Chapter 36
The last thing Corey wanted to do was find a dress, put on make-up, and go to a formal ball. She was feeling as miserable and surly as a lion with a thorn in each of her paws. First, there was the giant A-Game thorn in her career paw, which stung like a motherfucker for a number of reasons. Among them, she had spent so much time distracted by those hyenas that she strayed from the path of writing songs for herself and collected a thorn in her second paw in the briar patch of Lost Time. And thanks to both thorns, she picked up a massive, third thorn in her financial paw. She wasn’t sure if the metaphor was holding, but she lurched onward anyway, supposing the fourth paw represented her love life, and while she didn’t want to go to the goddamn gala, Kyle was the only thing she had going for her at present, so the ball was more like a temporary, dull ache than a real thorn—a minor flare-up of plantar fasciitis that could be overcome with some light stretching, ice, and a ton of alcohol—but three pierced paws out of four left her with a profound fucking limp and a willingness to growl or snap at anyone who got too close. So when Josh and Kincaid offered to take her dress shopping while she sulked on the couch, she said, “Pass. I’m good.”
“No, no, no,” said Kincaid. “That 90’s bullshit excuse you call fashion will not stand.”
“I’ve done red carpet before. I clean up.”
“Please,” said Josh. “Combat boots and pajama bottoms?”
“That was one photo shoot…”
“We’re not letting you embarrass yourself,” said Josh.
“Or Kyle,” said Kincaid.
“Why, because you’re risk bros?”
“Yes, actually.”
“Look, I hate shopping on a good day—and today is most assuredly not a good day—and whatever the quality of the day, I hate shopping even more when I’m broke. So until I hit PowerBall or until they invent montage technology and I can find a dress in the time it takes to play Pretty Woman or Walking On Sunshine, then it’s a big fat nope.”
“We’ll pay for the dress,” said Kincaid.
“Let’s go shopping,” said Corey.
With Josh and Kincaid paying, they had veto authority, which dragged the process out. It wasn’t so much a montage, thought Corey, as a three-and-a-half hour single camera shot with no smash cuts or cheery soundtrack at the CambridgeSide Mall. Both men rendered endless verdicts—too dowdy or too poofy or too slutty or not slutty enough—before finally finding the right dress, which was now slung over one shoulder as she disembarked the train in New London, Connecticut. It was a killer dress—tasteful, but with just enough edge to let the fuckers know who they were dealing with—and it gave her a boost. She needed all the help she could get; she would finally meet Kyle’s ex-wife, Maxine. It would be one thing to go into such a meeting with a little confidence, but she was feeling anything but. Instead, she tried to pry, collect dirt, anything to even the playing field.
When they go low, we go high, she thought, but when they go high, it’s so much easier to sweep the leg.
She tried to be nonchalant and subtle about it, but Kyle never revealed why they had gotten divorced in the first place. Did he cheat on her? “Of course not,” he told her. Did she cheat on him? She knew Maxine had landed with another Coastie, a classmate from the Academy, but he only replied “Of course not” to that line of questioning as well. In fact, he would never openly disparage his ex-wife or the man who swept in to marry her.
“Sometimes people just grow apart.”
He was fucking maddening.
So there was the prom to contend with, managing an inevitable meeting with the ex, all set to the backdrop of a fucking military academy, all while her career was burning.
“You can do this,” she told herself as she walked beside the train.
“Hey.”
She spun and saw Kyle standing there on the platform, the steam of the train enveloping him, the Thames River behind him. Her heart pounded like a big bass drum. Boom. Boom. Boom. And when he smiled, she heard a swell of strings, the pretty tinkling of glockenspiels. She blushed at the unmitigated cheese of it, she couldn’t help herself. It was as true a feeling as she ever had and for a few blessed moments, she forgot all about Professor Drop and Apex and Lou and Deaver’s testicular torsion.
He kissed her and relieved her of her bags as they stood on the platform embracing each other. She squeezed his muscles, from missing him, from nerves, and just testing to see if he was still real.
“Thank you so much for doing this,” he said. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
She summoned some confidence she didn’t have. “You just want to parade your rock star trophy girlfriend around.”
“Good,” he said, breathing an exaggerated sigh of relief, “you totally get it.”
They checked into a hotel on the water, with a view of the Goldstar Bridge and the Long Island Sound beyond it. It didn’t take long for the clothes to come off. After, they lay wrapped up together, him lying on his back and her head on his shoulder. The sun through the half-drawn blinds lit their hotel room with golden stripes. She spread her hand on his chest, pressing down, with tiny compressions, enjoying the feel of their skin sticking together. It reminded her of Iggy sitting on her lap and kneading, but it felt good and she didn’t want to stop. She never wanted to leave the room.
“Wouldn’t it be better to just stay here?” she asked. “All weekend?”
“Really?”
“I guess not.” She propped herself on one arm. “But tell me about this place. Spill some tea, as the kids say.”
“Lots of pushups.”
“You can do better than that.”
Kyle thought for a moment. “Imagine Hogwarts without magic. And half the cadets were Draco Malfoy. And instead of Potions we had Physics, which is kind of like magic except it’s just math. And instead of Defense Against the Dark Arts, we had Nautical Science.”
“That’s some deep cuts Harry Potter.”
“Kirby.”
“Sure,” laughed Corey. “Did you have quidditch?”
“Well, we played a lot of flickerball, which is kind of like quidditch, but without broomsticks. We used the broomsticks to clean, which we did all the time.”
“You had chores?”
“Oh God yes. So many chores.”
“Why?”
“It builds character. Plus, it was something to do when we weren’t marching.”
“Marching?”
“Only when I wasn’t studying or doing chores.”
“Where the fuck did you march to?”
“Nowhere. In circles. Well, rectangles, technically…”
“But…why?”
“I’m still not sure. We never marched at sea. If you march too far in one direction on a boat, you fall overboard.”
“No offense, dude, but the Academy sounds pretty fucking dismal.”
“Oh, I loved it.”
“You did?”
“Sure.”
“You’re nuts.”
“Most likely.”
“Did you have a Ron Weasley?”
“A pet redhead? No, but I had Charlie. And a few others.”
“And Max?” Corey ventured.
“Max was a total Hermoine.”
“Is she going to put a curse on me?”
“She’ll love you.”
I very much doubt that, thought Corey.
“So nothing I need to worry about?”
He laughed. “I haven’t seen a lot of these people in years, is all. I promise they won’t bite. If anything, they might fawn. Get a little drool on you, but no teeth.”
“Unlike you. So why haven’t you been back?”
“I live in Norfolk, for one. And no real cause to besides.”
“I call bullshit.”
He exhaled. “Well, Max and I got divorced just before our ten year homecoming, so I bowed out. Didn’t want to get asked the same question over and over. I’ve been been to one or two since,” he said, and shrugged. “The past few years, Charlie and I were usually on the road, trying get Paratus underway. This time it just worked out.”
“Because you’ll have this scorching piece of ass on your arm?”
He cupped her rear in his hand, gave it a gentle squeeze.
“Doesn’t hurt.” He kept his hand there, drew whispery circles along the curve with his fingertips. “We don’t have to go if you don’t want to. We can go to Mystic, we can go anywhere, or we can stay right here.”
“And miss the chance to get the missing pieces of your puzzle? Get your secret origin? Not a chance.” She whipped the sheets off and stood, stark naked and defiant. “What’s first on the agenda?”
He looked down at his revealed body, then back up at her.
“Drill, baby, drill.”