Knock Me for a Loop

by Heidi Betts

  “Sending Grace was a good idea, then, I take it?”

  The question was tentative, as though Dylan expected Zack to lay into the both of them for first getting on his case, then abandoning him, and finally sending his ex in to whip him into shape. And if they’d showed up a day or two into Grace’s visit, that’s probably exactly what he would have done.

  But how could he be upset or hold anything against them when A.) they’d had his best interests at heart and B.) it really had been what he’d needed?

  So he could be stubborn and didn’t always know what was best for himself. Or maybe he did, but didn’t always want to admit it.

  “Yeah,” he told them, not too proud—not anymore, at any rate—to come clean. “It was a good idea.”

  Without a word, Gage reached into his front pocket, pulled out a folded twenty-dollar bill, and tossed it across the table to Dylan.

  Zack regarded them curiously. “What was that for?” he asked, though he had a pretty clear idea.

  “We had a wager going over whether you’d be okay with Grace moving in or be ready to take our heads off.”

  “You bet on decapitation, I take it,” Zack replied dryly to Gage.

  The waitress returned with their pitcher of Sam Adams draft and three empty glasses, pouring the first round for them.

  After she wiggled away, Gage said, “I was kind of expecting you to take a swing at us with your crutches when you first arrived.”

  “To be honest, so did I,” Dylan said. “Except that Ronnie’s been hovering by the phone ever since she and Jenna badgered Grace into going to see you, and since Grace never called either crying or screaming, I figured you must have worked out some sort of truce.”

  “Why would I need to beat you with my crutches when I’ve already flattened all your tires and filled your cars with dead fish?” he asked, raising his glass to his lips for a first, long sip.

  “You know,” Dylan said, “I’d almost believe you if Ronnie hadn’t dropped me off on her way to The Yarn Barn.”

  “Same here.”

  Zack chuckled. “God, we’re a bunch of pussy-whipped losers,” he muttered. “At least I’ve got a decent excuse for having a woman drive me to my favorite watering hole.” He slapped the side of his bum leg in emphasis.

  “Speak for yourself,” Gage told him. “Having Jenna drop me off is the smart move. It gets her here after her knitting meeting, and gets a few drinks into her so she’s feeling all mellow and receptive by the time we get home.” One corner of his mouth lifted. “That’s even worth riding around town in her damn tiny tuna can of a car.”

  Gage lifted his beer at the same time Zack lowered his.

  “You need to knock her up already so you have an excuse to upgrade to a minivan or something, man,” Zack offered.

  At that, his friend’s mouth stretched into a fullblown smile…or as much of a smile as Gage ever shared, anyway. “I’m working on it. And enjoying every minute of it, believe me.”

  “Tough job,” Dylan put in.

  And then all three of them together: “But somebody’s gotta do it.”

  That got them all laughing and bumping knuckles for a few minutes, and Zack thought he might have just managed to slip under the radar of his eagle-eyed friends and their earlier topic of conversation.

  He should have known better.

  “Back to the important stuff, though,” Dylan put in, making him once again feel like a bug under a microscope. “You’ve gotta tell us how things are going over at Casa del Hoolihan. We’ve been watching the news and reading the papers, but we haven’t seen any domestic disturbance reports. No Hummers being violated. No clothes flying from windows or hockey trophies being mounted headfirst through walls.”

  His friend’s lips twitched with amusement, and Zack burrowed his face back into the foamy head of his beer to hide his scowl.

  That was the problem with having two such close buddies, he thought. They knew too much about his personal life and weren’t afraid to bring up things that might be private or uncomfortable, or pester him when they wanted further details.

  There was no getting out of it, either. They’d hound him until he was tempted to snatch the hair right out of his head, and he wasn’t exactly up to running away.

  With a sigh, he lowered his beer to the table with a clink and sat back in his chair, adopting a negligent hunch that allowed him to stretch his injured leg a bit more.

  “What do you want to know?” he asked, resigned.

  Dylan and Gage exchanged a surprised glance.

