Walk of Shame (30 page)

The knock on the door came at
three-thirty. We all stumbled around, quickly gathering what we needed, and
climbed back into the boats we came in.

We had an uneventful ride back to
the mainland and pulled into port to return the rented watercraft. The owner
nodded in understanding over the storm and the late return as he swiped the
network's credit card to pay for the extra time we'd used. The man looked
exhausted from having to sit up all night in the office, waiting to make sure
all the boats and people made it back to the safety of port. And as he tossed
the keys of the boat we'd used into the number twelve slot on the set of
shelves behind him, I noticed that there was still one more set of missing keys
yet to be returned.

I got back to
the cottage and flopped on the couch, to stretch out until Troy came in and
made me get up and move to get ready for the new day.

"All right, guys," I
said to the gathering in the kitchen. "Why don't you two just rock, paper,
scissors for it?"

Phillip nodded as he moved toward
Liam. "What's the date?"

"We're going to a morning
concert at the Philharmonic. Then, we're going to a theatre to see a production
of
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
."

"Wait," Jared said.
"So, who has to go to the symphony, the winner or the loser?"

"Ha-ha," I said with an
eye roll.

"Let's go," Liam said
with a gesture to Phillip.

"One, two, three,
shoot," they said in unison. Phillip laid out scissors and Liam crushed
them with his rock.

"I think we all should have
known you'd throw a rock," I quipped.

Liam laughed. "Let me go
change."

I chatted with the guys and
waited for him. He came back downstairs looking and smelling so good, it
bordered on being ridiculous.

"My mother actually raised
me to have an appreciation for music," Liam told me just after we'd
climbed into the car.

"Does that cover both the
symphony and the musical?" I asked.

"The symphony, yes. I've
never heard of the musical you named, but I promise to try to appreciate it for
what it is."

That got a laugh out of me.
"Well, I'll thank you for your efforts."

We both enjoyed the symphony. I
don't get moved to the point of tears by music as some people do, but the older
I got, the more appreciative of good music I became. And while there were no
tears, it sure did put a smile on my face.

"So, kids," I said to
get the conversation flowing again during the car ride between performances.

"Yeah. I'm thinking one. I'm
sorry, I am. But I'm thinking about it from the point of safety."

"Because we'll be up in
mountains?"

"Yes, and it's hard enough
getting a rig up to some of the spots, we can't really haul any trailers or
anything else past maybe a large tent. It sounds materialistic, but I'm trying
to think realistically. Kids take up space, they just do. More space equals
more stuff, which equals more weight being towed up a mountain."

"What about he or she having
a fellow kid to pal around with, to get lost on the mountain with. At least
then they wouldn't be alone."

"I'd rather he or she get
lost with a dog. Goldie seems really good, she'd be a wonderful companion for a
young child. And when she starts aging, we'll get another dog and start
training it to be the child's buddy. Dogs can find their way out and protect
the child against predators far better than a second child could."

I nodded. While I'd always
pictured myself with at least two kids, he made perfect sense. "What about
when I have to leave for conferences?"

"I'm thinking that being up on
a mountain, you'll probably need to fly to most of the places."

"That only works if I'm not
carting a bunch of stuff with me. Sometimes I can ship stuff to the place ahead
of time, but not often. There's a reason I always drive."

"Maybe you can pack up the
truck and take it. Depending on where we are and for how long you'll be, maybe
I can make do with a mountain bike, or I'll have to rent a vehicle."

"And I'll stay in a
hotel?"

"Yeah. There's also a bench
seat in the back of my truck's cab that folds down into a bed. It's not the
most comfortable thing in the world, but it'll do if you need to pull into a
truck stop and get some rest on your drive there and back."

I nodded, considering the issue.
"We could keep both trucks and I'll follow behind you when we relocate the
rig. Then you can keep my truck, and I'll take yours around to the conventions
for the bench seat."

He nodded. "That might work.
And if one of the trucks breaks down, we wouldn't be stranded until it was
repaired."

"And, if we removed the fifth
wheel from yours, and put a cap on it, I could keep all the convention stuff
contained in there."

"Oh, no, I got it. We'll get
a conversion van that will have a setup for you to cook and sit and whatnot in
it. It'll be tight, but you won't have to move in and out of hotels."

I smiled. "That sounds even
better."

