Deeper Than The Ocean by Julie Ann Walker
Chapter 28
3:10 PM…
One hell of a bad mood…that’s what Romeo was battling.
He was also tired, still slightly damp from the storm, and hungry. The latter of which was why he shuffled into the kitchen when he smelled someone cooking.
Let it be Bran. Let it be Bran. Let it be Bran.
Damnit! It wasn’t Bran.
Doc stood at the stove, a flowered waist apron tied around his lean hips. Since the man was six and a half feet tall, the garment hit him right below the crotch, making it look more like a tutu than a waist apron.
Romeo fought a grin, but it dissolved when the big Montanan turned to him, spatula in hand, and lifted an eyebrow. “You’re staring at me. Taking mental notes on how to be awesome?”
“You know,” Romeo mused while walking over to the cupboard to grab a coffee mug. He had to step around Meat on the way. The big, wrinkly bulldog sat beside Doc, tongue lolling, jowls drooling, waiting with rapt attention for any morsel that might fall from above like manna from heaven. “Being a smart-ass isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I mean, sure, it means you’re smart. But it also means you’re an ass.”
“Said the preacher to the choir,” Doc countered with a grin.
Romeo ignored him and poured himself a cup of coffee from a carafe that was always warm. Just about everyone who lived on Wayfarer Island ran on caffeine. “All these years together, Doc,” he said, “and you let me think you couldn’t cook.”
“I can’t cook. But I’ve been trying to improve myself.” Doc twirled the spatula like a baton.
“Then you should start by changing that shirt.”
Doc glanced down at his tank top that used to be a T-shirt before he cut the arms off. “What’s wrong with my shirt?” he demanded with a furrowed brow.
“For starters, it has a picture of a chicken laying an egg and reads: Chickens, the pet that poops breakfasts.”
Doc, completely unoffended, laughed heartily. “That’s comic gold, right there.” Then he sobered. “Wait. You said for starters. What else do you think is wrong with it?”
“You Joe-Dirted it. Only hicks, honkies, and hillbillies Joe-Dirt their shirts.”
“I was raised on a ranch in the middle of Nowhere, Montana.” Doc grinned. “I think that pretty much qualifies me for all three.”
Romeo snorted before taking a gulp of coffee. Making a face of revulsion, he complained, “Damn! Did you guys let Uncle John make it again? You know he puts chicory in there.”
John Anderson was a New Orleans transplant who still believed coffee should contain chicory, that crawfish tasted better than shrimp, and that a shark was nothing when compared to a Louisiana yard dog, otherwise known as an alligator.
Doc took a rather large drink out of the mug sitting next to the stove. He grimaced and admitted, “It truly is awful, isn’t it?”
Both of them nodded their agreement. And then both of them continued to drink the swill. After a second, Doc flipped the grilled cheese over in the skillet.
Romeo wrinkled his nose. “That thing smells like a teenage boy’s gym socks. What kind of cheese are you using?”
“Three cheeses actually.” Doc’s chest puffed with pride. “Cheddar and muenster, but what you’re probably smelling is the Gruyere.”
“Something wrong with good ol’ American?” Romeo asked over his shoulder since he’d turned to hunt through the liquor cabinet.
The coffee was helping with his fatigue. Doc’s odorific monstrosity of a grilled cheese had killed his appetite. But he was going to need a little liquid spirit if he had any hopes of tempering his foul mood.
“Nothing at all,” Doc admitted. “But like I said, I’m trying to improve myself and—” He stopped midsentence when he saw Romeo pour a healthy slug of whiskey into his coffee mug. Lifting an eyebrow, he asked, “To what do we owe the pleasure of your day drinking, may I ask?”
“You may.” Romeo taste-tested the cocktail and added a splash more whiskey. “But that doesn’t mean I’ll answer.”
Doc frowned. “You are ornerier than a two-headed snake today. Did someone eat your bowl of sunshine this morning?”
“Anyone ever told you that you talk in country music lyrics?” Romeo asked.
“My life is a country music lyric,” Doc countered with a shrug. “Grew up next to the railroad tracks. My first car was a pickup truck that was more rust than get up and go. And I own a pair of boots that are damn near old enough to drink.”
