Suzanne Brockmann - Night Watch

“I told you, I quit.”

She gave him a pointed look, and he laughed. “Really,” he said. “This time is going to be different.”

“Hey, Andy,” Brittany called as she opened the door to her apartment.

“Hey, Britt,” her adopted son called back. “How’d it go with the load?”

Brittany looked at Wes, laughter in her eyes. “Um, sweetie?” she called to Andy. “The, uh, load came home with me.”

Wes had to laugh, especially when she added, “And he ain’t heavy, he’s my brother.”

Her place was extremely small, but it was decorated with comfortable-looking furniture and bright colors. A living room, an eat-in kitchen, a hallway off the kitchen that led to the back where there were two bedrooms.

Britt had told him on his way over that even though the place was significantly tinier than their house in Appleton, Massachusetts, it had the essential ingredient to shared housing—the bedrooms were large, and she and Andy each had their own bathroom.

Andy emerged from the hallway, dressed down in shorts and a T-shirt, his feet bare, and his dark hair a mess. He was trying to play it cool, but the kid practically throbbed with curiosity.

“Hey,” he said to Wes. He looked at Wes’s overnight bag, and then at Brittany. “Isn’t this outrageously unusual.”

“He’s sleeping on the couch,” Brittany told him in her refreshingly point-blank manner. “Don’t get any ideas, devil child.”

“Did I say anything?” Andy countered. “I didn’t say anything.” He reached out to shake Wes’s hand. “Nice to see you again, sir. Sorry about the load comment.”

“It’s not sir, it’s chief,” Wes corrected him. “But why don’t you just call me Wes?”

Andy nodded, looking from Wes to Brittany with unconcealed mischief in his eyes.

“Don’t say it,” Brittany warned him, as she went to a living room trunk and removed sheets and a blanket for the couch.

“What?” Andy played an angel, giving her big, innocent eyes. But beneath the playacting was an honestly sweet kid, who genuinely cared for his mother.

Jeez, that was who Andy reminded him of. Ethan. Wes’s little brother. Ah, Christ.

“There was a credit card mishap,” Brittany told Andy, putting the linens on the coffee table. “And Wes needed a place to sleep. Since we have a couch, it all seemed to line up quite nicely. I have an extra pillow on my bed that you can use,” she told Wes, before turning back to Andy. “Wes is not a candidate.”

Wes couldn’t keep from asking. “A candidate for what?”

Andy was watching Britt, too, waiting to see what she was going to say.

She laughed as she led the way into the kitchen, turning on the light and taking a kettle from the stove and filling it at the sink.

“This proves it,” she said to Andy. “I’m going to tell him the truth, which I wouldn’t do if he were any kind of real candidate—not that there are any real candidates.” She turned to Wes. “Ever since I adopted Andy, he’s been bugging me to ‘get him a father.’ It’s really just a silly joke. I mean, gosh, who’s on the candidate list right now?” she asked the kid as she put the kettle on the stove and turned on the gas.

“Well, Bill the mailman just came out of the closet, so we’re down to the guy who works the nightshift at the convenience store….”

“Alfonse.” Brittany crossed her arms as she leaned against the kitchen counter. “He’s about twenty-two years old and doesn’t speak more than ten words of English.”

“But you said he was cute,” Andy interjected.

“Yeah. The way Mrs. Feinstein’s new kitten is cute!”

“Well, there’s also Dr. Jurrik from the hospital.”

“Oh, he’s perfect,” Britt countered. “Except for the fact that I would rather stick needles into my eyes than get involved with another doctor.”

“That leaves Mr. Spoons.”

“The neighborhood bagman,” Brittany told Wes. “Be still my heart.”

Wes laughed as he leaned again the counter at the other end of the kitchen.

“The reason the list is so lame,” Andy told Wes, “is because she won’t go out and meet anyone for real. I mean, once every few years someone sets her up with the friend of a friend and she grits her teeth and goes, but other than that…” He shook his head in mock disgust.

“The truth is, most men my age are loads,” Brittany said.

“The truth is,” Andy told Wes, “she was married to a real load. I never met the guy myself, but apparently he was a piece of work. And now she’s gun-shy. So to speak.”

“I’m sure Melody and Jones completely filled in Wes as far as my tragic romantic past goes,” Britt said to Andy as she rolled her eyes at Wes. “Don’t you have studying to do?”

“Actually Dani just called,” Andy said. “She’s coming over.”

“Oh, is she feeling better?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “She sounded…I don’t know. Weird. Oh, by the way, the landlord called and said he was replacing the broken glass in your bathroom window with Plexiglas.” He grinned at Wes. “There’s a group of kids down the street really into stickball and they’ve managed to break that same window three times since we’ve moved in—which is pretty impressive.” He looked back at Britt. “The Plexiglas isn’t going to look too good, but the ball should bounce off.”

Brittany snorted. “Ten to one says that my bedroom window breaks next.”

The doorbell rang.

“Excuse me,” Andy said as he went into the living room.

“He’s a good kid,” Wes said quietly. “You should be very proud.”

“I am.” She opened one of the kitchen cabinets and took out a pair of mugs. “Want tea?”

He laughed. “SEALs aren’t allowed to drink tea. It’s written in the BUD/S manual.”

“BUD/S,” she repeated. “That’s the training you go through to become a SEAL, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Jones had a few pretty wild stories about something called Hell Week.”

Hell Week was the diabolically difficult segment of Phase One training, where the SEAL candidates were pushed to extremes, physically, emotionally and psychologically.

“Yeah, you know, I don’t remember much of Hell Week,” he told her. “I think I’ve blocked most of it out. It was hard.”

“Now, there’s an understatement.” Brittany smiled at him, and Wes wished—not for the last time this evening, he was sure—that he wasn’t sleeping on that couch tonight. Her smile was like pure sunshine—God, it was trite, but true.

“Yeah, I guess,” he said. “Like I said, I don’t remember much of it. Although, Hell Week was where Bobby Taylor and I finally stopped hating each other. The guy’s been my closest friend for years, but when we were first assigned as swim buddies—you know, we had to stick together no matter what during BUD/S—we hated each other’s guts.”

Brittany laughed. “I had no idea. Your friendship with Bobby is legendary. I mean, Bobby and Wes. Wes and Bobby. I keep expecting him to show up.”

“He’s on his honeymoon,” Wes told her.

“With your sister.” Her eyes softened. “That must feel really strange. It must be hard for you—your best friend and your sister. Suddenly it’s not Bobby and Wes, it’s Bobby and Colleen.”

It was amazing. Everyone who’d heard about Bobby’s marriage to Colleen had made noise like, how great was that? Your best friend gets to join your family. Wasn’t that terrific?

And yes, it was terrific. But at the same time it was weirder than hell. And Brittany had hit it right on the head. Wes’s entire friendship with Bobby had been based on the fact that they were two unattached guys. They shared an apartment, they shared a similar lifestyle, they shared a hell of a lot.