21—Mac
I knew that it obviously wasn’t a good thing to want to get obliterated the moment I got home. I stared at the wine rack hard the moment I came in the door, wondering which one would provide the strongest kick. I wanted to get trashed, wanted to forget about the impossible things that had come out of Jack’s mouth at dinner.
How was it even possible? My God, was this stupid rotten world really
that
small?
I stormed to the wine rack and selected the first bottle my hand landed on. When I took the cork out with my opener, my hands were shaking so badly that I nearly dropped the bottle. I poured a glass (all the way to the top) and took a long, luxurious sip.
But by the time I lowered the glass from my lips the tears had started.
For one sickening moment, I thought I could see David standing in the kitchen with me. He looked sad, as if he wanted to comfort me. I had seen him like this several times since he’d died and it had never gotten any easier. I knew it was not a ghost or anything as cheesy as that; it was just my own way of trying to conjure him up in times of distress. After dad had died, David was all I had left.
Then David had died… and that had really been the end of it. I knew the deaths of those two very important men in my life had been the primary reason I had never been able to keep a relationship—not even a marriage. I’m sure there were deep-rooted reasons behind it that I wasn’t even
about
to try to uncover… especially not while drinking.
Oddly enough, with the taste of the wine in my mouth, I decided that I actually didn’t want to drink. I wanted to mourn. I wanted to try to make sense of the rage and sense of betrayal I felt at Jack. I was mad as hell at him but wasn’t sure as to why. Not really…
I went to the computer and opened up my photos folder. I flipped through the slide show I had compiled of dad and David. When the first picture came around where David was in his combat fatigues, I almost lost it. Still, it was good to see his face—to see his smile, so much like my father’s.
I sat in front of the computer for almost an hour, watching the slide show three times. After the third round, I closed the program and eyed the phone, thinking about calling Grandfather. This news about Jack’s connection to David was beyond huge, so I’d end up telling him anyway. But I decided to let it pass, to let the motion sort of sizzle away before I spoke to anyone else about it.
I didn’t know what to do. A large part of me wanted to storm over to Jack’s right there and then to demand that he tell me more about David’s death and why he’d kept it from me—even if it
had
only been a day or so.
But then there was another part of me that spoke up, smaller than the angry side, but still confident. It said:
Seriously, girl. What the hell are you so mad at him for?
It was a good question, but not one that my anger would let me properly dissect.
To pass the time, I straightened up the living room, did a load of laundry, and put on some music. An hour or so later, I plopped back down in front of the computer to check my e-mail. As I typed in my log-in information, I saw glimpses of the day’s news headlines: more turmoil in the Middle East, some sports guy got drunk, Miley Cyrus did something stupid, Devlin Stone was still missing, there was a huge financial mess in DC, there was a—
I stopped skimming, my eyes catching on one of the small thumbnail pictures in the headline feed. The headline beside it annoyed me to no end:
Seven Weeks Later, Still No Clues on Devlin Stone’s Whereabouts.
“
Who gives a damn?” I said out loud.
I hated that guy. As far as I was concerned, he had sold his soul to Hollywood after serving heroically overseas in combat. He’d done something so truly great and then cashed it out for Hollywood. What an asshole. What a—
But my eyes returned to the picture again and I actually tilted my head a bit. Devlin Stone was slightly off center in the picture, his arm around some actress named Audrey or Aubrey or something. He was smiling thinly. His hair was combed nicely and he looked quite handsome. But there was something about his face that hit me the wrong way and for a moment I sat in the chair like a deer that was staring at an oncoming car.
Devlin Stone looked a hell of a lot like Jack. In fact, when I placed Jack’s beard on that pretty boy face of Devlin Stone’s they could have been brothers. Hell, maybe even twins.
Weird,
I thought.
But it was more than weird. There was something there… something I wasn’t getting quite yet. Certain thoughts started to swirl together in my head, pushed by the forceful winds of rage that had been there ever since storming away from Jack.
Jack knew David… he said he had been there when David died.
David died in combat, in a heroic rescue attempt where just about every member of the team died.
Devlin Stone’s story was much the same; he had apparently been the sole survivor of a special forces team that had been sent in to evacuate a school.
My mouth came unhinged; my jaw quite literally dropped.
“
No,” I said.
Devlin Stone saved my brother,
I thought.
And Jack… is he Devlin Stone?
It seemed like a stupid thought, but then I did the math in my head. I had met Jack a little more than six weeks ago… a few days before Devlin Stone had apparently disappeared. In any other case it could have
easily
been a coincidence.
But they looked
exactly
alike.
