Peter found a parking spot on the street and as they got out of his truck, the roar of an airplane taking off made it impossible to hear. He pointed toward the building’s front door, and Shay nodded, and together they went up the pitted concrete path. The door was locked, but there was a panel of a dozen buttons for buzzers near a dented, ancient speaker.
Peter hit the buzzer for 350. There was no name next to it—there was nothing written next to any of the buttons, except for one marked Manager in childishly careful block print.
Nothing happened. He hit it again, holding it longer this time.
Shayla pointed to the speaker. “That might not even work,” she said—the jet engines now a rumble in the distance.
“Or no one’s home,” Peter said. He hit the button for the manager, as he glanced at her. “You up for playing private eye? A few white lies for the sake of information gathering?”
She nodded. “Of course. What are you thinking?”
But instead of the speaker squawking on, the manager came out of an apartment that was at the very front of the lobby—they could see a man peering at them through the glass as he came to push the door open.
“You here about the rental?” he asked. It was clear he was wary of Pete’s naval uniform, but his semi-unwelcoming demeanor went even farther south when he looked at Shayla. “Sorry to say it, but management just upped the security deposit to three full months.”
There was no way that was true for anyone but a family of color—or maybe a white sailor from the Naval Base, who was in an interracial relationship.
As if this man had the right to judge anyone, with his beer belly gaping between the bottom of his stained white sleeveless undershirt and jean cutoffs that were much too short, considering this was not the 1980s. And that wasn’t even taking into account his beady little blue eyes, orange-tanner skin tone, and lack of chin. His fleshy face just went straight from his head down to his shoulders, and God, he smelled like a bad combo of locker room and distillery. But he was white and male and presumably hetero, which in his mind gave him the right to assess and find them lacking.
Shayla smiled sweetly at the man, even while inwardly she was performing a Game of Thrones–style massacre—and maybe even writing warning messages on the lobby walls with his entrails. White lies? Nope. They were gonna hit this man with a full fictional fucking.
And before Peter could respond—it was clear he was both astonished and outraged—she said brightly, crisply, “Oh, that’s well within the studio’s budget—I’ve been authorized to offer in the neighborhood of seventy-five thousand for the month, with the possibility that we’ll need to stay for two. Maybe three—four at the most. At the same monthly rental amount, of course.”
The manager’s jaw had dropped. “I’m sorry, I’m—” he started, but Shayla cut him off.
“Excuse me, I’m sorry, I’m so rude! I’m Harriet Parker from Heartbeat Productions, and this is Lieutenant Thomas McGee—the film’s official military consultant. We’re scouting locations here in San Diego for Mr. Howard’s latest film, SEAL Team Sixteen—working title, of course. Lieutenant McGee is with me today, since the movie’s based on a true story, and he was there. And while apartment three-fifty isn’t exactly right, it’s very close to what Mr. Howard needs. We’ve all seen pictures, and we were supposed to meet the leaseholder here this morning—” she took her phone from her handbag and scrolled through her latest texts from Tevin, pretending they contained vital info from Mr. Howard’s studio “—a Daryl Middleton…?”
The manager was shaking his head, but his eyes had turned into cartoon dollar signs and he pushed the door open wide enough for them to come in. “I’m not sure where you got that info—three-fifty’s one of our currently-vacants. But I’m happy to show it to you, and talk to the owner about working out some kind of short-term deal.”
Yeah, Shayla bet he would. But as she and Peter stepped into the lobby—which smelled like locker room, distillery, urinal, and sauerkraut or maybe that was rotting cabbage, hard to tell—she said, “Three-fifty’s vacant? That’s strange. Unless…Oh, in his last email, Daryl said something about his father’s failing health, so maybe he had to leave town unexpectedly. And then we got delayed because of the thing with Ryan Gosling….You know, but shhh, can’t talk about it.”
