Curveball

"Oh. My kind of guy," Lloyd said pulling Teddy's ball cap down over his eyes.

He laughed, pulled it back up, then continued listing movies he'd seen for a full minute before Shelby finally stopped him.

He took a breath then asked Lloyd, "Who do you like better? Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jean-Claude Van Damme or Sylvester Stallone?"

"I'm kind of a Jason Bourne fan myself," Lloyd told him.

"He's okay. I'm just old school, I guess," Teddy said seriously drawing a quiet chuckle from the adults.

"He can be very precocious at times," Shelby warned.

"What else do you like to do besides play baseball and watch action flicks?" Lloyd asked.

"Flicks?" Teddy asked having never heard the term.

"Movies," Lloyd explained. "Your sister tells me you're pretty good in school."

"Oh. I guess," he said without excitement.

"How about video games?" the older man asked hoping to restore the enthusiasm.

"I love video games, but my PS3 died," Teddy said. "But Shelby's gonna get me a new one for my birthday, right, Shell?"

Lloyd saw the look on her face when she answered.

"IF we have the money, remember?" she told him.

"I know," he said with resignation.

Teddy turned around and said, "It's not a big deal."

Shelby put her hand on the back of his head and said, "He's so understanding about that kind of thing."

"Can I get two slices of pizza today?" he asked.

Lloyd saw her looking in her purse before she said, "Um...sure. I'm not the least bit hungry so that's no problem."

Lloyd rightly assumed she had just enough for two slices and was putting her brother's wants ahead of her needs but didn't say anything.

"I'm starving!" Teddy said.

"It's just up ahead on your right," Shelby said as the big red pizza sign came into view.

"What kind are you gonna get?" he asked Lloyd.

"Oh...whatever. I'm not choosy," he told him. "I'll have whatever you have."

"I like sausage and pepperoni," Teddy told him the excitement back in his voice. "Oh, and I love Canadian bacon. And ground beef and...."

Teddy got very quiet then pointed at the rearview mirror and said, "Hey, that's a Trident just like the Navy SEALs wear."

Lloyd had attached a Trident that had belonged to his best friend who'd been killed in Iraq back in 2004 to the man's dog tags he'd handed Lloyd as he held him in his arms while the man bled to death waiting for a medevac helicopter. When he retired, it was one of the things he didn't have packed up but carried with him. He'd hung them on the mirror and kept forgetting to remove them after he found a place to live.

"Oh, right. Yeah, it sure is," he said as he lifted the chain and handed it to Teddy.

"This is so cool! Shell, look!" he said showing her the Trident.

"Wow. That is cool," she said.

"Are these your dog tags?" he asked just as excitedly.

"Um, no. Those belonged to a friend of mine," he said.

"Doesn't he have to wear these?" Teddy asked innocently.

"Um...not anymore, Teddy," Lloyd said again not wanting to talk about specifics.

He glanced back at Shelby who still hadn't put two and two together, but he could see she was working on it.

"Okay, buddy. Let Mr. Mullens have his dog tags back now, okay?"

"Okay," he said dejectedly as he handed them back.

"Tell you what. I don't need mine anymore. How would you like to have them?" Lloyd asked as he parked the Tundra.

"Serious?" Teddy asked.

"Yep," he answered as he pulled off his cap and removed them. He'd worn them since he got out of boot camp over 25 years ago. He had a spare set, but it didn't really matter since he decided then and there he'd never wear them again. He'd loved the Navy and being a part of a SEAL team, but they were, for the most part, the reason he no longer had a wife, and it was high time to put the past behind him. Or at least try.

"Here you go," Lloyd said putting them in the boys hand.

"What do you say, Teddy?" Shelby reminded him.

"Sorry. Thank you, Mr. Mullens! This is so cool! I can't wait to show Connor!"

"His best friend," Shelby explained.

When Lloyd came around to help her out she quietly said, "His only friend, actually."

"Something else he and I have in common," Lloyd thought to himself as he opened Teddy's door. He'd had one and only one friend growing up—the second most unattractive kid in school.

"You might have to parachute out of there," he told the boy.

"No problem!" he said as he made a show of jumping to the ground as though he really was parachuting.

"Nice landing!" Lloyd told him. "Okay, let's go eat!"

A couple of other kids from his team were in line, and neither of them spoke to Teddy. One of the parents told him, "Nice game, Teddy. You looked really good out there today."

"Thank you," he said quietly.

The man nodded at Lloyd then leaned over and said, "I've wanted to do what you did to that punk coach for months. Whatever you did—thank you."

Mullens nodded back and said, "Oh. Um...sure thing."

Teddy was ordering his two slices when Lloyd said, "You know what? Let's just get a large, okay?"