Despite himself, Romeo felt his lips twitching. When Doc put his mind to it, he could exude that aw-shucks, carefree cowboy charm that made a person want to pull up a chair and sit a spell.
“Come on,” Doc cajoled as he transferred the grilled cheese onto a plate. Meat watched the maneuver with laser-focused interest, and then licked his drooling chops in disappointment when nothing fell onto the floor. “Tell ol’ Doc what’s troubling you. You know your secret is safe with me since I’m not likely to care, which means I’ll probably forget in ten minutes. Consider this a judgment-free zone.”
Blowing out a windy breath, Romeo grabbed one of the ladderback chairs surrounding the old Formica table. “My instinct is to tell you that you’re in some serious need of your own business to mind, but I think you know that. So I’ll admit this much… I was put in an awkward position and I reacted poorly.”
After taking the seat opposite Romeo, Doc pulled off one corner of his grilled cheese and watched the gooey center string. “Vague,” he said, giving the morsel a couple of blows to cool it off before popping it in his mouth. “Very vague,” he added, working his jaw slowly, testing the quality of the product, and then giving a decisive dip of his chin.
Apparently the froufrou grilled cheese passed the muster.
“Which has me intrigued,” Doc finished, shooting Romeo an arch glance. “Does this have anything to do with the way Mia burst in earlier, stomping around like her hair was on fire even though she looked like a drowned rat?”
“Did she invite you to join her for a drink?” Romeo demanded, feeling an unwelcome stab of jealousy.
“No.” Doc’s chin jerked back. “Was she supposed to?”
The relief Romeo felt only pissed him off more. “She said she was going to.”
Doc broke off a piece of crust and tossed it to Meat. The bulldog caught it handily and swallowed without tasting it.
“I feel like we’re having two different conversations here.” Doc narrowed his eyes. “What does your being put in an awkward position and reacting poorly have to do with Mia inviting me to share a drink? Or not inviting me to share a drink, as the case may be?”
Romeo sighed and admitted miserably, “I think she needed a drink because I said something that really offended her. I mean, I didn’t mean to. I was trying to do the opposite. Trying not to let her get her feelings hurt, but—”
Doc interrupted with, “Thomas Edison once said ‘a good intention, but with a bad approach, often leads to a poor result.’”
Romeo frowned. “You’ve been hanging around Wolf too much.”
“So come on,” Doc said around a mouthful of toast and cheese. “What did you say to her?”
Romeo sniffed and looked out the window at Li’l Bastard. The rooster perched on the porch railing, staring in through the glass panes to keep an eye on his best buddy. Every once in a while, he let loose with an inquisitive cluck that made Meat turn away from Doc’s grilled cheese to give the chicken a quick, reassuring glance.
Deciding there was no use keeping the fiasco with Mia a secret—after all, they lived in extremely close quarters on an extremely small island; the whole crew was bound to find out eventually—Romeo sighed and ran through the events of the last twenty-four hours, culminating with what he’d said to Mia in the plane after they landed.
When he was finished, Doc sat there, staring. Then he wiped his mouth with a napkin—the grilled cheese having disappeared down his throat while Romeo told his tale of woe—and said, “It’s impressive you’re flexible enough to have your foot in your mouth and your head up your ass at the same time.”
Romeo tossed his hands in the air. “I thought you said this was a judgment-free zone!”
“I’m not judging you,” Doc countered. “That’s simply your conscience talking.”
Romeo harrumphed, conceding the point ungraciously.
His conscience was bothering him.
I mean, did I truly think a woman like her would be interested in a shitheel like me?
To his horror, he had. Because sweet Mother Mary had graced him with a handsome face, and plenty of workouts had given him a muscled body. He’d gotten used to women wanting him.
What a miserable, conceited ass I turned out to be!
Then again, how could he have known? Mia had gone from rabbiting out of the room every time he entered to gazing at him with doe eyes, asking him if he needed a drink, and calling him Sprio. Most guys would’ve been under the same mistaken impression that he’d been under, right?
“Okay, Mr. Know-It-All.” He crossed his arms. “So how would you have handled it if you were in my shoes?”