The manager was trying to lead them toward the back of the lobby, to an elevator door that didn’t quite close all the way—as if someone had taken a crowbar to it in order to allow someone else to escape. No way was she getting into that, so she planted her feet and took Peter’s arm to stop him, too.
He complied and even covered her hand with his and squeezed—it was clear he was trying not to laugh as the manager realized they weren’t following and came back.
Shay asked, “Has three-fifty been empty for long?”
“Oh,” he said, “um, yeah, actually. I think the tenants moved out in December. Yeah, it was right before Christmas, when the semester ended. They were students.”
“Wow,” Shay said. “So…months ago. That’s strange. Are you sure we’re talking about the same tenant—Daryl Middleton? Maybe I got the apartment number wrong.”
The manager shook his head, absolute. “I’ve been here ten years. I know everyone. No one named Daryl Middleton in three-fifty or any other apartment. At least not as a leaseholder.”
“I’m certain it was three-fifty, Harriet,” Peter told Shay before turning to the manager to say, “Daryl’s tall, white, long straight hair, beard, early twenties…?”
The manager laughed. “Tenants were co-eds. From Ohio—nice girls, pretty. Blondes and maybe not the sharpest tools in the shed, if you know what I mean. This Daryl sounds like one of their boyfriends. They had shitty taste in men.”
In other words, he’d hit on them and gotten turned down.
“I’m happy to show you the apartment though,” the manager continued.
Both Shayla and Peter reached for their phones at the exact same time, feigning an incoming call—because there was no need to go upstairs.
Shay pretended to look at her phone and covered by saying, “Oh my God, Lieutenant McGee, are you getting a call from Ron’s office, too? Hang on, I’ve got to take this.”
“I do, too,” Peter said, and they both turned away, pretending to listen to someone on their other end.
“We’re there right now, sir,” Shay said as she heard Peter murmur, “ASAP? Yes, of course. We’ll reschedule. Not a problem. I’m sure.”
She fought her laughter and instead said, “Certainly, Mr. Howard, I can arrange that.” She paused and then said, “Yes, sir, I’ll let him know.”
She and Peter both “hung up” their phones at the same time and turned back to each other and the manager, who’d been trying to look as if he weren’t listening in.
“You get a call about the meeting, too?” she asked Peter.
He nodded, and turned to the manager. “We’re going to have to reschedule.”
“I’m so sorry,” Shay said. “We’ve got to rush back to LA. But Mr. Howard was hoping to get a look at the place himself, maybe early tomorrow? If it’s still available, of course. And please, please, don’t hold it for him if someone wants to rent. As much as he likes working on location, having a set built on a soundstage has its benefits, and it’s a constant give-and-take with the movie’s producers.”
“If he can get a real Mark Five he might give in to the pressure to build the apartment on the soundstage,” Peter said.
She had no idea what a Mark Five was, and she almost laughed. Instead, she just blinked at Peter and said something ridiculous like, “Yes, of course, he does want a real…Mark Five.”
Peter opened the door and held it for her. “Shall we?”
The manager was doing at least some of the math, and realized he hadn’t given them his name or number. “It’s Bob Watkins. Eight-one-eight…” As he recited his phone number, Shay called out “Thank you!” She pretended to put it into her phone even as she went out
the door. Peter was right behind her, and somehow they managed to make it down and across the street to his truck before they started to laugh.
“You’re a little too good at that,” he told her, his eyes giving off a huge amount of sparkle. “I think I might be scared.”
“It’s really just writing a scene on the fly,” she told him. “And believe me, once he pissed me off…”
Peter sobered as they stood on the sidewalk next to his truck. “That was…unbelievable. What he did was illegal. And it’s pretty damn easy to prove that he was lying. Three months’ security?”
“But who wants to push to live in a building where that guy has a master key to your apartment?” Shayla shook her head. “In a way, it’s better to find it out up front. You know, before you move in and he ties a rope with a lynching noose on the stair rail for your kid to stumble across?”
“Fuck,” he said. And the way he was standing there, legs slightly spread in a stance that was more than a little combative, as if he were ready to slay the dragons of injustice, made her smile.
