She instinctively reached for her ring. Long gone, but she could still feel it there. Rodney, apparently, couldn’t. “I’m technically still married,” she said.
The other eyebrow went all giggidy too. “Got an idea to help with that.”
He leaned in closer. Anna lunged for her iced tea. “So. Another song?”
“I got a song for you, baby.” His lids were half-lowered. “Wanna see the eighth wonder of the world? Give you a hint. It put theRodinRodney.”
Anna’s facial muscles contorted. She took a big gulp of tea to hide the worst of the twitches, but the tea hit her stomach like a one-two punch of reality.
Men actually said things like that to single women.
He slipped the tea out of her grasp and put it back on the table. No more shield. Lots more body wash odor. “I’m trying not to think about it, but I’m headed off to war next week. Never know if you’re coming back or not. Got to take every last opportunity to live to the fullest, you know? Do things I’ve never done before, with people I’ve never done them with.”
“Technically still married,” she squeaked again.
That only upped the giggidy in his eyebrows. “Never done that before. Come on, baby. Grease my lightning.”
He was so close she could see every blond follicle on his chin and cheeks.
“Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what you can do to service your country’s servicemen.” His tongue rolled over his bottom lip. “Us Marines are better ateverythingthan those Air Force weenies.Ooh-rah, baby.”
His lips loomed in her face like two gigantic garden slugs. There was definite movement in the Rodney, Jr. area.
Her heart triple-timed it. Adrenaline pinged through her veins. Her thighs clamped shut on their own, and her lungs felt as if they were filled with cement.
Sex wastotallyout of the question. As for the garden slugs, she hadn’t kissed anyone but Neil in over eight years. It was inevitable she’d kiss someone eventually, but she didn’t know where Rodney’s lips had been.
An involuntary whimper slipped out of her frozen mouth. She lunged for her drink. Her clumsy fingers connected with the glass. Tea went everywhere. All over the table, all over her jeans, all over her broken life. She jumped to her feet with a shriek.
Rodney jumped up too. “Dude. Really?”
She opened her mouth to apologize, but her throat was thick with tears.
He got the panicked expression of a guy who’d rather park his car over fire ants than deal with a soggy female. He gestured helplessly at Brad, who was probably only acting stoic for Jules’s sake.
Jules heaved a sigh and disentangled herself from her husband. “More napkins?”
Anna waved a hand to the door, but then tucked it into her soggy pocket when she remembered what that hand was capable of. “Paper towels. In my car. I’ll be okay. Thanks. Fun times.”
Jules cut her eyes to Rodney, then back at Anna. “Need aride?”
“No!” Anna fumbled with her purse, also dripping. She’d had a tea and fries. Easy math. “No. Thanks. I’m okay.”
Brad gave her foot a nudge. “We got you, Anna.”
“No, really, I can pay for myself.” She slipped a ten out of her wallet and set it on the table. She could barely make eye contact with Jules. “See you Monday. I need to go. Get cleaned up. You know.”
But as soon as she was out the door, safely headed to her car, she dug into her purse for a phone number.
And two minutes later, she headed to her first officers’ ex-wives club meeting.
“Sugar,whose ass do I have to kick?” Kaci asked as soon as she opened the door.
She lived in a neighborhood like Anna used to. Oversize cookie-cutter houses, high ceilings, bedrooms as big as Anna’s whole apartment, twenty-five-minute commute to base, ten-minute ride to James Robert, five to Taps.
Anna had wanted to go home, but she was soaked, her hands shook so bad she could hardly steer, and she was so, so tired of feeling lonely.
The ominous sounds of quiet from inside the house didn’t bode well for her choice in how to deal with her humdinger of a mess of life. “Did I miss the party?”
