Troubleshooters: Headed For Trouble Part 7

Jules couldn't just take the money and be done with it. He had to go and hug Sam. "Thanks."

Of course, now the gay waiter was checking Sam out, too. He even followed them out into the square as they headed up the road.

Which turned out to be provident, since they hadn't gone far before a group of men, ranging in ages from teens to much older, blocked their path. They were scowling and grim, and their postures were clearly meant to menace.

Jules stepped in front of Sam, his body language relaxed, a smile on his face. "Good afternoon, gentlemen," he said in close to perfect Italian. "Is there a problem?"

Sam counted them quickly. There were nine, but only three-red shirt, goatee, and tattoo-looked capable of holding their own in a brawl.

Tattoo let out a stream of Italian that was far too rapid-fire for Sam to understand. He definitely caught the words Rome and the Pope along with what sounded like negative language. He wasn't quite sure what the man was saying, but there was no mistaking his intention when he roughly shoved Jules.

And just like that, the talking was over. Well, almost over. "I got Tattoo and Red Shirt," Jules announced in English, as he effortlessly took down the man who'd shoved him.

That left Goatee for Sam. But ouch, the man had a fishing knife. Sam quickly adiosed it, breaking more than a few fingers in the process.

That was all it took. Goatee ran home, crying for his mommy, eating the dust of the rest of the gang. They'd all long since am-scrayed, except for the delusional man in the red shirt, who actually still believed he could get a piece of Jules.

The FBI agent was subcompact and had a far better fashion sense than Alyssa, but he knew how to bring it in hand-to-hand combat. He fought with an efficiency of movement that Sam admired. It was beautiful, actually. Jules fought with his brain, unlike Red Shirt, who'd let loose his inner Neanderthal, swinging blindly, flailing mindlessly-making himself good and winded in the process.

Jules, on the other hand, was breathing about as hard as he'd been during lunch.

Red Shirt came at him one too many times, and Jules dodged him yet again, this time tripping him on his way past, using an expertly placed elbow to help the man greet the ground that much harder. He didn't get back up.

The gay waiter, meanwhile, had run to get the entire serving staff of the restaurant, including the owner.

As Sam watched, Jules turned to face this new threat, ready to take them all out if necessary. But-again, since his brain was fully functioning-he immediately recognized them for what they were. The cavalry come to save them. Not that they'd needed it.

The owner of the restaurant spoke fluent English. "This is not the first time such an outrage has happened here. Such anti-American sentiment is not helpful to our town. Tourism is down as it is."

Anti-American? Not anti-gay?

The man ushered them into his kitchen, ordering his staff to bring the first-aid kit and ice for Jules's raw knuckles. Sam looked at Jules, but he was playing right along, talking about the anti-American protests in Greece and even Dubai, as he helped Sam over to a table and pushed him into a chair.

It was then Sam realized he was bleeding. He'd gotten cut by that knife.

It wasn't too much more than a scratch, but the restaurant owner-who was also the chef-wasn't about to let them leave without cleaning them up. And feeding them a sampling of all his desserts, which was fine by Sam.

The man even drove them back to the resort in his little Mini. It was only then, after they said their good-byes, as they headed down the pathway past the pool, that Sam asked, "Anti-American?"

But Jules's phone rang. It was his boss's administrative a.s.sistant, Laronda. It was okay with Max if Jules wanted to take a few more days off. Which meant ...

"Let's get you a flight home," Jules said.

But Sam shook his head. "Anti-American, my a.s.s. I've been here for weeks. That was not about us being American. That was about you being gay. I'm not leaving you here alone."

Jules rolled his eyes. "That's ridiculous."

Sam held out his bandaged hand. "No, it's not."

"Yes, it is."

This was going nowhere fast, but Sam couldn't let it go. "Jules-"

"Don't you get it?" Jules asked, leading the way up the stairs to Sam's hotel suite. "This is my life. I could be jumped, beaten, and, yeah, even killed for being gay-not just here, but in any town in virtually any country in the world. Particularly in the United States, by the way. Are you going to follow me home to DC, Sam? Lots of hate crimes happen there, you know."

"Then maybe you should have a beard." Sam knew as soon as the words left his mouth that it was the wrong thing to say. But then he unlocked the door to his suite, and the situation went from bad to worse.

Chloe, dressed in only a pair of leopard-print thong panties and some very high heels, was dancing to music on the radio while fixing herself a drink at his wet bar.

A drink? Another drink. Clearly, she'd had quite a few already. "There you are," she said, as she caught sight of Sam. "I've been waiting for you."

Once again, Jules stepped in front of Sam. "You must be Chloe. I love your shoes."

