Gabe snorted. “What the hell is a ‘sex creature’?”
Much spirited discussion of what a sex creature might be ensued.
Eventually it tapered off into a companionable silence.
“Or, you know, I’d do Sting,” Bud Wallace said suddenly.
They all froze mid screw-twist and pivoted to stare at him, jaws unanimously dropped.
The silence stretched.
“He’s into that tantric whatnot,” Bud said with great dignity. “If this were a football pool, we’d want our guys to haveskills. You want to have a deep bench.”
Not a thing interrupted the total silence or dumbstruck stares.
Until: “Then you’ll want to include a guy with a very long willy,” Louis said thoughtfully, finally.
“And who was that movie star fella who put a hamster up his rear?” This was from Mike.
“That’s an urban legend.”
“And I don’t know if that’s askill.”
“Yeah, but he’s a risk taker. You’ll want one of those on your team.”
Gabe rolled his eyes. They were, to a man, unashamedly profane right down to the marrow, and not even a little bit prejudiced about anything, really. It was rather refreshing to listen to it now and again, given how tightly reined he kept his own id thanks to the requirements of his job. Cathartic in the way that cranking the occasional death-metal tune in his car was.
He cleared his throat. “Hey, you guys... so, I’m really sorry about this, I can’t make this week’s game. I have to stop into the Chamber of Commerce mixer at the Misty Cat.”
A stunned, frozen silence followed.
“What?You hate that kind of thing. You can drink bad wine any day of the week. We need you, man! You’re our power hitter!” Louis was distraught.
Gabe wasn’t taking it lightly, either.
He took softball just as seriously as they did, because if he was going to do something, he was going to go all in.
Which was exactly why he was going to the Chamber of Commerce mixer.
“It’s just that I feel like I haven’t been doing my duty as a representative of the school district.”
The quality of the following silence told him that not one of them believed him.
“She’s going to be there. That mystery woman.” Mike blurted it like aJeopardycontestant.
“It’s Eden Harwood!” Louis guessed.
Gabe glared at him and resisted an impulse to look over his shoulder to see if Eden had appeared.
“Look at your face!” he crowed. “It is her, isn’t it? What do I win?”
Gabe slowly straightened to his full height and aimed his best stone face—and it was a real Medusa-quality stone face—at them.
Which effectively subdued them.
For a few seconds.
“C’mon, Gabe. You don’t have to worry about having game. Your résumé alone speaks for itself. It would wow anyone.” It was pretty funny when Lloyd tried to soothe him.