Chapter 18
Chapter 18
“ W hy do they call you Ribs?”
Jones made a mewling little sound that might have been a whimper. They both darted him a questioning glance, but he was too enraptured to feel embarrassment over the sound. Or maybe he was too busy devouring his omelet. Who knew eggs and salt and butter could taste so good? And the fruit…
“Where did this come from?” Jones asked, holding a little cube of something pink aloft on his fork. He knew for certain he had no fruit in his bungalow.
“From my purse,” Carol said offhandedly, her attention already back on Ribs and waiting for his answer.
“You carry purse fruit?” Jones asked.
“You don’t?” she said, flicking her fingers in annoyance at him, presumably for interrupting, although it could be for anything. Apparently he rubbed her wrong the way she rubbed him wrong; in all the ways.
Ribs snickered and dabbed his mouth with his napkin like a debutante before answering. “All the guys get a handle.”
If she was daunted by the way he glided around her question, she didn’t show it. “But why Ribs? What’s it for?” She tipped her head and eyed him. “Did you used to be super skinny?”
Ribs darted a glance to Jones, either asking permission or advice. Their handles were private, something kept between their team. Only a select few got to learn why they existed. Jones gave a little nod and Ribs lifted his shirt. Carol gasped, eyeing him, her mouth ajar.
“Wow.” She cleared her throat. “I get it now. It’s because your abs are so defined they look like actual ribs.”
Ribs laughed, a loud guffaw of delight.
Jones ducked around him, inspecting his abs. “What? No, that’s not… We all have abs like that, okay? It’s because of this.” He grabbed Ribs’s arm and used it to angle him to the side. This time Carol gasped with the appropriate amount of horror.
“Is that…” she began.
“Shark bite,” Ribs said, his fingers unconsciously finding the groove of each wedge-shaped scar. And then everybody went silent. Carol was likely asking herself how he could possibly still be alive with a bite that large. Jones was asking himself the same question. He remembered the exact moment it happened, Ridge’s second month as their team leader. They had a black op assignment in a hostile country, so hostile they had to be dropped into the ocean at night and swim to shore. For a group of SEALs, a night swim was a piece of cake. But no one warned them the waters were so shark-infested.
“My suit took the brunt of it,” Ribs said, pulling his shirt down and giving it a self-conscious tug. It probably wasn’t the scar that bothered him, so much as the fear he’d felt that night, the fear they’d all felt. Jones could still hear his scream in his head, could remember the horrible sight of Ribs being yanked under the water for that brief second. He punched the shark, hard, and the shark learned quickly the strange morsel was not a helpless seal. It swam away, but there were a dozen others and the bloody holes in Ribs acted as a beacon to them all.
They’d grabbed him and hightailed it to shore, taking turns swimming him in while the others surrounded him in a formation and kept the sharks at bay. When they finally made it to shore, Ridge had been the one to rip off his suit and triage the damage, patching Ribs with the emergency kit, shooting him with morphine. And then they’d stashed him and completed their mission, leaving Shimmer to babysit until they returned.
That had been the easy part. Getting out of hostile territory with a shark bit brother had been the harrowing part. But it had solidified their team, along with their trust in their new leader. That, like so many other things, had bonded them for life, all of them.
Carol reached forward and gave Ribs’s wrist a comforting squeeze. “I’m so sorry. That must have been awful.” And then she surprised Jones by squeezing his wrist, too, making him wonder what his expression looked like. Was it any wonder so many former soldiers went crazy? Who could possibly understand the weight of the secrets they had to carry? Besides other soldiers, of course.
“Chicks dig it,” Ribs said, tossing her a wink that made her smile. Or maybe it was his newly buoyant tone. And, knowing Ribs, it was probably true. He radiated a danger signal women seemed to enjoy. Unlike Jones. Somehow no matter what he did, women seemed to find him soft and cozy and so unbearably safe.
“Do you have a girl?” Carol asked, resting her chin in her hand as she regarded Ribs.
“He has several,” Jones inserted.
“Don’t be snide, David. You and Ribs are clearly different types,” Carol said.
I love her, Ribs mouthed as soon as Carol turned toward the sink to grab a refill of coffee.
No, Jones mouthed in reply.
Ribs pointed to Jones and then to Carol.
NO, Jones mouthed again, waving his hands to ward away the suggestion.
“Mosquitoes?” Carol guessed, facing them again.
“No, something much more annoying and insidious,” Jones said. Ribs snorted. Smiling benignly, Carol topped off his coffee. Jones held out his mug. She ignored him and returned the pot to the burner.
“What?” she asked, finally noting his indignation.
“You are…that is…I can’t with the…” Jones floundered, unable to find words for how badly she aggravated him.
Carol eyed Ribs. “How did you guys handle his unending crankiness?”
“We never had to,” Ribs said, studying Jones, his head tilted like a curious kitten. “I’ve never seen him grumpy before. Didn’t actually know he had it in him. Huh.”
Jones pinched the bridge of his nose. Ribs was making assertions, Jones could tell. And he shouldn’t be, not about this situation, not about anything. If Jones was cranky, which he definitely wasn’t, then it was certainly justified by Carol’s incessantly annoying behavior. The woman was certifiable and apparently it was contagious because he felt like he was slowly losing his mind, especially when Ribs looked at him like he was the crazy one. He tried once again to explain. “You don’t…she is…I’m not…”
“Do you know they have corporate communication seminars that could help you learn how to talk better? Might take you farther up the ladder,” Carol suggested and Ribs sputtered a laugh he tried to turn into a cough.
Jones couldn’t reply because he was breathing too hard, puffing little bursts of oxygen like a perturbed bull. His hands itched, to do what he had no idea. It’s not like he could choke the woman with Ribs sitting there, he would definitely frown on that sort of thing. And it wasn’t as if Jones was given to unprovoked violence of any kind, especially against a woman. But Carol was testing his limits in all the ways.
Unaware of how close she was to being throttled, she smiled brightly. “Can you excuse me a moment? I need to send a text.” Still beaming, she gave a friendly little pat to Ribs’s shoulder and breezed from the room.