  It was something, at least, catching them off guard. He was sure they’d expected him to be tight-lipped and make them fight to drag the information from him.

  But what was the point when he’d end up telling them everything eventually, anyway? Either they’d wear him down and he’d spill because he couldn’t take the endless interrogation any longer, or he’d end up needing their advice and would have to fill them in to get it.

  “Would I sound like too much of a girl if I said ‘everything’?” Dylan asked.

  “Yes,” Zack and Gage both responded at the same time.

  “All right, then you ask him something,” he said, gesturing to Gage with his glass before taking a drink.

  The bigger man thought for a minute, tapping the side of his thumb on the tabletop. When he finally spoke, it was in a low voice and with a completely straight face. “How’s your dog?”

  Both Zack and Dylan stared at him as though he’d just asked if Zack was wearing women’s underwear. Then a round of chuckles went around the table, punctuated by a couple of good-natured curses from Zack. His friends really could be jerk-offs sometimes.

  “Bruiser’s great,” he told them, and realized how happy it made him to say that, to have the Saint Bernard back in his life again. He’d missed the big, furry drool factory.

  “And it is Bruiser, by the way,” he added, knowing that his friends would appreciate that piece of information, since they’d been the ones to inform him when Grace changed the dog’s name to Muffin to begin with.

  Muffin—God. It still sent ice chips through his blood to think of it. What had she been thinking?

  “Wow.” Dylan’s eyes went wide. “How’d you get her to agree to that?”

  “We hammered out an agreement,” he said, and then filled them in on everything that had been happening.

  “You’ve got a hell of a lot going on for a guy who only a month ago couldn’t be bothered to move off the couch unless he needed another bag of cheese balls,” Gage said after they’d taken a moment to absorb his little tale.

  “Cheetos,” Zack corrected.

  “So do you think there’s a chance you two can work things out?”

  This from Dylan, who’d been there when Grace had flipped out and gone running from the hotel, thinking he’d been banging other women while he was on the road and away from her.

  Unlike Grace, however, Dylan didn’t believe he’d been messing around. Aside from being one of his best friends, and therefore most likely aware if he was stepping out on his fiancée, he’d also done the math and realized that Zack wouldn’t have had the time to do anything inappropriate since they’d parted company and headed for their separate rooms on different floors. At least not anything interesting or that could qualify as truly unfaithful.

  And though Zack had pretty much written off ever being in the same zip code with Grace, let alone being with her again, Dylan hadn’t given up on them. He’d constantly offered encouragement and suggestions for convincing her that Zack hadn’t cheated.

  None of those suggestions had worked—possibly because Zack had never followed through on any of them—but it had been nice to have at least one person in his corner, unwilling to believe he was the horned beast from hell everyone else made him out to be.

  Okay, two people. Gage had been on his side, too. He hadn’t been there the day Zack’s world came crashing down around him, so he hadn’t known the details or had his own eyes and ears to
go by.

  But he’d listened to both Zack’s and Dylan’s version of events, then asked Zack flat-out—Did you cheat on her? Did you know that woman was in your hotel room? Have you ever fucked another woman while you were involved with Grace?

  Zack may have been drunk at the time, his mind sluggish and vision blurry with lack of sleep. But he’d looked his friend straight in the eyes and answered with one hundred percent, cross-his-heart, God-strike-him-dead honesty. No. No. And absolutely not.

  That had been good enough for Gage, whose background as a police detective and undercover cop gave him better skills than most in spotting deception.

  And though they’d never come right out and told him so, Zack suspected both men had slowly, subtly begun sharing their opinions of him with their significant others—Grace’s best friends. Maybe not singing his praises to the heavens, but stating a few facts about his behavior both that day in the hotel and in the past. Letting them know how broken up he was at losing Grace and having his entire life turned upside down.

  He should probably be upset about that. Pissed that they’d been talking behind his back, sharing things that he considered private and very, very personal. But not only had they been doing what they thought was best for him, to help him, it had also paved the way—eventually—for Grace’s reappearance in his life.

