Chapter 12
“Glad you made us get here so early,” Max says. He sounds cross.
The parking lot is empty. Not a single car is in the lot. Same with the bike rack, although my bike had been the only user of the rusted metal bike stand contraption.
“Six-thirty a.m.”
“What?” He pops the white plastic top off the coffee he purchased from a Texaco where he insisted we stop.
“That’s what time I made it to work.”
“First one in?” I really don’t like his tone.
“Yes. But I was also the only one who was overseeing two projects.”
“And when did others show up?”
I didn’t pay attention. I closed my lab door and expected people to leave me to my work uninterrupted.
He breathes over his coffee. I tap my finger over the top of the white plastic coffee cup lid and jiggle my ankle. “How long do we have to sit out here?”
We’re in an older, faded blue sedan with rust along the edge of the chrome bumper. I roll my window down and the stench of exhaust enters the car.
“Can you turn the car off?”
This car is so ancient there’s an actual key you turn. I prefer bicycles for transportation. It’s a better choice for the environment and there’s really no need for a car on Grand Cayman, but even I have to concede that it’s difficult to watch and remain hidden when perched on a bicycle seat.
He pulls on a silver lever in his armrest and his window glides down, then he finally turns the key.
“If we were in an EV, you could keep the car on. But not in a combustion engine. Especially an old one like this. Idling for more than ten seconds uses more fuel and produces more emissions that contribute to smog and climate change than stopping and restarting your engine does.”
“How do you do that?”
“What?”
“Spit out facts and figures.”
I lift the coffee cup and wipe the lip with my thumb. “I remember things.”
Your daughter is very gifted, Mrs. Watson.
“I’d say so.” He sips his coffee. He’s angled so he can watch the entrance to the place. There’s a 35mm camera sitting between us. He said he’d prefer to keep our phones off, but I can’t help but wonder if that’s because of the phone call he received yesterday. After he took that call, he fell into work mode and never snapped out of it. I do that sometimes, so I understand.
“Tell me something,” I say because I have a sinking feeling I’m one of the few who showed up before our nine a.m. official start time, so we might as well fill the time so his annoyance with me doesn’t grow.
“What would you like to know?” He’s wearing sunglasses, and with his body turned away from me, it feels like he can’t stand to be near me. He’s not the first person to react like that to me. It’s not a good or bad thing. It just is.
“Tell me why you left the Navy.” If Sam was still living, I don’t think he’d leave. Nothing made him happier than his job. My brother was like me in that way.
“Ah…well.” He shifts in his seat, sitting up straighter, then repositions again, sinking a little lower so his knee rests against the dash. He’s wearing tan slacks, a loose-fitting button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and hiking boots. It’s a strange outfit to sit in a car all day. His cargo shorts and t-shirts make a better outfit that show off his muscular legs, chest, and arms.
“The short story is I got a job offer I couldn’t refuse.”
“What’s the long story?”
“You really wanna know?”
“We’ve got the time, right?”
“That we do,” he says and sips his coffee. “Well, my team was changing. Again. Knox retired. Medical reasons. About as soon as I got the gist of a new team, chances are I’d be assigned to another location, another team, perhaps. And I mean, I guess that’s all fine and dandy, but it’s a young man’s game.”
“You’re not exactly old.”
“You’d think that, right?” He glances back at me and shoots me a grin that I feel between my legs. He’s really too good looking. Too muscular. “But, nah. What we do? It’s a lot of wear and tear on the body. Pounding the ground. Busted joints. Average length is six years, and I made it fifteen, almost sixteen.”
“Isn’t retirement at twenty?”
“You can retire at twenty years. But…” He knocks back the coffee cup, gulps it, smacks his lips, and lets out a sigh. “If I’m honest, I was burned out. Tired of the bullshit. When Knox dropped, he introduced me to this guy named Ryan. He’s one of Arrow’s founders. He’d been in my shoes, and now he’s got this company, and they seem to look out for guys like me. Like him. We got to talking, and one thing led to another. They offered me a sweeter deal than I’d get if I clocked my twenty.”
“You don’t sound happy about it.” I sometimes regret leaving my old job back in North Carolina. It’s one reason I don’t like change. Sometimes you change things, and it’s not better, yet you can’t go back.