She grabbed-apparently just as Jules had hoped she would-for her robe. In fact, he even helped her into it. "Pack," he ordered Sam over his shoulder, as he led Chloe out onto the balcony. "You remind me of Scarlett Johansson," Sam heard him saying to the girl. "You must get that all the time-you don't? Really? You look a lot like her ..."

Sam was almost completely packed, but he wasn't going anywhere without Jules. He stood in the bathroom. It didn't make sense to pack up his toilet kit, only to unpack it again tonight when he went to bed. His clothes were no problem. He could easily live out of his suitcase. He'd look slightly more rumpled than usual, but ...

"I got you on the four o'clock flight to London." Jules stood in the door.

Sam looked at him in the mirror. "I'm not leaving you behind."

Jules nodded. "I appreciate your loyalty, but Chloe had a little confession that, well, she asked me to share with you."

Sam waited.

"The bride and groom have apparently eloped," Jules told him. "The wedding party is indefinitely postponed. Your services are no longer needed-as of last night, as a matter of fact."

"What?"

"Apparently Chloe neglected to tell her sisters about this, too. She wanted to stay a few extra days, and ... She's young and misdirected. Apparently she's got quite the crush on you, cowboy."

Sam used one arm to sweep what Jules would call his "products" off the sink counter and into his bag. "The four o'clock to London will only get me home in time if nothing goes wrong," he said tightly. No delays, no canceled flights, no screwups between connecting flights. "And I'm still not leaving unless you've got a flight out of here, too."

"Yeah, about that," Jules said. "Confession part two. Apparently she hired those men to, well, as she put it, make me go away."

Sam looked at him. "Young, misdirected-and vicious."

"She is a little socially disengaged," Jules said. "But she's leaving, too. With her sisters. I thought I'd hang for a few days. Maybe get to know Paolo a little better."

"Paolo?" Sam asked.

"He owns that restaurant," Jules admitted. "While you were washing out that cut on your hand, we got to talking and ... he, um, offered to give me cooking lessons."

Sam laughed. He hadn't even realized that the restaurant owner-an older man with gray at his temples, good-looking in a kind of Italian Tom Hanks kind of way-was gay. "That's a new way of saying it." He sobered fast. "Are you sure you want to ...?"

"Sweetie, the only thing I'm absolutely sure about is that I don't want a beard," Jules said.

"I shouldn't have said that," Sam told his friend. "I didn't mean it. But I worry about you."

"I know. I forgive you. I just ... I want a relationship with someone like Paolo who's not afraid to be himself," Jules said. "G.o.d, I really want someone I'm in such a hurry to go home to that I'll pack in that horrific way that you just did." He laughed, but then sobered. "You know, before? When you asked me what I want? I want what you have with Alyssa, Sam. I want what Max has with Gina, what Jack has with Scott. I won't have that with Ben. Or with Robin, who's in f.u.c.king London right now promoting his latest movie, so I'm not going to London with you, even if it's only to catch a flight to New York, thanks but no thanks."

Maybe Alyssa was right. It sure seemed that all roads led back to this Robin guy.

"I remember," Sam said, "being in love with Alyssa, but she didn't want anything to do with me. I was so desperate not to think about her, and ... n.o.body could compete. Messing around with other women didn't help. It only made me miss her more. Plus the other women usually ended up hurt, which sucked."

"I hear what you're saying." Jules nodded. "And I appreciate your candor. But you need to go, or you're going to miss that plane."

Sam grabbed his bags. Opened the door. "Thanks again for everything."

"I'll give you a call in a coupla days," Jules said. "Kiss the s.h.i.t out of Alyssa for me, okay?"

Sam laughed. "Absolutely."

Alyssa wasn't waiting for him at LAX. She was in San Diego, at the Troubleshooters Incorporated office, organizing the gear her team-Sam included-would need for this next a.s.signment. It was cold where they were going, and they'd need to stay hidden, which meant camping without the benefit of fire.

Freeze-your-b.a.l.l.s-off-style camping was definitely not Sam's favorite thing to do, but this time, he absolutely couldn't wait. A pup tent, a two-person thermal sleeping bag, and his incredible woman ...

Yeah, he'd find a way to keep plenty warm.

Traffic was heavy, not just on the Five, but off it as well. He finally arrived, and, yes. There she was, in the parking lot. His wife. Working to fit three truckloads of supplies into two tiny packing crates. And getting the job done with room to spare.

Sam just stood there for a moment, watching her, just letting his heart swell. Her dark hair was long enough to pull back into a ponytail, but tendrils escaped, curling around her face. She was, without a doubt, the most beautiful woman in the entire world, even without any makeup, dressed down in forest cammie-print BDUs and lumberjack boots for two weeks of stomping around in the woods.

