Amanda had picked out a gray cowl-neck sweater and black pants, the least sexy outfit she could find that was still appropriate for a restaurant.
She had spent the afternoon rehearsing lines designed to spare Brock’s feelings as much as possible, about how great a guy he was, about how lucky any woman would be to have him, about how much she loved him and cared about him as a friend.
All the while she knew how much those last three words would kill him. Ultimately, it didn’t matter that your heart was being shattered by a rubber mallet instead of an ice pick. Rejection was still rejection.
When Brock’s Mini Cooper pulled up to the curb, she walked quickly down the front steps, wanting to get the whole uncomfortable thing over with. He was wearing his usual jeans and blazer and met her with a quick peck on the cheek. Then he held the door for her, like usual.
On the way to the restaurant, they small-talked stiffly. The cruise had been great. He had gone scuba diving at every place the boat had stopped. He had done time on the treadmill so he could work off at least some of all the amazing food the ship served. She should really have come with him because he didn’t see a mosquito the whole time.
Amanda wasn’t going to push him on his agenda—it was his thing to tell, his thing to ask—and he didn’t mention anything until they were seated at the restaurant and he had a glass of wine in front of him.
He took a long gulp, then set down the glass and said, “Sorry for the mysterious text earlier.”
“Oh, right,” Amanda said, like she hadn’t been thinking about it. “What did you want to tell me, anyway?”
She braced herself. And then he came out with:
“I met someone on the cruise.”
“Oh,” she said, trying to sound more excited than surprised. “That’s great, Brock. Who is she?”
“His name is Jonathan.”
Amanda felt at once relieved and incredibly stupid. Of course Brock was gay. She should have known from the way he danced during those slow songs. The Mississippi girl’s gaydar had epic-failed once again.
“He lives in Baltimore, so I don’t know how much of a chance I’ll get to see him,” Brock continued. “But we had a really amazing time. He kind of reminds me of you, in that he’s quiet at first, but he can really talk once he trusts you. We didn’t hook up a lot—that sort of didn’t happen until the end. But when we did . . .”
“Baltimore isn’t that far away, you know,” Amanda said.
“I know, I know. Look, you can’t tell anyone, okay? My mom knows and doesn’t care. But my dad is just so old-school. His idea of manhood is three wives and five kids, and I don’t think he’s even considered that there’s any other way. He’s always on me about why I don’t find a nice girl and settle down. Sometimes I bring women like you around just to make him happy. I swear, I’ll come out after he dies. But for now . . . He just wouldn’t understand. Half the reason I travel so much is so I can be with guys without worrying about my father finding out.”
“Sorry,” Amanda said. “That has to be hard.”
“Oh, it’s fine. I think some people around Hackensack have probably figured it out. I’m pretty sure Ms. Jump knows.”
Which explained why her future mother-in-law had no compunction about setting them up on a quasi date and why she hadn’t objected to them spending so much time together since.
He continued: “I’ve gotten so used to living in the closet I practically have hangers imprinted in my back. I just, I felt strange not telling you. We’ve been spending so much time together and have gotten so close, not telling you felt like lying.”
“Well, I won’t tell anyone,” she said, reaching across the table and patting his hand. “And I’m glad you trusted me enough to tell me.”
“You’re welcome. And now that I’ve told you my truth, I’m hoping you can tell me yours.”
Amanda stiffened. What was he talking about?
“I was thinking about you while I was away, worrying about you, actually,” he said. “So I googled ‘Mamma Mia! touring company’ to see where Tommy was going to be around Christmas. I was thinking your Christmas present would be flying out to see him somewhere.”
She shifted her gaze down and was now staring at the tablecloth.
“Honey, there is no touring company of Mamma Mia! There hasn’t been for a few years now. It’s none of my business if you don’t want to tell me, but . . . what’s Tommy really up to?”
Amanda reached for a strawberry-blond curl near her shoulder and twisted it around her finger. What was she supposed to say? She had seen the nondisclosure agreement Tommy had signed. It was explicit about the consequences of Tommy’s arrangement with the FBI becoming public.
But Brock had plenty of practice keeping secrets. And who was he going to tell? So, after swearing him to silence, she gave him the brief rundown: how Tommy had been approached by Danny Ruiz to take an unusual kind of acting job for the FBI.
Brock listened, clearly puzzled.
“Danny Ruiz?” he said. “Like, our Danny Ruiz? The Danny Ruiz who grew up in Hackensack?”
“Yeah, why?”
“That . . . that doesn’t make sense.”
“Why not?”
“There’s no way Danny works for the FBI,” he said.
“What are you talking about?”
“As I understand it, he really ought to be in prison right now,” Brock said.
Amanda’s stomach lurched beyond even the usual bounds of morning sickness. She had to hold the sides of the table just to steady herself.
“Could you please start making sense?” she asked.
Brock leaned forward. “I was at a party in the city, maybe two, three years ago and I randomly bumped into this guy I hadn’t seen since graduation. His parents had moved out of town, so he never really had a reason to come back to the old neighborhood. Anyway, he had just graduated law school and was now clerking for a federal judge. I asked him if he kept in touch with anyone from high school, and he said, ‘You’ll never guess who was a defendant in my courtroom last month.’ And I was like, ‘Who?’ And he said, ‘You remember Danny Ruiz?’”
Amanda was too stunned to say anything. She was losing her grip on the table, on reality itself.
“I was like, ‘Yeah, of course I remember Danny. Danny Danger.’ And then he told me this whole big story. The feds had Danny nailed dead to rights for trafficking some huge amount of crystal meth. He wasn’t just the supplier. He was the supplier of the suppliers. And my buddy said he had obviously been doing pretty well with it, because he showed up in court with three lawyers in really, really nice suits. It was obvious to my buddy that Danny was guilty as hell, but he was just sitting there with this Cheshire cat smile the whole time. Sure enough, the lawyers got him off on some kind of technicality. They poked a hole in the search warrant or something like that, and it blew up the whole case. Danny just waltzed out of the courtroom, free as a bird.”
Amanda’s hand had gone over her mouth. She was shaking. Tears were pouring from her eyes, snot from her nose. It was every fear she had about this whole stupid thing, amplified, multiplied, and intensified.
“So Danny Ruiz is not working for the FBI,” Brock finished. “Sounds like he’s working for a cartel.”