Chapter 52

Eric leaned back in the leather chair and looked up at the ventilation system. The door to the private room was closed, and with all smoke blowing around, and having finished his first bourbon, he was already starting to feel a slight buzzing in his head.

"Everybody's here then?" Father Mikey asked. The priest had tried to enter the lounge in his black pants and white t-shirt, and they'd told him he was violating the dress code. Eric had given the priest his own blazer to put on over the t-shirt, since he had a button-down dress shirt underneath. The compromise was accepted. They'd been the first people there, but now there were nine men total. Some were standing beside high tables. Some were in arm chairs. They all had cigars and bourbon. Glasses were on the coffee table, on tables, and in hands. Dale was sitting directly across from Eric in another arm chair.

"It appears so," Dale said.

"Good, then I can give Dale his gift." Mikey rattled the brown paper bag he'd picked up at the adult toy store.

"Oh no," Dale said. "What's this?"

"Jimmy, Mark, and John will understand." Father Mikey reached in the bag, pulled out a pair of handcuffs that were covered in a hot pink, fuzzy, fine hair-like substance, and tossed them in Dale's lap. Jimmy, Mark, and John burst out laughing.

Dale chuckled, set his bourbon on the end table, and picked them up. "Where'd you find these?"

"I have my sources," Mikey said. "And I got you something else." He pulled a necklace out of his pocket. At the end of the necklace was a handcuff key.

"That's clever," Jimmy said. "That way Dale can't lose the key again."

"I feel like the rest of us need to hear this story," said Damien, who owned the range where Dale had taken Eric shooting on New Year's day.

"Dale, you want to tell it?" Mikey asked.

Dale shook his head and puffed his cigar.

"Then I have to." Mikey settled into an empty arm chair at the tail end of the coffee table.

Eric smiled. He'd begun to lose his sense of awkwardness and discomfort, and Damien was refilling his glass. This might not be so bad. Just cigars, bourbon, and a few men telling stories. He didn't even have to talk.

"Dale, me, Jimmy, Mark, and John – we all went to FLETC together," Father Mikey began. "Years and years ago. One weekend, Dale's girlfriend comes to visit him. She's in law school, and he's paying for their apartment in Miami already, and he's helping her out with her tuition, and he's paying down his college loans, so they don't have much money. They can't afford to get a hotel for the weekend. And women in the FLETC dorms are against the rules. But being the gentlemen that we are, we all ignore the fact that Cindy's there."

Jimmy interrupted, "Let me tell this part. We're in my dorm room, me and Mikey and John, playing some poker, and we start to hear this banging on the wall. And we think – damn, they're going at it good if the headboard is hitting the wall that hard. And then we realize it's Dale pounding with this fist on the wall, and he's shouting, Jimmy, if you're in there, bring me a handcuff key!"

John laughed around his cigar. He took the cigar out of his mouth and set it down in an ash tray. "So we all go over there, of course," he said, picking up Jimmy's story, "because we know this is going to be a fantastic source of ridicule for the entire rest of the academy."

Eric looked across the coffee table at his brother, who shrugged casually, though his face was a bit red.

"The door's locked," John said. "So Mikey goes down the hall to Mark's room to get him, because Mark can pick locks like a pro."

"That sounds like a story too," said a DEA agent who worked with Dale in his current office.

"So I pick the lock," Mark resumed the story. "And we all go in."

"Because it really required all of you, didn't it?" Dale asked.

"It did," Mark said, laughing. "It really did. We didn't know what you might need."

"I just needed a damn handcuff key!" Dale shouted.

Everyone was laughing now, including even Eric.

"So there they are," Jimmy said now, "On the bed, Cindy with," he stepped forward and held up the handcuffs Mikey had given Dale, "cuffs that look exactly like this. She's got the cuff on one of her wrists, and the other cuff is locked onto the metal bar of the headboard – it's hard to describe these beds – but she couldn't get too far. Now Dale's pulled the sheet up nice and high with his free hand, so she's pretty well covered at this point, but we all know she's stark naked under that sheet. I say his one free hand, because with his issued handcuffs, he's also got one of his own wrists cuffed and the other locked to the other metal bar on the headboard."

"Damn, Dale!" Damien, the range owner, shouted. "You're just supposed to cuff her! Not her and yourself!"

Dale held up a hand. "She wanted to try it that way. Who was I to tell her no? And I had the key right there on the night stand, right within reach. "

Eric couldn't help but wonder if Tami might be willing to try handcuffs. Sex between them was varied enough - it could be passionate or tender or fun - but it wasn't often kinky. He was completely content with what they shared - more than content. Still, at the moment, he couldn't help but picture his wife handcuffed to their bed.

"What happened to the key?" Damien asked.

"That's the grand mystery," Dale said. "It must have somehow fallen off the night stand, but I couldn't find it. I looked everywhere I could within reach. I even dragged the bed a bit before I called out to Jimmy. I found the key two days later, underneath the night stand."

There was a lot of laughing, more cigars cut and lit, more bourbon poured.

"Whatever happened with Cindy?" Jimmy asked. "Weren't you guys going to get married?"

"Didn't work out," Dale said.

"Well I never did like her all that much," Jimmy replied.

"Me either," John admitted.

"She kind had you by the balls," Mark agreed.

Dale looked at Mikey. "Did you like her?"

Mikey shook his head.

"Why did none of you tell me this?" he asked.

"You wouldn't have heard us," Father Mikey said. "Love is blind. Especially when it's coming at you with a pair of headlights like she had."

There were snorts and guffaws and chuckles.

"Can you believe he's a priest now?" Dale asked.

"How can you do that?" Jimmy asked. "The celibacy thing? I mean at FLETC, you were chasing every tail in Glynco."

