bad. I just thought…But you’re keeping it together really well.” He paused. “Unless you were just kidding about the diving under the table, and the earthquake helmet?”

She shook her head. “Inside, I’m a mess. Outside, I’m Mom. Last thing I ever want to do is scare the boys, or somehow transfer my fears to them. Of course, they’re older now. Tevin’s definitely aware that earthquakes aren’t my favorite thing. That’s why he was texting me with all the science.”

As she spoke, Pete tried to listen, but that I’m Mom reverberated in his head, and all he could think was that the world had changed enormously from the days when moms went to bed with rollers in their hair and mud masks on their faces. And Shayla may have been focused on being Tevin and Frank’s mom, but she was also a tremendously beautiful, sensual, incredibly strong, sexy woman, and he wanted to…

He wanted…

She’d stopped talking and he looked up and into her eyes, suddenly aware that he’d been staring at her mouth. Her mouth, and the soft curves of her body beneath that shirt that was so thin, he could see right through it.

She was aware, too, of the direction his thoughts had turned, but she didn’t back away. She didn’t say a word. She just sat there, looking back at him.

She wanted, too.

He waited a moment, just looking into her eyes, because God, he didn’t want to get this wrong. But she just held his gaze—until she didn’t. Her eyes slipped down—just for a fraction of a second—to his mouth.

So he leaned in, slowly, and even reached to touch her face and gently pull her chin up and…

He kissed her.

As far as kisses went, it was G-rated. His lips against the sweet softness of hers. No tongues, no way. He wanted to—Jesus, his heart was pounding—but he didn’t.

He just pulled back to look into her eyes again, and time seemed to slow and not-quite stop, but change and expand. He’d experienced something similar a few times, while out on ops with the teams. There was a name for it, that sense of being present and acutely, intensely aware: kairos. The word also meant opportunity, and he was not a fool, so he slowly leaned in and when, once more, she didn’t pull away, he kissed her again.

This time, she opened her lips to him. This time, she leaned in, too, and he took that as an invitation to put his arms around her, even as she slipped her arms up and around his neck and her tongue into his mouth.

And their G rating was instantly revoked as he tried to devour her in return, because the way she was suddenly hungrily kissing him completely ignited the fire in his veins that he’d been trying to control.

Pete pulled her up and onto his lap even as she tried to move closer, and she straddled him as he wrapped himself more tightly around her. Her arms and shoulders and back were cold, but the softness between her legs was hot against him. Jesus, her fingers were back in his hair as she kissed him and kissed him, and Christ, he was going to come, her breasts soft against his chest, his body straining and sliding against hers through their thin layers of clothes.

He needed to be inside of her. He needed a condom, and he needed it now.

He started to pull back to tell her that—that he was going to pick her up and carry her inside. But as he moved his hands down her back to the incredible softness of her ass, the added pressure pushed her even more tightly against him, and God, God, God, the way that felt both against his dick, and in the palms of his hands…So instead he kissed her harder, deeper, longer as she rubbed herself against him, and then his fingers slipped beneath the thin fabric of her shorts, and he found her—hot and soft and wet.

He pushed one finger, and then two, just a little bit inside of her, and she came almost instantly, with a moan, right there in his hands, pressed up against him, and it was such an incredible, mind-blowing, total turn-on that he came, too.

The earth was shaking again and Shayla lifted her head from Peter’s shoulder.

“Aftershock,” he murmured. “Just a little one. We’re okay.”

Aftershock. Was that what this was?

Shay was still clinging to him, her legs still tight around his waist, the tips of his fingers still inside of her as he smiled into her eyes.

“That was a first for me,” he said.

So okay, they were going to have a conversation right now. Like this. Before moving and adjusting and doing all those awkward post-orgasm things. She had to clear her throat to get her voice to work. “Sex in the backyard?” she asked.

“Well, that, too,” he said. “Sex—or not quite sex—with our clothes still on.”

“It’s called dry humping, and you’ve seriously never…?”

“Nope. In high school I was pretty single-mindedly in love with Lisa. And back then, she wasn’t having sex with me.”

That’s right, he’d told her they hadn’t hooked up until college, in the relative comfort of their dorm rooms.

“For the record, that name for it is deceptive. I’m pretty sure it can’t be called dry humping at this point,” he said. “At least not on my end.”

