I opened the door and we stepped into the cool patio room that looked out on the pool. Part of the roof was made of glass panels that let the sun in. It was a transition from the main house to the outside and had been a sanctuary for me. Slowly, I led Marty into the main part of the house.
Marty, of course, was drawn to the architecture of the interior. His face was turned up like he was a tourist in New York City. He said, “This is an unbelievable house. Some of the crown work and the fireplace have to be a hundred years old. Done by true craftsmen, too.”
I said, “I picked out most of the furniture and the art.” As I was standing next to a landscape painted by an up-and-coming Miami artist, I decided to make myself comfortable and slipped over to the wet bar in the corner of the room. I made us a couple of Grey Goose vodkas on the rocks with a splash of cranberry, and we took them back into the patio room, which had loungers and a great view of the pool and yard.
I wanted to prove I wasn’t scared, so I stretched out on a lounger and sipped my drink. Marty followed my lead. The house was so well made, it was difficult to hear anything outside, and I realized that if I was wrong about my calculations, Brennan could show up unannounced at any moment. I wondered what the confrontation would be like. Would it hurt him to see me here with a guy like Marty? Would Marty really try to punch him in the face? These were valid questions, but I was determined not to show any fear.
Brennan had a temper, and I knew there were a few guns in the house. He had bought us a matched set of Walther PPKs one Christmas. He’d made it sound like they were for me, but he really wanted one and pretended I’d appreciate an identical gun for myself. The thought of the guns made me worry about a violent confrontation. Suddenly I started listening for every creak of the house or other sound. We had to be alone.
To fight my fear, I stood up and let Marty look at me for a moment. Before he could ask what I was doing, I slipped out of my shorts and T-shirt and kicked off my flip-flops. Standing there naked, I was waiting for him to tell me I was crazy, but he did the same thing with his bathing suit and tank top.
So there we were, naked, casually sipping drinks inside my former home like we didn’t have a care in the world. I tried to imagine what a life like that would be like. A life with Marty instead of the one I’d had with Brennan. It was a nice fantasy.
My doing something like this was all inspired by Marty and his love of dangerous games. This was so outside my comfort zone that Brennan might believe he was seeing things if he walked in right now. I almost wanted to show off the body I’d worked so hard on since he’d given me my walking papers.
I wondered what I might say to the cops if they showed up unexpectedly. Someone might’ve seen us slipping in from the driveway, or maybe there was a new silent alarm I wasn’t aware of. Suddenly, I started thinking of the downside of this adventure that had initially been so exciting. I resisted the urge to jump up and flee. My heart was starting to race, but I kept a pleasant smile on my face as I looked over at Marty, who was examining the room in detail from his comfortable lounger.
Then I heard the mechanical click of a key drift through the house.
Someone was opening the front door.