Chapter 15
Who needs you, baby? I got chums...
It was nine o’clock before Zach arrived at the Wet and Wild, and the bar was rocking in its usual Friday-night-wall-shaking-yeehaw style.
Bypassing the T-shirt spraying machine at the door—a politically incorrect attraction that drew women as well as men…
he made his way through the crowd toward the bar.
The band, Bad Love, a favorite of patrons from the naval base, played a mix of country and classic rock.
Right now, it was a raucous version of Garth Brooks’ “I’ve Got Friends in Low Places,” to which the customers sang along, taking particular delight in the low octaves of low places.
Next came, “Working for the Weekend,” then “I’ve Gotta Get Outta This Place.
” It was a wild bunch tonight, singing, shouting and, of course, drinking.
He found a spot at the bar and waved at Bo Anders, a bald-headed weekend biker fanatic who had been a bartender at the Wet and Wild for as long as Zach could remember.
“Hey, Pretty Boy, haven’t seen you around lately.”
“Been busy.”
“Hey, that gives the other guys a better chance with the chummies.”
“Yeah, well, they can have ’em.” Chummies was a less than flattering name given to SEAL groupies who hung around Coronado, the name based on chumming, a strategy fishermen used to draw fish into an area where they could be easily hooked.
It was an effective method for prize fish as well as arrogant men who preferred a free meal to one requiring expended energy and time.
Hey, no one ever accused SEALs of being overly sensitive.
“What’ll it be?”
“Sam Adams, in the bottle.”
Zach slapped a few bills on the bar, then turned, longneck in hand, and leaned his elbows back on the bar.
He took a long pull on the cold beer and surveyed the room, noticing right away the gorgeous babe standing a short distance away.
She had long, mussed, black hair, a model-thin body encased in a skintight mini dress, and a siren-red mouth that conjured all kinds of images.
Slanting her silvery eyes his way, she winked. A chummie, for sure.
Britta had been driving him nuts the past three weeks.
He was sick of chasing his tail over her.
Sick of teaching women how to run and breathe at the same time.
Sick of being on inactive duty. Sick of whacking off himself at night.
Sick of being a non-player in the dating games.
Time to get back to his old modus operandi.
Time to forget, at least for a few hours, that he was a father in a pigload of trouble with every frickin’ government official from here to Afghanistan.
Time to stop hitting on a thousand-year-old girlfriend, who didn’t want to be his girlfriend.
He had very little free time these days, and he was damn sure going to make good use of this gift from Danny.
He smiled at the woman and she walked over. “Hi,” she said in a Marilyn Monroe breathy fashion.
A good start. He liked breathy.
“Hi,” he said back. “My name’s Zach Floyd.”
“Linda Lowery.”
“Can I buy you a drink?”
“Sure. Double shot of VO, straight. Over ice. No water.”
Okaaaay.
When Bo handed her the drink, he gave Zach a silent message, as in “Whoa boy! This is a hot one.” Which soon proved true. She downed the drink in one swallow, then licked her wet red lips.
Double okaaaay. He put his arm around her shoulder and tucked her into his side, making room for her to squeeze in at the bar.
“Is it true what they say about SEALs and their...uh, stamina?”
“Oh, yeah.” Typical groupie question.
She smiled.
Yep, easy breezy fishing here. He wondered idly if they should cut the crap...uh, small talk...and just take it out to his car for a wham-bam roll in the back seat.
Oddly, that prospect didn’t appeal to him. Before he had a chance to contemplate why, he saw Cage and the gang on the far side of the tavern, waving at him to come over. “Care to join my friends?” he asked Linda.
“Sure.”
He led her by the hand through the crowd, with her hand on his back.
..marking her territory, he supposed, but who the hell cared?
Soon they arrived at the large round table where Cage, Sly, Geek, JAM, Slick, and Omar were sitting.
Slick’s presence was a surprise. He usually didn’t socialize with them, but maybe things had changed since his divorce seemed to be final now.
Omar rarely went out, either, being in the same predicament as Zach; he had custody of his seven-year-old daughter.
He introduced Linda to everyone. They all noticed her hand on his back, if their grins were any indication.
They sat down.
“Man, you’re the only guy I know who wears designer duds to a lowdown bar,” Slick remarked. “And, shiiiiit, are those leather pants?”
“Faux leather,” he replied, used to their teasing.
“I think he looks good,” Linda remarked, rubbing a hand over the sleeve of the silk shirt, then the material at his knee.