Mikey shrugged. "And what did it get me?"

"A lot of tail," Jimmy said.

"I was empty." Mikey spread his arms out at the men around the room. "And who needs women when I can still do this? I can still hang with y'all. Your love to me is wonderful, surpassing the love of women."

"What?" Jimmy asked.

"It's what David says to Jonathan," Father Mikey said. "In the Bible."

"I love you, Mikey," Dale told him. "I do, but your love does not surpass the love of women. At least not of my woman."

"So your woman," John asked, "the one you're marrying - any good handcuff style stories to tell?"

Eric thought of Cleo coming to Dale's hotel room and Dale just turning on the TV. He snorted loudly. Dale shot him a warning look.

"Sounds like your brother has a good story," Jimmy said.

Dale's eyes were shooting daggers across the coffee table.

"Nah," Eric said. "I was still just laughing about the handcuffs."

Dale looked relieved. "Get my brother some more bourbon," he said.

Father Mikey stood behind Dale's chair. "It's time for the customary dispensing of advice."

"Is there such a custom?" Dale asked.

"There is when I'm running the party," Mikey said. "I can't contribute, since I've never been married, but all of you other men are married, yes?"

"Not me," Jimmy said. "Not anymore."

"Then perhaps you can offer some advice on how not to get divorced," Mikey said.

"Don't get married," Jimmy replied. "Barring that…don't introduce her to your brother."

Dale looked across the coffee table at Eric with a raised eyebrow. "Too late for that," Dale said. "Good thing my brother's madly in love with his own wife. And also not dishonorable."

"John," Father Mikey said, "You were already married when we were at FLETC. What was that? Almost 22 years ago? You must know something. What's the key to happiness in marriage?"

John smiled. "Lower your expectations."

There was a lot of knowing laughter. Eric laughed too, but he wasn't sure he quite agreed.

It was true he'd had to change his expectations in the course of his relationship with Tami. For instance, he'd quickly learned Tami wasn't going to do all of the cooking and cleaning and grocery shopping, the way his mother had. And he learned that sex wasn't going to be every single night or even every other night, as he had imagined it would be in their late teens.

He'd learned to alter his expectations, but he wouldn't exactly say he'd lowered them. In fact, Tami had exceeded his expectations in dozens of ways. Her love for him, her strong support in difficult times, her understanding, her quickness to forgive…all had sometimes left him feeling unsteady on his feet and a little unworthy. The marriage itself had been more than he ever imagined a marriage could be: a comfort, yes, and a prop, but more than a prop - a catapult that sent him soaring toward his goals. She could soothe his hurts, dress his wounds, kiss away his disappointments, and build him up when the world had knocked him down.

"Damien," Father Mike said. "How about you?"

"Don't stop wooing her," Damien said, "just because you've won her."

Eric found himself nodding and also wondering when he'd last brought Tami flowers on an ordinary weekday for no other reason than that he loved her.

Father Mike pointed to the Dallas cop. "How long have you been married?"

"Eight years."

"Advice!" the priest ordered.

"Uh…I have no…I guess…" He held up his bourbon glass. "Don't let the sun go down on your wrath!"

"Here! Here!" Father Mikey cheered, and clinked the cop's glass with his own. He drained the last of his bourbon and set the glass down on a table. Someone lifted a bottle to refill it for him, but he put his hand over the top. "I'm the designated driver," he said. "I'll be shuttling all y'all home, one by one throughout the night. That's it for me." He pointed to Mark next. "Advice!" he demanded.

"Don't try to fix her problems when she vents about things," Mark said. "Just listen. Even when the solution is frickin' obvious, just listen. You'll get laid more than if you try to fix it."

"Joshua?" Father Mikey asked, pointing to DEA agent at Dale's current office.

"Josh is fine," the man said. "And my advice would be….don't sweep shit under the rug. Because if you do, one day you'll trip over it and break your damn neck."

"I think that just leaves Dale's best man," Father Mikey said. "You give locker room speeches, so maybe you can manage more than a sentence."

Eric felt very much on the spot. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He cleared his throat. "Marriage is a beautiful thing," he said finally, "but it's not always an easy thing. Nothing worth anything in life is easy."

Eric turned his glass in a circle in his hand, trying to gather his thoughts. "Just know that bumps along the way are normal, and don't let them make you lose faith." Eric could see Dale, given his past history with women, doubting the solidity of his marriage when things got rough.

Dale was looking at him earnestly. He wasn't laughing, or even smiling. He was listening. His big brother, who had his first paper route when Eric was still in diapers, who had established a career when Eric was still daydreaming of life in the NFL, was listening to him.

"Stay on the path and find a way to get down that road together," Eric continued. "Marriage requires compromise and a willingness to listen. Not just to listen, but to hear." He looked into his empty bourbon glass. He watched the liquid pour in as Jimmy – or John – filled it for him. "It means always thinking about someone other than just yourself. It means giving up your life as you know it to gain a new life, a shared life, where…I know it's a cliché, but….where your joys are doubled and your sorrows are halved. It's worth it," Eric told Dale seriously, looking into his brother's eyes. "Marriage is worth the effort and the compromise and everything you give up for it. What you gain is so far beyond what you lose that…" He shook his head, unable to find the words he wanted. "I don't know Cleo well, but she strikes me as a smart, capable, strong woman, and she loves you. It's clear she does. And I'm so happy for you, Dale. I'm so happy you've found that for yourself."

The door to the private room opened, and an attractive woman came in wearing a tight, black, knee-length skirt and a white button-down blouse. John made a woot sound while Jimmy shouted, "Yeah, baby, take it off!"

Eric felt a sudden panic. Dale had assured him there would be no strippers.