“Come on,” she said. “Susan Smith’s law office is surely open by now. Let’s visit her, see what she knows about Fiona and Maddie’s friendship, then check in at home, see if Maddie’s been there, maybe take a break to have lunch and write that Peter and Lisa, Chapter Two. The sooner we have something to send to Maddie, the sooner we’ll get another still safe text message—or even an invitation to talk. I was thinking, regardless, that it might make sense for Hans to text her, see if she’ll talk to him—”
Peter lunged at her. He moved so quickly, she honestly didn’t see it coming. One second, he was standing there, nodding in agreement, and the next he’d grabbed her, pulling her in hard against his chest as he dragged her with him behind his truck.
There was another truck—big and black—on the street, pulling away with a squeal of tires, a roar of an engine, and the harsh sound of voices shouting—something about Navy motherfucker—the other words indiscernible but the rage unmistakable.
Shayla shrieked her surprise as she tripped—over her own feet or maybe Peter’s—and this time instead of keeping her from going down, he went to the sidewalk with her, somehow managing to turn with a weird-sounding clang, so that she landed on his chest and front instead of on the hard concrete.
And yeah, her knee was lined up pretty perfectly with his crotch, and he made that unmistakable noise, deep in his throat, that she’d heard Carter and her various other exes make when she’d accidentally whacked them in the balls. She had given him, without a doubt, a direct hit.
Carter would tightly shut his eyes and curl into a bit of a ball himself, moaning for ice. But then, when she got it, he’d mutter Don’t touch me as she apologized.
Peter’s eyes, however, were wide open and mere inches from her own as he focused on her. “Are you okay? Did you get hit? Are you hurt?”
Hurt? Hit? “No,” she said, still dazed by suddenly being tackled. This current body-to-body contact wasn’t helping to clear her head. He was warm and solid, with those giant arms still wrapped tightly around her. “What…?”
As she pulled back slightly—his face was too close to have any kind of a conversation that didn’t include the phrase Kiss me, fool, an utterance that would be a mistake—she realized that he was covered—covered—in some kind of hideously disgusting brown slop.
Had they fallen into horse manure, or God, the place in the neighborhood where the homeless population emptied their bowels, because, yeah, it smelled like that kind of nasty, too. Except she would’ve made note of it earlier, upon getting out of Peter’s truck—they were lying there right beside the very door she’d emerged from.
As she pushed herself even further up and off of him, she saw a metal bucket—that was what she’d heard make that clang as it hit the sidewalk. It was lying on its side, and was clearly the source of the nastiness.
“Oh, my God,” she said as Peter started to hold out a hand to help her up, but stopped when he realized that doing so would transfer that whatever-it-was onto her. She was miraculously clean, probably because he’d made himself into a rather large shield to protect her. “Did those men in that truck throw that at us? Who was that? Oh, my God! Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, I don’t know who they were, I didn’t really see much,” Peter told her. “It was a black truck, large, relatively new, maybe a Ford, but I can’t say for sure. At least two occupants in the cab, but whoever threw this was riding in the back.”
“Navy motherfucker,” Shayla echoed the few words she’d heard.
He nodded as he glanced down the street. “Yeah, I heard that, too. Whoever they are, they’re long gone.”
The bucket was not a little one—it was floor-mopping size—and as they both got back onto their feet, Shayla could tell from the way he’d been splattered that it had hit him squarely in the back. God, the shit—literal shit—was in his beautiful hair, and had gone down his collar. But despite that, he was looking at her carefully, as if double-checking that she truly was unharmed.
There was only one Navy motherfucker between the two of them, but while they may have been aiming at Peter, they’d missed. Shay realized that if he hadn’t gallantly thrown himself between her and the bucket, it would’ve hit her, right in the head. Even empty, that would’ve hurt. But full…?
