The Match (Wilde, #2)(5)

Wilde said nothing.

“Can I trust you?” Carter asked. Before Wilde could respond, Daniel Carter waved him off. “Dumb question. Insulting even. I have no right to ask anything from you. And a man either keeps his word or he doesn’t. Asking him isn’t going to change anything. The biggest liars I’ve ever met are the best at making promises and holding eye contact.”

Carter folded his hands and put them on the table. “I guess you’re here for answers.”

Wilde didn’t trust his voice, so he nodded.

“I’ll tell you what I can, okay? I’m just trying to think of where to start. I guess with…” He looked up in the air, blinked, dove in. “So Sofia and I started dating our senior year of high school. Fell in love pretty fast. We were kids though. You know how it is. Anyway, Sofia is a lot smarter than me. When we graduated, she went to college. Out of state. In Utah. First in her family to attend college. I joined the air force. Did you serve?”

“Yes.”

“What branch?”

“Army.”

“Did you see action?” he asked.

Wilde didn’t like to talk about it. “Yes.”

“I didn’t. My age, I was lucky. After Vietnam, I mean in the seventies and up until Reagan bombed Libya in 1986, it felt like we’d never go to war again. I know how weird that sounds now, but it’s true. That’s what Nam did to our psyche. Gave us a nationwide case of PTSD, which maybe was a good thing. I was mostly stationed at Nellis, maybe half an hour from here, but I also did short stints overseas. Ramstein in Germany. Mildenhall in the UK. I didn’t fly or anything. I worked Pavement and Construction Equipment, basically building bases. It’s where I learned about construction.”

Waitress Nancy interrupted. “The fries were ready, so I brought them out first. They’re best when they’re hot.”

Carter snapped on the wide, charming smile. “Well, isn’t that thoughtful of you? Thank you, Nancy.”

Nancy Urban set down the big basket of fries between the two men and put small plates in front of them. There was already ketchup on the table, but Nancy moved the bottle to the center, as though to remind them it was there. When she left, Carter reached out and grabbed a single fry.

“Sofia and I got engaged right before I left for my summer assignment at Ramstein. We were still really young, and I was worried about losing her. She was meeting all these cool people at college. Every high school couple I knew had already broken up—or had a shotgun marriage because they were pregnant. Anyway, I bought an engagement ring from a pawnshop of all places.” He narrowed his eyes. “Do you have any trouble with alcohol, Wilde?”

“No.”

“Drugs? Any kind of addiction?”

Wilde shifted in the booth. “No.”

Carter smiled. “I’m glad to hear that. I had a bout with alcohol, though I’m twenty-eight years sober. But I can’t blame that. Not really. The long and short of it? I had a crazy summer in Europe. I figured it was my last chance as a single man, and stupidly I thought I should sow my wild oats or whatever nonsense we men used to justify acting out that way. That summer was the only time I cheated on Sofia, and sometimes, even after all these years, I look over at her sleeping and feel guilty. But I did it. One-night stands, we used to call it. Heck, I think people probably still call them one-night stands, don’t they?”

He looked at Wilde as though he expected him to answer.

“I guess,” Wilde said to keep the conversation going.

“Right. You married, Wilde?”

“No.”

“Not my business, sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“Anyway, I slept with eight girls the summer of 1980. Yep, I know the exact number. How pathetic is that? Other than Sofia, they are the only women I’ve had sex with in my entire life. So the obvious conclusion here is that your mother is one of those eight women.”

Conceived during a one-night stand, Wilde thought. Did that matter? Wilde couldn’t see how. Perhaps there was some irony in the fact that Wilde was most comfortable in short-term situations or, more bluntly, one-night stands. He’d had girlfriends, women he tried to connect with, but somehow it never quite worked out.

“Those eight women,” Wilde said.

“What about them?”

“Do you have their names or addresses?”

“No.” Carter rubbed his chin, his eyes turning upward. “I only remember a few first names, sorry.”

“Did any ever reach out to you?”

“You mean after? No. I never heard from any of them again. You have to remember. This was 1980. None of us had mobile phones or emails. I didn’t know their last names, they didn’t know mine. Do you ever listen to Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band?”

“Not really.”

A wistful smile crossed his face. “Oh man, you’re missing out. I bet you’ve heard ‘Night Moves’ or ‘Turn the Page.’ Anyway, in ‘Night Moves,’ Bob sings, ‘I used her, she used me, but neither one cared.’ That’s what it was like for me that summer.”

“So they were all one-night stands?”

“Well, one girl was a weekend fling, I guess. In Barcelona. So that was more like three nights.”