  Without Dylan and Gage defending him to Ronnie and Jenna, he had no doubt the two women would have gone to their graves before ever speaking a kind word about him again.

  Instead, they’d apparently (either directly or indirectly) rehumanized him to Grace. No way in hell would she have ever shown up on his doorstep otherwise. Not without her friends’ soothing, encouraging, prompting.

  That was reason enough for him to be buying the drinks tonight.

  Even though their glasses were still full, the pitcher wasn’t, and he signaled the waitress to bring them another.

  “I’m still not real sure how she feels about me, but I think it’s safe to say she’s no longer burning me in effigy.”

  “I don’t think she ever did that,” Dylan assured him.

  “But she did have a voodoo doll,” Gage remarked.

  Zack’s lips twisted in self-deprecation. “I guess that explains the knee and my shitty performance leading up to it.”

  “Did you get a lot of stabbing pains in weird areas after the two of you broke up?” Dylan wanted to know.

  “Or just the usual itching around your crotch and burning when you pee?”

  Gage’s face remained impassive, his delivery of the question as flat and serious as if he were pulling over a speeder and asking for the driver’s license and registration.

  “You’re a laugh riot,” Zack told him without a hint of actual amusement. “You should take your show on the road.”

  Along with a fresh pitcher of beer, the waitress brought bowls of pretzels and peanuts. Gage grabbed a handful of the nuts, popped them in his mouth, and said, “That’s the plan.”

  Right. Putting Gage on stage as a comedian would be sort of like putting a couple of Cleveland Browns linebackers in tights and tutus and asking them to dance Swan Lake.

  Zack took a couple of pretzels for himself, biting into them and chewing slowly, then washing down the salty snack with a swallow of beer.

  “If it were just a matter of seducing her,” he said, getting back to the matter at hand, “I think I’d be okay. I could just grab her up, kiss her stupid, and carry her off to bed.”

  “Yeah, if you can keep from putting any weight on that knee,” Dylan quipped, rubbing Zack’s nose in his earlier admission of blowing things with Grace by forgetting that he was half crippled and couldn’t exactly cart anyone off to bed. At least not without the aid of a wheelchair or little red wagon.

  “You know, maybe it wasn’t my knee that’s kept me from hanging out with you two the past couple of months. Maybe it’s because you’re shitty friends and I’m sick of you.”

  The other men exchanged glances, made funny faces, then turned back to him, lips twitching.

  “We’re so sorry,” Dylan apologized—not meaning a single word of it, Zack was sure. “Please go on. We’ll try not to interrupt you again, since you’ve always been so kind and sympathetic with us when we were going through hard times.”

  At the reminder, Zack cringed. Okay, so maybe he deserved a bit of ribbing, considering some of the things he’d said to each of them in the past.

  He recalled referring to Ronnie as “The Ice Queen” when Dylan had first begun showing an interest in her, and remarking that he’d likely need the Jaws of Life to pry her legs apart.

  When Gage and Jenna had started trying to work things out after their divorce, he definitely hadn’t said anything so crass—mostly because he was afraid of what his teeth would taste like after Gage rammed them down his throat. But when they’d first broken up, and his friend had been suffering the pains and resentments of freshly signed divorce papers, he’d done what any good friend would—called the ex a bitch, claimed Gage was better off without her, and offered to buy him a few hours with the call girl or stripper of his choice.

  “Time for some payback, huh?” he asked, knowing he deserved it.

  Dylan shrugged, raising his glass for a sip. “Just a little.”

  “We’ll be gentle, though,” Gage told him. “We wouldn’t want to make you cry.”

  Lip curling, Zack flipped them off.

  They shared another brief laugh before Zack admitted, “The attraction is still there, but I don’t think she’ll ever let herself trust me again until she’s absolutely sure I didn’t cheat on her. And how the hell am I supposed to prove that?”

  “Time machine?” Dylan suggested ever so helpfully.