Instead, she was almost completely unscathed. Her knee was a little sore—the one that had hit the street instead of Peter’s male anatomy. Although, she discovered that she did have quite a bit of dookey on the back of her sweater, which she quickly slipped out of, turned inside out, and then used to wipe off a few stray patches of ick that smudged her pants. “Are you sure you’re all right? That must’ve hit you hard.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m okay. But the smell is kinda…I might throw up. I’m gonna apologize for that in advance.”
“I kicked you in the gentleman’s accessories,” she reminded him. “That can’t be helping.”
“I’ll live,” he said as he started to undress, right there on the sidewalk. “Reach into my pocket and get my keys—and my phone and wallet while you’re at it—I don’t want to touch them. I’m riding in the back—you’re driving us home.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Shayla wasn’t used to driving a vehicle this enormous, and it was a little scary, but she focused instead on the positives. Being able to look down on all of the other drivers as she pushed past the edge of the speed limit was pretty cool.
The exception to that were the people driving the big rigs. They still looked down on her—and had a clear shot of the nearly naked Navy SEAL lying on his back in the bed of the truck, trying not to puke. He’d kept his underwear on—white boxers, which really, when she thought about it, was the only option under white uniform pants.
He had an angry red mark on his back from where the bucket had made contact, but it hadn’t broken the skin.
His right elbow, on the other hand, was shredded. Shay didn’t want to think about whatever it was in that bucket making contact with an open scrape, but it had. And the sooner she got him home, the faster they could get him cleaned up.
He’d had a pack of utility-size trash bags—thick black plastic—stashed in one of the locked compartments in the back of the truck, and at his instruction, she’d gotten out a few. One for his clothes and her trashed sweater, and a second to contain the bucket.
So far, Peter had resisted her suggestion that they call the police. She knew he desperately wanted to get home to wash, so she hadn’t pushed, but it was possible there were fingerprints on that bucket, so they took it with them.
Traffic was heavier than she liked, especially since she was piloting the Millennium Falcon, but she finally pulled onto their street.
And oh, good. Mrs. Quinn was out watering her flowers, and yup, she’d perked up into hyper-nosy mode as she realized that Shay was driving the SEAL’s truck.
Harry popped in, already laughing his ass off. Mrs. Quinn’s gonna shit
a full flock of Canadian geese when she sees…
Yup, even before Shay had completely braked to a stop in Peter’s driveway, he was up and out of the truck, a flash of mostly tanned skin and golden hair, beelining for the backyard.
That, Harry finished with a chortle as yup, in the rearview Shay saw that Mrs. Quinn had dropped her hose. It must’ve been locked into an on position, because it kept spraying and it danced around wildly—causing Mrs. Quinn to shriek and run for cover.
Shayla waved to the woman as casually as she could as she locked Peter’s truck with a beep from the key fob.
Harry hovered. Now what? Follow him back there to help? He’s no longer nearly naked, FYI.
Shay confirmed the obvious—Peter had, indeed, left his boxers behind in the truck. He probably would’ve left his poop-matted hair if he could’ve.
He was probably using his own hose to, literally, hose himself down. Odds were that he didn’t need any help.
But you have his keys, Harry pointed out.
She looked down at them—the chain included the keys to his house. She had his phone and wallet, too, pulled from his pockets before the slime had contaminated them. She had to go back there to give it all to him. And while she was there, she could offer to get him a towel from inside.
Yeah, Harry said as he followed her down a neatly swept path that led around to the back of Peter’s house. That’s why you’re going. To get the SEAL a towel.
And to help him clean out that scraped elbow after he was done with the hose-down. She could hear the sound of water running—Peter had, indeed, turned on his hose.
You want to get a good look at his elbow, because you’re the witty neighbor, so you definitely didn’t bother checking out his ass as he did his streaker impression.
He had been running pretty fast.
Right.
Okay so, naked, the SEAL was an eleven on a scale from one to ten. And yup again, there he was, holding up the hose with one hand as he used the other to attempt to comb the crap out of his hair.
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