“Meh. It’s an adjustment, you know?”
“What was life like in the Navy? I mean, Sam told me some stuff. I remember one time he told me that for every fifteen minutes of ‘hell yeah,’ there’s a solid ten days of ‘what the fuck.’” The memory makes me smile. Sam was two years older than me, but he’d been my best friend. Well, him and Sage.
Max chuckles. He doesn’t laugh often, but my lips stretch into a smile whenever he does. It’s an automatic reaction, similar to how an acid and a base react when mixed. But that’s a silly notion. If given enough time, he won’t laugh around me, and if given enough time, I won’t smile when he does. That’s not true for an acid and a base.
“That’s a pretty accurate assessment.” Sadness coats his words.
“What do you miss the most?”
“The adrenaline rush.”
“Is sitting in a parking lot not adrenaline-inducing enough for you?”
Another chuckle. And I smile.
“You realize we got here a couple of hours too early, right?”
“What gave you an adrenaline rush?”
“Jumping out of planes. Diving. Shooting guns.”
“You can still do all those things.”
“You’re right.” He bobs his head a couple of times. “That’s another reason I took this gig. Not only do they pay well, but I still get all the toys. They prioritize being fit. It’s a requirement. But they do it in a healthy way, mindful our joints have taken a beating already.”
“But you still don’t sound happy.”
“Just wrapping my head around it, you know? I was a member of an elite team. It’s…harder than I thought it would be to let that go.”
“Once a SEAL, always a SEAL, right? That’s what Sam said.”
“Yep.”
He lets out a long sigh and lifts his coffee cup once again.
“I could give you a blow job.”
His head lurches forward and brown liquid coats the plastic top. He chuckles. And yes, I smile. Acid and a base. A reliable reaction.
“Wow.” He wipes the back of his hand over his mouth. “That was unexpected. I mean, I never quite know what you are going to say, but that definitely tops the unexpected list.”
“I enjoy sex and most sexual acts. I don’t believe it’s something to be ashamed of. It’s natural human behavior. And it’s great exercise. An orgasm will raise your endorphins, so you won’t feel as sad.”
“Okay. Well, wow. Good to know.”
“I’m serious. And besides, I forgot to pack my charger for my vibrators. I mean, I still use my fingers for masturbation, but my orgasms aren’t as strong. I don’t know if it’s the same for men. It’s probably individual preference. Do you prefer to orgasm with your hand, someone else’s hand, or vagina? Or do you prefer anal?”
There’s a significant amount of dust in the air conditioning vents on the dashboard. The black plastic squares are probably hard to clean. It’s easy to understand why car manufacturers evolved from this design.
As I stare at the dust, I become aware that he’s no longer watching the building, but staring at me. I can feel his gaze, and my cheeks burn. That’s not a good feeling. “What?”
“You are one-of-a-kind, Sloane Watson.”
No one’s ever put it quite like that, but similar remarks have been used to describe me my entire life. “I just say what I’m thinking. The world would be simpler if everyone said what they’re thinking. Honesty is an undervalued trait.”
“I could not agree with you more.”
“You’re not going to answer me?”
“How about we table that discussion?”
“Until when?”
“Until I’ve finished my coffee.”
He’s been drinking forever.
“You know, I have to ask. How do guys usually handle it when you ask them direct questions about sex?”
I rarely have non-work-related conversations with men. But when I first talked about sex with William, my old boss, we ended up having sex in the lab. “I guess we usually have sex. Unless they’re married. I would never do anything with a married man. Or someone who had a girlfriend. Unless they’re in an open relationship. Current estimates are that approximately one in five Americans have been in an open relationship at some point in their lives and approximately one percent of marriages are open relationships. Canadian research puts that figure at four percent. But almost ninety-two percent of open relationship marriages end in divorce, if you trust survey data. Even if the margin of error is ten percent, or even twenty percent, that estimated divorce rate would give one pause before pursuing an open relationship, right?”
He’s silent. Rambling is a habit I should curb. My siblings never cared, but other people do.
“Sloane Watson. I think you may be my favorite person in the world.”