22. Macs
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Macs
I exhale, filling the air around me with a cloud of smoke.
It’s a nice bar—a really fucking expensive bar.
The suit encasing my body cost five thousand dollars.
When I leave here for the night, it will smell like I crawled out of a sewer.
She watches my lips and licks her own. Grinning, I inhale another drag.
“You’re playing tennis tomorrow?” I ask. Casually, I lean back and place my elbows on the bar, praying the bartender wiped down this section.
She nods, eyes rimmed in thick kohl open wide. She’s fucking putty in my hands.
“What time?” I ask, leaning toward her on the barstool. “Who are you playing with?” Please fucking answer honestly. Please. I’ve been after this information all week. I ruined my suit for this. Please, Christ, give me what I need.
I let the scruff on my face brush against her cheek. “I love tennis,” I whisper. “You know that.” Completely in line with my character, I motion for the bartender to bring another round.
She flutters her eyelashes when I lean away. She’s pretty. In the normal sort of way. Lots of makeup and lots of plastic surgery to make her lips look like they can suck a mean dick. “Doubles,” she says. “My husband and his partner Pierre St. Croix and his wife,” she adds.
Thank you, Jesus. I could kiss this bitch.
The bartender slides us the drinks. Her a dirty martini, me a brown-tinged water in a lowball.
The bartender knows me. He’s also being paid well to keep his trap shut.
I can’t drink while I’m working. On something this important, I wouldn’t dare. She crosses and uncrosses her legs.
“I wish I could play with you instead,” she says.
I lick my lips because I know she’s watching. Indifferently, I take out my phone and send the text.
“Do you want to get out of here?” she asks, running her long nails through her fake blond hair.
We could fuck right here on the bar and no one would say a thing.
It’s one of those places everyone rich and famous goes to have an affair.
I saw her damn husband in here last week when she was out with her friends.
It’s taken two full months of wining and dining and playing interested to get Pierre’s name from her lips and into my hidden mic.
It’s all we need to peg her husband, and the dominos will fall perfectly from there.
He financed the terror attacks—a very large portion of the attacks. He’s big into gun smuggling. Law enforcement has been trying to take him down for years. Dirty money always stays dirty money.
“I should get going, actually,” I reply, looking at my watch .
She knits her brows together, and I understand the look.
Even though she has so many injectable fillers in her face, it shows no emotion.
She’s wary. I might have to fuck her after all.
Take one for the goddamn team. Hell, celebrate this victory by fucking his wife.
That would have a nice aftertaste, I think.
“I could probably push the meeting if you really need me,” I say, tilting my head in question.
She stands from her stool and pulls me to her by jerking the lapels of my jacket.
I go. She kisses me, and it tastes awful.
Like drunk breath mated with vodka and plaque.
I use the least amount of effort when I kiss her back.
It’s just enough. She moans into my mouth like a porn star.
I roll my eyes. They’re shut, so no one knows.
If you’d told me I would be required to act when I became a Navy SEAL, I would have called you a liar.
Other people may be up for this particular job skills-wise, but the people we’re after are dangerous, and those same people aren’t up for that aspect of this game. SEALs are. So, here we are, sniffing around suburban housewives with nefarious husbands spread across America.
I haven’t heard from Teala. Not that it surprises me.
Her mom gives me small updates every once in a while, and I try not to let them affect me or cloud my judgment.
I’ve made the right decision in staying away.
She’s getting better, and I can focus on my career.
I even tried dating a girl a month or so ago.
It got messy because I was also trying to date stank-breath-bomber-husband at the same time, and even I have to admit, one chick is more than enough work.
It was always going to be halfhearted, because try as I might, my heart beats for Teala.
I don’t remember the last time I saw the walls of my own house or felt like myself or wanted to do anything besides work.
It’s in the quiet moments that the fear slips in.
It’s terror because I might have made a huge mistake.
Fear that I’ll never have that feeling in my chest again.
I lost myself for a bit there after we broke up.
The missions got weirder, and my head wasn’t right to begin with, and I was too sad to realize I was better at acting than I was at real life.
Obviously I hid my pain well, and no one suspects a thing.