Shayla laughed—which caused her body to tighten around his fingers and push him a little more deeply inside of her. She drew in a sharp breath, and their gazes met and locked. His eyes were hot.

“Let’s go inside,” he said. “I have a sudden burning desire for us to achieve a sexual hat trick. I’m thinking, I’ll make you come with my mouth while my gentlemen’s accessories catch up, and then, a little later, we can finish with good old-fashioned full penetration.”

Sweet God, yes please. But then Shay said, “Gentlemen’s accessories?”

“Isn’t that what you called it? It’s a nice euphemism, although I wasn’t in a position to discuss it at the time.”

Dear God, this man actually listened to the words that came out of her mouth—even after getting whacked in the balls and hit with a bucket of shit. So she told him, “Tevin and I were out shopping when he was just learning to read, and there was a sign—I think it was in Macy’s—and he thought the accessories were specific to the male anatomy, although that puzzled him, because aside from a jockstrap, he wasn’t sure what that might be. For a while, we called athletic supporters gentlemen’s accessories, and somehow it transitioned to become the full euphemism.”

He nodded, then leaned in and kissed her, and it was a replay of their first kiss—tender and gentle—and God, his lips were so soft and warm. “Let’s go inside,” he breathed against her mouth, before kissing her again—really kissing her now.

He tasted as delicious as he smelled—Navy SEAL–flavored, had to be—and she lost herself in the sweetness of his mouth, the feel of his hair between her fingers, the heat of his chest against hers.

But then she felt him start to shift, as if he was going to just stand up and carry her inside, so she made herself stop kissing him. “Wait.”

He waited, but the heat in his eyes had ramped up in its intensity.

“God, you’re beautiful,” she told him, touching the side of his face. “And as good as that…hat trick sounds, I’m just…Well, can we…not?”

She could tell that he didn’t fully understand, that he thought she was shutting him down, so she quickly added, “Go inside, I mean. I…don’t suppose you’d want to help me set up our…tent? It’s a pop-up. Pretty quick and easy.”

He got it—it was the going-inside to which she objected. “Oh, Shay, no. The likelihood of another earthquake—”

“I’ve read that sometimes the aftershocks come first,” she said. “And if that was an aftershock, the real quake’s gonna be huge. I mean, yeah, it’s rare, and I know I probably sound irrational and crazy, but…” Her voice shook and she felt her eyes fill with tears, despite her best intentions. “That scared the fuck out of me.”

“Fair enough.” Peter immediately nodded. “I’ve got an air mattress and one of those crazy-fast pumps. We’re gonna need a blanket or two, tonight’s gonna get cold. But other than going inside to grab that—and make sure the gas line’s okay—we can stay outside as long as you need to.”

Stupidly, his kind response to her crazy made her tears well and overflow. God, she hated crying in front of anyone—in fact, she hated crying when she was locked alone in the privacy of her own bathroom. She hated it, because it never changed anything; it never helped, it only impeded. And on top of that, it made her feel weak and helpless and gave her a congestion headache.

But everything she was feeling—or trying not to feel—was jumbled up inside of her. The residuals of her overwhelming fear—not for herself, but for her precious babies and even for Carter and Tiffany, but then also for herself as the quake had slammed her to the bedroom floor again and again—and the knee-weakening relief of finding out, quickly thank God, that everyone was all right, combined with the crazy whatever-this-was that she was feeling after dry humping her Navy SEAL neighbor in her own backyard…

It was all apparently exiting her body through her tear ducts. Damn it.

“Hey,” Peter said, pulling her close and wrapping his arms around her even more completely. “Hey, hey. It’s okay.”

“You’re so nice,” she told him.

His laughter was a rumble in his chest. “Not really,” he said. “But I’m okay with you thinking that I’m being nice when I’m really just trying to shorten the time it’ll take before we can, you know.”

She did know. She also knew that the responsible adult thing to do would’ve been to have a conversation in which they discussed the high emotions that had led to that unexpected orgasm, because really, where was this going to go besides a place of hurt or awkwardness? Despite knowing that, she threw caution to the wind as she wiped her eyes and smiled and said, “Hat trick. I’m with you on that. As long as you’re in a tent.”

“Where’s the tent?” he asked in response.

“In the garage. Left side, top shelf. Plastic container. Purple. Airtight. Spider-proof.”

His smile broadened. “Of course.”

“California has some very nasty spiders. Black widows—”

He kissed her as he moved her off his lap. “Your backyard or mine?”