  “Yeah, or a lie detector test,” Zack scoffed, remembering Grace’s comment. “Like I can just run to Wal-Mart and pick one up the next time I run out of milk or need a pair of eight-dollar shoes at three in the morning.”

  Seconds ticked by with only the sounds of the bar around them filling the silence at their table. A hockey game on one of the large-screen TVs—thankfully not a Rockets game or Zack seriously thought he might have wept with homesickness—and some random sports show on another. The clink of glasses, the hum of voices, the occasional shout of victory or hiss of disapproval as somebody’s favorite team either scored a point or didn’t.

  Normally he’d have had one eye glued to the game himself, but he just wasn’t into it tonight. He had other things, more important things, possibly life-altering things on his mind.

  And then Dylan chimed in, breaking his train of thought.

  “You definitely can’t pick up a polygraph machine at Wal-Mart,” his friend said slowly, turning his glass back and forth on the table, creating wet rings of condensation. “But maybe if you knew somebody with access to one …”

  He let the words trail off, and Zack almost piped up with, “Gee, thanks for the insight, Sherlock Holmes.”

  But then Dylan’s statement registered. It wasn’t much of a statement, after all, he realized. It was a hint, a suggestion, a verbal elbow to the ribs, nudge-nudge.

  His head snapped up and he stopped chewing the pretzel he’d just tossed in his mouth. Swallowing quickly, he gave a small cough and directed his gaze at Gage.

  “That’s right. All I need is someone with access to a lie detector test to help me out. You know anybody like that…Gage?”

  It took as long for Gage to catch his meaning as it had for him to put two and two together on what Dylan was saying. When he did, he sat back with a jerk, eyes going wide.

  “What? No way.”

  “Come on, man,” Dylan cajoled. “You’re a cop. The only one we know. You can’t tell us the department doesn’t have a polygraph machine and an operator on the payroll.”

  “Well, of course they do,” he shot back, “but it’s not a toy. It’s used on murder suspects and pedophiles to bolster the DA’s cases, not to settle marital disputes or help you get out of the doghouse with your
ex.”

  “It’s more than that and you know it,” Zack said quietly.

  Their gazes met and held, neither saying anything for several long minutes. Gage’s lips flattened and his jaw worked as though he were clenching it in indecision. Zack simply gripped the edge of the table, knuckles going white, while he held his breath waiting.

  “We’d do it for you,” Dylan put in barely above a whisper.

  But it seemed to be what Gage needed to hear and what pushed him over the line from by-the-book cop to bend-the-rules buddy.

  “Dammit,” he muttered. And then, “All right, fine. No promises, and I’m not losing my job over this, but I’ll see what I can do.”

  The air left Zack’s lungs in a rush. “That’s all I ask. Thank you.”

  If Gage could get him access to a lie detector and someone to run the test, then maybe he could convince Grace once and for all that he hadn’t done anything with that puck bunny who broke into his hotel room.

  He raised his glass to his mouth and took a long, quenching swallow, lips curved in anticipation.

  Oh, yeah. Things were looking up already.

  Row 14

  Even before she walked into The Yarn Barn for her weekly meeting with the other Knit Wits—a cutesy name created by Jenna’s aunt Charlotte for their small group of knitters—Grace braced herself for a modern-day Spanish Inquisition from her friends.

  She’d spoken with them on and off during her stay with Zack, but very briefly. And since he’d been within earshot most of those times, she hadn’t been able to tell them anything good or important or juicy.

  Of course, up until this morning, she hadn’t had anything particularly juicy to report.

  Now, she did. If she could bring herself to tell them about the kiss in Zack’s kitchen.

  Her cheeks flared at the memory, heat washing over the rest of her body by slow degrees.

  She should be furious with him. Their relationship was definitely not a touchy-feely one…not anymore. And she wasn’t there to get cozy or shack up. She was there to nurse and take care of him, help him get back on his feet.

  So the fact that he’d grabbed her that way, kissed her, run his hands along her waist and breasts and back…She should have slapped him, or at least stepped away before things got carried away.