“If I wasn’t already Mr. G.Q., I’d say you fit the bill. I used to model underwear for G.Q.” Sly explained the latter to an impressed Linda, who listened attentively, as if he’d just told her he’d invented oral sex.
“I was out to dinner with my dad,” Zach explained.
Linda turned to chat with JAM on her other side about a doctor they both knew at the naval base hospital, and Cage leaned in close to him. “No more Britta on your mind, buddy?”
“Gone, gone, gone,” he said. And he meant it, too.
For some reason, Britta had stuck in his craw for the last two years, probably because she hadn’t given in to him, and then the last few weeks, after she had given in to him, he’d convinced himself it was something more than lust. Well, he was over her now.
And, to be fair, she was over him, too, as evidenced by her telling him more than once in recent days to “Begone!” Usually after some particularly brutal rotation in WEALS, which she was taking personally.
“Who’s watchin’ the kid?” Sly asked.
“My brother Danny, again. He’s building up brother points.”
“And Sammy doesn’t mind you being gone?” Omar asked, rubbing the shin that the brat had bruised a few weeks ago.
“Hah! You know what he told me to do tonight. To go boink Britta till her eyeballs rolled.”
A bunch of the guys, overhearing, laughed. They got a kick out of Sammy’s antics. He did, too. Sometimes.
“So, why aintcha takin’ Sammy’s advice, mon coeur? About Britta, I mean?” Cage was staring at him as if he saw something that Zach didn’t realize was apparent.
“Number one, Britta won’t have me. Number two, so the hell what! Number three, out of sight, out of mind. Number four...” Glancing at Linda who was still talking with JAM, he shrugged. “Enough said!”
“Number five, bullshit!” Cage laughed, not buying his story at all.
The waitress showed up then. Not Baudy Maudy, but an older woman he didn’t recognize.
He ordered another Sam Adams and Linda ordered another Double VO.
Yee-haw! No longer talking with JAM, she placed her hand on his thigh, high up, licked those tempting red lips, and began to suck the salt off a stick pretzel she picked up from a basket on the table.
Seven sets of eyes observed intently.
Life is good...or about to get good, he thought.
Until he saw who was entering the tavern.
Looking for fresh meat...uh, men...
The Wet and Wild was an eating and drinking establishment that had an odd showering device just inside its front door. Women who were willing to have their sherts showered went in free.
When an explanation was given to Britta for this odd practice, she exclaimed, “Men! They are e’er the same, drooling over a woman’s udders. Would any right-minded lady e’er suggest wetting down a man’s breeches to ogle his manparts?”
“Men would jump at the chance,” Terri pointed out, and they all agreed.
“I’d have to be half-blitzed before I’d go in here with a wet T-shirt,” Donita said.
“I doan know,” Marie mused. “Depends on who I’m tryin’ ta impress.”
Britta and her friends chose to pay the entry charge.
It was hard to hear each other speak over the loud music and hum of conversation, clinking of glasses and laughter.
Immediately, they were accosted by men offering them drinks and places to sit at their tables, or requesting that they dance with them.
One particularly persistent fellow identified himself as Dill-land Overdorf, a navy pilot.
That was a person who steered those metal objects flying across the skies.
He wore a wide-brimmed hat similar to the one Cage wore betimes.
..a cow hat for boys, she thought it was called, although Dill-land was far from a boyling.
He wore carved leather boots with heels and a belt with a large brass buckle.
He pressed a glass of mead into her hand and remarked on how good she smelled.
“Fruit or flower?” she asked, sipping at her mead.
“Uh...flower?”
“Ah, my armpits.” She raised an arm so he could get a whiff of the floral scent.
At first, the guy seemed surprised by her action, but then he grinned, “That would be the one. Hey, I love a gal with a sense of humor.”
Britta gave him another look. He was tall and lean with dark hair and eyes and a most alluring dimple at one side of his mouth. He really was an attractive man. Not as pretty as Zachary, but then, no man was.
“Are you Navy, darlin’?” he asked.
“WEALS.”
“Ah.”
“What does that mean?”
“That I’m impressed. You must be one...uh, fit woman.”
“Fit where?”
“Huh? Where you from, darlin’? You have an odd accent.”
“The Norselands.”
“Norway?”
“’Tis what I said. But you are the one with an odd voice. Where are you from?”
“Texas.”
“A country called Tax Us? How odd!”