We arrived at the theatre and the
conversation turned to finding our seats and reading the programs. I'd always
enjoyed watching the movie over the years, but seeing it on the stage renewed
my love for the story of the isolated brothers on their misguided path to
securing brides for themselves.

"So, where are we off to
next?" I asked after the show was done.

"What?"

"What did you plan for
me?"

"Uhhh, was I supposed to
plan something for the evening?"

"Well, no. But the other
three did, I guess I just assumed you would, too."

He shook his head. "I'm
sorry. I didn't know they were doing it."

"No problem. It wasn't a
requirement or anything. It was just sort of something that evolved this
week."

"We can go back to the
cottage and rent a movie on-demand," he suggested.

"Sure."

We spent the drive back chatting
about the show and other small tid-bits about how we would live and manage our
two careers together.

The driver parked us at the back
entrance so we could better sneak over to the cottage, without being spotted by
one of the other guys. We approached from the back, and entered through the
sliding glass door of the dining area.

We were only inside for a few
moments when Liam drew his brows together and gave a nod toward the living room
windows. "What's going on out there, do you think?"

I walked over to the windows and
peered out. "What in the world?" I gave a questioning look to Liam.

His smile was smug. "You
honestly believed that I wouldn't have planned a little something for
you?"

"Well, yes."

He chuckled. "Production
came to Phillip and I yesterday and asked what we'd like to do so they could
have a head's up."

"Ah."

Outside, the hot tub waited, with
candles and rose petals all around it. We changed and went outside with a
bottle of wine that was chilling in the fridge. The man gave me a hell of a
back massage in the hot tub, and followed it up with a foot rub. He spent the time
just simply spoiling me, and helping me to relax.

"Why was Goldie such a
secret?" he asked.

"She was my spy," I
told him. "She screened everybody at the house, and I watched to see who
she favored. And you'll notice her favorites are still here."

"She started sleeping with
you again after we all found out. But I noticed she slept with Jared last
night."

"The storm held Mike and me
up. We couldn't get back before she went to bed."

"You wouldn't pick someone
who Goldie didn't like?"

"I've never met anyone who I
liked and Goldie didn't. So, I figured if she didn't like someone, she had good
reason."

"Well, you had us all
fooled. We always saw her running around the estate. She acted more like a
stray."

"At first, we didn't let her
know where I was staying, and she was too curious about all the people tossing
her table scraps to really care since I still saw and interacted with her every
day. By the time she put together where I was staying, I think she'd come to
understand her job here."

"Well, we're all glad she
has a home, but some of us are disappointed for ourselves. If she had been a
stray, she'd have had a home by the end of filming."

I laughed. "I heard. On the
upside, one of you will get to keep her, if all goes well."

We went on to
talk of other things, even covering the benefits of having a dog on a mountain,
and the risks to a dog from other wild animals and falling rocks. And then I
had to stop and consider again if only one child was going to be enough for me.

"Last but not least,"
Phillip greeted me when I walked into the main house the next day.

I smiled. "You've been very
patient this week, I must say."

"Slow and steady wins the
race."

I started laughing.

"Laughter is the best
medicine," he said with a wink.

I shook my head at him.

"What's on the docket for
today?"

"Well, we're going to go
watch a sit-com be filmed, and then we're off to a murder/mystery dinner."

"Nice."

I greeted and then said goodbye
to the others before Phillip and I headed off. "Sit down activities
today?" he teased.

I clicked the seatbelt into place
and leaned back into the car seat. "Yeah. I knew it would be a long week,
so I figured to be sitting at the end of it."

"It's like you've been on a
whirlwind vacation that you need a day or two off at the end of, just so you
can recover."

"No crap."

I kept turning my head to watch
Phillip during the filming. In those moments, while blocking out the stuff
happening around us, when I could just contemplate him, some of the things I
appreciated about his personality struck me. He was always calm, intelligent, and
surprised you when you least expected it. I'd just labeled Phillip as being
more mature than the rest of the guys and chalked it up to his age. But, the
more I thought about it, I think Phillip was more of an old soul. I'd thought
that seeing his wife through her death had done it to him, but now I wondered
if he'd just been born this way. Whatever the cause or inclination, he wore it
well and I liked it.

"So, kids," I said when
we got back into the car to drive around and sightsee a little before it was
time to go to the dinner.