As it turns out, I needed that wine after all. I reclaimed the glass and took it back to the computer. I then did a Google image search on Devlin Stone. Many of the pictures were from his roles in movies, some of which had required him to almost never wear a shirt on screen.
The more pictures I saw, the more certain I became.
I raised the wine glass to my lips but found it empty. I went to the kitchen to refill it, my hands shaking worse than ever now. I managed to poise the bottle over the glass, the two clinking musically together.
As I set the bottle back on the counter, someone knocked on my front door.
I let out a little yelp of surprise and knocked the glass of wine over.
“
Damn it,” I said, looking back and forth between the hallway that led to the front of my house to the mess I had just made.
Deciding that I should answer the door before cleaning up the mess, I wondered out loud, “Who could this be?”
But of course I knew who it was. It was nearly ten thirty on a Friday night. I
never
got company, especially not late at night.
It was Jack. Or Devlin. Or whatever his name was.
I stopped in the hallway, looking to the door. Why should I let him in? If my insane little conspiracy theory was right, he had been lying to me ever since we met. This went way beyond the shocking revelation about my brother. This went deeper and to a whole different place that I didn’t think I was capable of dealing with right now.
“
Mac, it’s Jack,” he said through the door.
His voice was reassuring and I hated myself a bit for loving the sound of it. Slowly, I continued towards the door. I reached out for the knob but stopped myself.
“
What do you want?” I asked before opening the door.
“
I just need to talk to you.” He sounded calm but I thought there was a slight tick of nervousness underneath.
“
There’s nothing to talk about,” I said.
“
Of course there is. I’m sorry I dropped the news about your brother on you like that. I just… I don’t know. I didn’t know how to approach it.”
That was plausible enough. It
was
a weird bit of almost predestined information to handle. Looking back on it, I suppose he had done it rather well and with as much tact as possible, given the situation.
“
That’s not all, is it?” I asked. I was now pressed to the door, knowing full well that I was going to open it but wanting to give myself that one last chance to turn away. “You’re keeping something else from me, too. Aren’t you?”
“
Not anymore. Mac… please just open the door.”
I turned the knob and opened the door slowly. I didn’t even bother cutting the porch light on. But the lack of light didn’t stop me from seeing a transformed man standing on my doorstep. The face alone was enough to indicate that it was Jack. But without the beard and those baby-like cheeks exposed, his true identity was unmistakable.
It
was
Devlin Stone. And he was standing in my doorway.
“
Can I come in?” he asked.
I could only nod. I had spent years hating Devlin Stone for everything he had done. For selling out to Hollywood, for downplaying the duties he’d fulfilled in the military. I had no doubt that if David had not died in service (in this man’s arms nonetheless and I was
still
having trouble wrapping my head around that), Devlin Stone would not have bothered me. But he did; he’s always gotten under my skin.
But this wasn’t Devlin Stone standing before me, slowly walking into my house. This was Jack… a man I had come to develop feelings for. A man that had, if I’m being honest, re-energized a part of me that I thought had died when my husband had walked out on me.
“
Devlin Stone,” I said. “Seriously?”
He blinked a few times and then nodded, rubbing at his smooth face. The hair on his head was still disheveled and a bit long but there was no mistaking him.
“
Were you ever going to tell me?” I asked.
“
I guess I eventually would have,” he said. “If things would have kept progressing between us, I would have had to come clean at some point.”
“
What makes you think things would have kept progressing?” I asked.
He thought about his answer for a moment and then did something I hadn’t been expecting. He moved quickly, closing the distance between us, and kissed me. It took me a full two seconds to realize what he was doing. I pulled away but his hands were suddenly on my waist, holding me to him. I tried once more to pull away but then gave in. I would be a total liar if I claimed to not have thought about this for several days now.
The kiss was fierce and his lips were softer than I imagined they would be. My hands found his hair, cupping the back of his head. I let myself enjoy it, my emotions be damned. My knees buckled and then also felt a sense of loosening in his body as he also got lost in it.
At some point, our tongues brushed one another and that was too much. I pulled away, breaking out of the hold he had on my waist. When I was once again pried apart from him, my lips seemed to tingle and every muscle in my body wanted to do it all over again.
“
Why?” I asked, slightly breathless.
“
Why what?”
“
Why the charade? Why the disguise? Why Sitka?”
He shrugged. “I got tired of Hollywood. I felt cheap. I missed my friends from the military—friends like David. Making movies… it was fun and, I won’t lie, sort of a dream come true. But the parties and the attention started to get bland. I wanted more for my life. I wanted something substantial… something I could be proud of. I realized that I had already gotten that in the military. The movies were great and I am proud of a few of them… but not as proud as the time I spent in a uniform.”
“
So you just quit Hollywood?”