“First of all”—Doc leaned down so he could see Romeo’s feet beneath the table—“I wouldn’t be caught dead in a pair of Chacos. And second of all, it doesn’t matter what I would’ve done. I’m more interested in digging down on what you did and why.”
“Wait a minute. Wait a minute.” Romeo lifted a finger. “What’s the matter with Chacos?”
Doc rolled his eyes. “They’re marketed as sandals for an outdoor lifestyle, but they’re really the shoes sorority girl Tiffany’s daddy gets for her when he buys her a trip to Costa Rica for her college graduation. It’s like, ‘Oh, I see you’re wearing Chacos. Please tell me about your adventures staying in a five-star jungle hotel while eating Michelin star-worthy food and getting daily facials.’”
Romeo blinked. “Wow. I didn’t realize someone could have such a strong opinion of footwear.”
Doc waved away his response. “At least you haven’t succumbed to wearing Crocs. If you start that shit, I promise to go all Survivor on your ass and have you voted off the island. Now…back to the real issue. You told Mia she was nothing you need and that you are nothing she should want. What did you mean by that?”
“Exactly what I said. I don’t need a woman in my life,” Romeo answered testily. He’d been looking at a pair of Crocs when he’d been on Key West. Like Chacos, they were practical.“At least not one like her,” he added.
Both of Doc’s eyebrows arched. “And what is she like?”
“Nice. Cultured. Smart. And most importantly,” he bit off, “relationship material.”
For a long time, Doc studied him. For too long. Romeo had to stop himself from shifting uncomfortably.
Finally, Doc said, “You really want to spend the rest of your life flitting from woman to woman? Never having anything permanent or serious or meaningful?”
“Why would I want something permanent and serious and meaningful?” Romeo bristled. “You had it and look what it got you.” As soon as the words left his mouth, he wanted to suck them back in. “Shit, man.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I’m being an asshole today.”
“No argument here,” Doc agreed readily. Then he added, “But, you know, even though my love life ended up torpedoing my entire life, I still wouldn’t change what happened for the world. Not to get all cheesy on you by quoting Steel Magnolias,but ‘I would rather have thirty minutes of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special.’”
Something huge and hard centered in Romeo’s chest. “Doesn’t matter anyway,” he muttered, feeling perfectly wretched. “Even if Mia was something I needed in my life, I’m still not anything she should want. She’s way too good for me.”
“Ah,” Doc said. That one word contained a wealth of meaning.
For a long time afterward, they sat in silence, both lost in their thoughts. But eventually, his voice quiet, Doc added, “I know you have a past you’re not proud of, man. But people who are worth knowing, the ones who are good enough for you, should be able to see you for who you are instead of who you were. They should be able to appreciate the guts it took for you to change your life for the better.”
Romeo respected the hell out of Doc. And to hear a guy like that speak about him that way?
He had to take a quick drink to let the whiskey burn away the tears gathering behind his eyes or else he might break down bawling. Like…damn.
“Something tells me Mia is someone like that,” Doc continued. “Someone worth knowing. So maybe you should tell her the real reason you spooked like a wild mustang today, and then let her make up her own mind about you.”
Romeo stood from the table.
“Wait.” Doc looked alarmed. “I didn’t mean right now.Give her some time to cool down first.”
“I’m not going to talk to Mia,” Romeo told him. He wasn’t convinced Doc was right. The thought of telling Mia who he was—or who he’d been—turned his stomach worse than day-old chicken salad that’d been left in the sun.
He liked the way she looked at him now— Er…at least he’d liked the way she looked at him before their plane conversation. He’d liked seeing the interest and excitement in her eyes even when she was acting all trepidatious. And he didn’t think he could handle seeing disappointment there instead. Or worse, disgust.
“Then where are you headed?” Doc asked.
“To the beach at the back of the island. I’m going to finish my coffee out there.” He needed to think, and he couldn’t do it in a house full of his SEAL brothers. Like Doc, they were all far, far too shrewd when it came to picking up on his bad mood. And none of them could resist poking a bear.
“May you find peace once you get there.” Doc lifted his coffee mug.
“Amen, brother.” Romeo grabbed the bottle of whiskey on his way out. “I’ll drink to that.”