My parents asked about Teala, and it’s the first time I had an honest conversation about what happened.
They were concerned for her, and my feelings were pushed to the wayside.
It’s all so tedious. If she reached out at all, I know I would run with that shit, and I don’t do second chances for anyone or anything.
“Want me to suck your dick? Let’s go in the back,” Alligator Breath rasps into my mouth.
I shrug, noncommittally. With a quick glance around the room and a nod to the bartender, I let her lead me to the back rooms. It’s like a baby whorehouse.
I finish off the cigarette right before she pulls me into the blue room.
I started smoking to hide the fact that my breath never tasted like alcohol.
I was surprised by how well it worked, if not completely appalled by how quickly I got used to it.
“Suck it while I’m standing this time,” I command.
Dropping to her knees, she glances up at me. I hand her a condom because there is no way I want her tongue anywhere near my actual dick. She rolls it on like a champ and swallows my cock whole. It’s a fumbling mess. I feign disinterest, because that’s her thing and scroll on my phone.
I’m checking my personal email account when it finally starts to feel good.
Delete a few messages. “Ahhhh, yes. Like that.” Junk mail folder.
Tap. Teala Smart, Subject: I’m sorry. Another one from Teala, Subject: Disregard my last message, and then another, Subject: You are a cruel man.
“FUCK!” I roar. I tap to open the first email so quickly the phone falls out of my hands and lands on the bimbo with a solid thwack.
She falls back, clutching her forehead.
“I’m so sorry! I’m sorry!” I say. I have visions of singing drop it down low , but that would be too much like my real self, and right now I have to read the messages.
They were from months ago. What have I done?
Why didn’t the message hit my inbox? My stomach turns, and my head gets light.
I zip my pants up and rip the condom off.
Grabbing a tissue, I wad the condom up and pocket it.
“Jesus, Will, what’s up with you tonight?” she asks. Tears of pain fill her eyes, and her black makeup starts smearing down her cheeks.
No. This isn’t good. I stoop to collect my phone.
“Disinterest is one thing. Being so tied up in whatever is on your phone is offensive.”
Fuck. I slipped up. Literally and figuratively.
I cup her cheeks and try to wipe away the black streaks.
Her head will have a large knot on it. There’s no way around it.
She must realize I’m panicked. “I’m clumsy.
I fall all the time. Don’t worry. He won’t even notice.
Kind of like you not noticing I was giving you the best blow job of your life. ”
I laugh. “That was not the best blow job of my life, sweetie. Nice try, though.”
Her brows knit together. “You’re a dick. Maybe I will tell my husband.”
I don’t have the heart to tell her a mass of people are heading to his business right now to lock him away…
forever. Her too, if they find she had any intel of it.
At this point I highly doubt it, but she knows her husband has been up to no good.
I just don’t think she knows how destructive he’s been.
“I have to go.” With the swift goodbye, I leave her on her knees in the blue room.
I nod at Moose in the corner of the bar as I enter the large, smoky space. He smiles widely and stands to join me. We walk outside together and hop into the large white SUV. The teammates in the vehicle cheer and slap our backs as we get in.
“It was mostly me,” I say, correcting the raucous bunch, flashing a vain grin.
Moose disagrees, and the tone of the vehicle stays elated as we drive away. We’re finished. This job is complete. No knife fights like last time either. Success.
I sit in the back seat and read the emails from Teala labeled as junk. The first email makes my chest hurt because I know what comes next.
Subject: Disregard my last message
I’m not sure what came over me. I never should have sent the last message.
You obviously have no need for my forgiveness, so I never should have offered it.
I’m mad at you. Now that I’m far enough away from the situation to see things clearly, I’m pissed as hell.
You can’t tell someone you love them and then never come back around regardless of their crazy status.
I’ve decided you must have been mistaken.
It wasn’t love. It was something else. He’s made me realize no one is irreplaceable.
Consider yourself aware of my feelings on the matter.
Peace,
Teala too Smart to waste any more time on you.
My hands are sweaty, and I have to wipe them down my suit pants to get the slickness away. Who is he ? Who made her realize? I grit my teeth and open the last message.