She was using her former-naval-officer voice-no-nonsense with a hint of dominatrix. But then she turned and saw him, and smiled. When she spoke again, her voice was honey. "Sam. You made it."

"Thanks to Jules," he said. She seemed happy to just stand there and look at him, too. He was grinning at her like an idiot.

"He called me," she said. "Told me all about the thong incident. Poor Chloe."

"Poor Chloe?" Sam protested. "What about poor me?"

"Poor Sam, having such a trying few weeks, in the most beautiful part of Italy, with naked women throwing themselves at you." She was trying to sound sarcastic, but her amus.e.m.e.nt bubbled through. She mocked him even more. "It must've been terrible, like ... like ... working in a Girls Gone Wild video!"

That was it for the just-let-me-look-at-you part of their long-awaited reunion. Sam dropped his bag and went for her. She met him more than halfway. He knew she'd missed him badly, too, because she didn't even bother to look around to see who might be watching them-they were, after all, at work. But she didn't care.

She just kissed him, and as he kissed the s.h.i.t of her, he thought of Jules, of how lonely he was. You asked me what I want? I want what you have with Alyssa ...

It didn't matter to Sam where they slept tonight-in their own bed, or in a five-star hotel, or even in a tent. As long as Alyssa was beside him, Sam was home.

When Jenk, Izzy, Gillman, and Lopez Met Tony Vlachic

2005.

This story takes place slightly before Into the Storm.

"Weirdest lesbian encounter ever," Izzy said as he dealt the cards around the desk that he'd helped Mark Jenkins move into the middle of the shabby motel room. "This girl comes up to me. I'm in a bar in Boulder, Colorado, and she is unbelievably beautiful. I'm talking a fifty on a scale of one to ten. Seriously Victoria's Secret gorgeous. Long dark hair, a face like Natalie Portman, a body like a p.o.r.n star."

Gillman rolled his eyes. "You are so full of s.h.i.t."

They'd been garrisoned in some low-rent places before, but this one, remote and located in a town that shut down and went to bed at 2030 every night, was about as nasty as Jenk had ever seen.

It did, however, include the essentials: a bathroom, a shower, beds to sleep in, an air conditioner that wheezed and chugged as it cooled down the room, a deck of cards, and a mini-fridge filled with beer.

So okay, the cards were Jenk's and the mini-fridge was Gillman's-one of those insulated coolers you could carry in your truck and plug in when you reached your destination.

Izzy turned to Jenk, injury in his voice and on his face. "You didn't hear me strapping on the bulls.h.i.t meter when Fishboy here was telling his lesbian supermodels-in-the-airport story, did you?"

Jenk had just been dealt three aces-his best hand all night. There was actually a chance he'd win back the money he'd lost over the past few hours. "Let's just play cards."

Now Izzy's disgusted exhale was for Jenk.

Jay Lopez, as usual, tried to restore harmony. "So she's beautiful and she comes up to you, and says ...?"

"I need a huge favor. And I'm thinking, Well, it's your lucky night, because I've got a huge favor," Izzy told them. "Only I managed to not say that. Probably because she was stupifyingly beautiful. I think what I ended up saying was Durh ...? And I probably enhanced it with a little drool, you know, on my chin."

Izzy took two cards from Lopez, dealing him two new ones. Danny Gillman took only one-which meant he either had a great hand or he was bluffing.

Jenk stared at him, willing him to do it. Scratch his chin with the back of his hand. Gillman did it every time he bluffed-it was the most obvious tell in the history of mankind.

But Gillman didn't move, because at the start of the game, Izzy Zanella had let it slip that Gillman had a tell.

In true Izzy fashion, he'd refused to share with Gillman exactly what that tell was. And no one else was going to let on that they knew, so Gillman had sat nearly stone-still for the entire game, terrified that, by moving, he'd subconscious and inadvertently activate his tell.

He was stone-still, that is, except when Izzy p.i.s.sed him off. Or when he tried to p.i.s.s off Izzy in return.

Of course, for the first time in all their years of poker playing, Gillman was winning. Big.

"I'm doomed." Tony Vlachic, aka Chickie, aka the New Guy, didn't have a tell. He simply announced whenever his hand sucked. This was his first time playing poker with them, and he'd goodnaturedly put up with all of their c.r.a.p. He had a Pepsi in front of him because they wouldn't let him have a beer, insisting he was too young.

"Maybe next year, when you turn thirteen," Izzy had told him.

Now Chick took another slug of his soda and traded the limit-three cards.

"She goes, I told my brother you were my boyfriend. Will you help me fool him into thinking we've been together for a while?" Izzy scooped up Jenk's two discards and gave him two replacements to go with his trio of aces and ...

A four and a seven, both hearts. c.r.a.p. Jenk kept his face carefully blank as Izzy traded three of his own cards for three new ones.