"Sure, what about
them?"

"Thoughts on how many you do
or don't want?"

"I'm content to go it one at
a time and reevaluate after each one."

That gave me pause. "That's
a take I haven't heard or thought of before."

"How can I tell you how many
kids I want when I've never had any to truly know what we're in for?"

"But you are willing to
commit to at least one, right?"

"Yeah. Let's get a couple
rings on your finger first, then hell yes, let's have a kid."

"And where will we put these
kids?"

"You mostly deal with
computer work and so do I. So, we could customize some desks that fold down
from the wall and some makeshift seating on the bed with some sort of
supportive pillows, maybe, to have the master bedroom double as an office. And
there are all kinds of two-bedroom fifth wheels out there. If you get one that
has a bunkroom in the back, it can sleep up to four. It would be a crowded way
to live, but it would do."

"What about when they start
aging up and differences between boys and girls begins to matter more?"

"We'll get something custom
designed with three bedrooms. I saw a floor plan for a three-bedroom model
online. Or even a loft floor plan might work."

"And what about when I have
to go to conventions?"

"Do you get your dates well in
advance?"

"Almost always. And if not,
an approximate date is given. Mostly all of what I go to are yearly
events."

"Excellent, me too. We can
probably plan around it. And just like you being able to write when I have to
do fieldwork, I can do all my research when we're in a town for your articles
or conventions."

"That sounds amazing. We
won't have to separate all the time."

"No. Much of what I do is
compare collected data over time and going over available research on a given
species. I have some flexibility as to when the fieldwork involved has to be
done."

"You make it sound like it
would be so easy."

"For us, in the wondrous
world of computers, it can be."

"And will we be boondocking
when you have to do your fieldwork?"

"No. I have to walk in and
out each day. We don't want to mar the land. And with kids, you're going to
have to keep them back at the site. They can't be scaring away wildlife when
I'm trying to observe how many there are and where they like to hide."

I nodded. "Understood. So,
I'll be around civilization when at the rig. I like that."

"Hey, I like modern day
conveniences," he said with a laugh.

"Awesome. I'm rather fond of
them myself. I don't
have
to have daily showers and 'round the clock
internet availability, but it sure is nice."

"Amen."

We finished our Tour of the
Stars, or rather, the location of some celebrity homes, and made it in plenty
of time for our murder/mystery dinner. Production hadn't been entirely
comfortable with the idea of putting us in with other guests from the general
public. So, the extra guests at our table consisted of two makeup artists, a cameraman,
an event coordinator, a maid, and a caterer - not that the general audience
would ever be told that. In hindsight, I should have made this a group date,
but too late now.

The dinner team pulled me aside,
under the guise of doing a quick interview for production, about the date, and
asked me to be the murderer. Not only would that have been predictable, this
was supposed to be a date. I wanted to work together with Phillip to figure it
out, not work against him by trying to dupe him. I declined, and told them I
was really looking forward to trying to solve the mystery. Then I glued myself
to Phillip's side so they couldn't snag him without me knowing and turn him into
the murderer.

A half-hour in, I saw the change
in Phillip's expression and his whole manner of playing and realized that he'd
figured it out. It took me another twenty minutes because he refused to ruin it
for me. They chose the event coordinator because she had the least amount of
contact with us on a regular basis. It made sense. We wouldn't know her little
quirks that displayed themselves when she was lying. As it turned out, she was
pretty poker-faced.

"Oh, my God. What did you
do?" I asked, later that night, through my laughter when I'd stepped out
onto my patio and stared at the sight in front of me.

"Turned on the hot tub light
and poured in glow in the dark bubbles," Phillip answered with a smile.

I laughed so hard, I snorted.
Bubbles were billowing up from the water, onto the patio, and were spreading
outward. Everything glowed blue. "If we get in, would we be able to find
each other?"

He chuckled. "I'm sure we'll
manage."

"Are they non-toxic? Because
I guarantee we'll be eating and breathing them in while we're in there."

"Um, I don't know."

We changed and got in slowly,
picking our way through the bubbling mass. We pushed the bubbles away from us,
carving out our own little spot as the mess piled inches above our heads. We
kept on having to push the bubble walls out again and again because they kept
closing in on us.

"How many bottles did you
dump in here?" I asked.

"A few."

I threw back
my head and laughed as he pulled me onto his lap.