Chloe grimaced and walked over to the towel rack, procuring those fitted for the chairs and for use once they were wet.
“I’m going to the bar before anyone else can get here,” he told her when she returned.
“More of those—”
“Nonalcoholic beers, yes, they’re not that bad!”
“Everyone else seems to be having tropical drinks, you know, like margaritas or piña coladas or... Hm, you’reright. At least I can almost pretend that I’m having an iced tea!” Chloe told him.
Wes walked over to the bar, showed his premiere badge and ordered their drinks. The nonalcoholic beers had just been poured into glasses when he saw that Jeff and Celia were heading to the bar. They seemed to be deep in conversation.
“Hey!” Jeff said, seeing Wes.
“Hey. We found some loungers right over there,” he said, pointing. “Chloe is putting towels down on several. Right by the pool and the hot tub!” Wes said.
“Great. Hey, honey, why don’t you go lay claim to two of those chairs and I’ll get our drinks!” Jeff told his wife.
“That’s a decent plan!” she told him, waving to them and heading over toward Chloe.
Wes set his hands around his beer glasses, ready to head back over, too, but Jeff moved to block his way.
“You need to know something!” he told Wes earnestly.
“I do?”
“I know that you dragged your wife away this morning before she could take it any further. But you need to tell her! I didn’t hit my wife, and I would never hit my wife!”
Wes grinned. “Not to worry. I didn’t think that you’d hit her.”
“Because you think that I’m too much of a wuss, right?” Jeff asked dryly.
“What?” Wes protested.
“I didn’t hit her because I just wouldn’t. She’s always saying something that aggravates the hell out of me. But I don’t hit people because I’m angry,” Jeff told him, determined that Wes understand.
You don’t hit them. But if they have something you want, if they’re standing in your way, do you drug them and shoot them point-blank?
He sure as hell couldn’t give away that thought.
“Look, Jeff, first of all, your married life is your business and no one else’s. Secondly, yeah, I figured I’m getting to know you a little bit. You grew up in the same kind of household where I grew up. Men don’t get violent with women. You don’t hit girls. Of course, we’re all trained not to talk the way we do sometimes, but we all know that hitting people isn’t right—no matter how good it might feel!” he told Jeff.
And Jeff grinned at that.
“Unless they’re bigger than you are,” he said. “’Cause then they can hit you back and it can really hurt. Or, you know, if they’re trained in martial arts or something like that,” Jeff said. “Yeah, I’m sorry. Celia said that she fell and I know that’s the truth because I didn’t hit her.”
“I gotcha, Jeff, I gotcha.”
“How do you guys do it? You never fight,” Jeff said.
“Yeah, we do. Little things. We’re just pretty good at keeping it private. I, um, need to admit that we had a bit of a thing... I told her that we couldn’t just assume that you’d hit Celia because Celia had a black eye.”
“Did she believe you?”
Wes laughed softly. “After we talked, or let me say, after I talked, for about then minutes. I mean, you can’t really blame her because most people who get close to the two of you... um...”
“Probably think that I have the right to deck her?” Jeff suggested, grinning.
“Maybe. If it makes you feel any better, Chloe doesn’t like the way that she talks to you. She told me once that she’d never be like that with me because she knows that I’d be out of the house in a flash.”
