Chapter 23

“So you’re not straight…” I muse, twirling at the gray hair on his chest.

He laughs. “Dang it, I knew if I blew you it’d give it away. What made you think I was? The dancing til dawn or the naked kissing?”

“Last night, I kept picturing your wife back on the ship…”

“There’s no wife,” he says.

“What about a husband?”

He laughs again. “Am I acting like someone who has a husband?”

“Not a very good one, anyway…”

“There’s no husband.”

“Kids?”

“Where would a kid come from? No husband, no wife.”

“I don’t know. You said some of you guys had kids, I’m just wondering.”

“I have one son.”

“You do?”

He nods.

“Where would a son come from?” I ask. “No husband, no wife…”

“It was a long time ago,” he says. “I was in high school. Her family moved away…I didn’t even know there was such a kid til he was twenty-five.”

“And is he with you guys? On the cruise?”