"Really?" Teddy said with genuine surprise.

Shelby started to protest but Mullens placed the order before she could say anything.

He also paid for drinks and when Teddy ran to fill his cup, Shelby said, "I can't afford to pay you for half a pizza, Lloyd."

"No one's asking you to," he told her politely. "It's my treat."

"I thought I was repaying you for your kindness. Are you trying to bury me in even more debt? Because if you are, I already have enough to last for a lifetime," she told him.

"Nope. Not at all. I just wanted to do something nice for a little boy who reminds of myself."

He leaned down then said quietly, "Then again, I had both of my parents so even though we were dirt poor it wasn't anywhere near the same as what he's dealing with."

"Do you have kids?" she asked as they filled their cups.

"No. No kids," he told her.

"I'd like to have children someday. Of course it would be a whole lot easier if I could ever meet someone I could fall in love with first," she said with a pleasant smile. "Maybe one day I'll win the lottery and not have to work two jobs."

"You're pretty amazing, Shelby," Lloyd told her sincerely.

"We do what we have to do, right?" she said her smile not nearly so bright.

"Unfortunately, not everyone does," he told her. "But from what I've seen you're a very pleasant exception to the rule."

"It's either this or the state takes my brother and puts him into foster care, and that is never going to happen," she told him.

"Over here, you guys!" Teddy called out from the table he'd sat down at.

Lloyd asked Teddy about the video games he liked and before they got very far they heard, "Large meat lovers pizza for Teddy."

"Can I go get it?" he asked excitedly.

Lloyd looked at Shelby who nodded, and told him, "Yeah, sure."

"I haven't seen him smile this many times since our parents were killed. I think he likes you," she told Mullens.

"The uh, the feeling is mutual," he told her.

Mullens had spent 15 of his 25 years on active duty deployed and four of his last five away from home. Since the death of his wife, all he'd wanted to do was work, and SEAL teams had no shortage of opportunities to deploy for months at a time.

It was ironic in a way because it was being gone so much that caused his late wife's depression, while it was the love he felt for his fellow team members that kept him volunteering for more and more assignments. He really did go 'whole hog' on pretty much everything.

The one exception had been his marriage, and when he'd been informed she'd taken her own life with an overdose of prescription pain killers, he'd never stopped blaming himself. He was in the middle of another lengthy deployment to Afghanistan when he got the word, and he'd hurriedly gone home for ten days to bury her, apologize to her parents who'd barely spoken to him, then returned to his team to finish out the deployment.

Lloyd Mullens felt almost estranged from society by the time he retired and knew if he didn't find a way to relearn his place in it, he might well end up like his wife. The Navy was no longer there to bury himself in, and he knew that no civilian job could even come close to what he'd had as a SEAL. So for now he was unemployed and floundering around trying to find himself in a world he barely recognized.

"Here you go!" Teddy said as he slid the pan on the table. "Go ahead, Shell. Ladies first!"

"Why thank you, kind sir!" she told him. She was actually famished, and just the smell made her salivate with anticipation of a first bite.

"Who says chivalry is dead, right?" Lloyd said. He could see Teddy didn't understand so he explained the meaning of the word.

"I'd love to have a suit of armor!" he said gleaning only something about knights from Lloyd's explanation.

"Okay, you grab a slice now, kiddo," Shelby told him once she had one on her plate.

Teddy took a huge bite and as he chewed he asked, "When can you teach me how to throw a curveball?"

"Well, you should rest your arm for a couple of days, but after that we can give it a whirl."

"Ahhh! Do I have to wait?" he asked, his mouth stuffed with pizza.

"Chew with your mouth closed, okay, buddy?" Shelby asked politely.

Even then Teddy made loud smacking sounds as he chewed, and Lloyd knew he took had to take a lot of flak for that, too.

"So what do you do now that you're retired from the Navy, Lloyd?" Shelby asked.

"Um...a whole lot of nothing," he told her.

"Does your wife work?" she asked. Again it was an honest, innocently-asked question.

"She um...she passed away a few years ago," he finally told her.

Shelby had just taken a small bite and stopped chewing. She nearly coughed the pizza in her mouth into a napkin before saying, "I am so, so sorry. I...I didn't know."

"It's okay. You couldn't possibly have known," he told her.

"Life is so fragile," she said quietly as Teddy happily munched away picking off pieces of meat and eating them first.

"Yes, it is," Lloyd said in agreement.

"It's amazing how suddenly your whole world can be turned upside, you know?" Shelby said.

Thinking about it was still too painful. Mullens had never once cried or even allowed himself to grieve. He'd even managed to mostly block out the guilt he knew would overwhelm him were he to ever let it get to him. He'd had the leadership traits seared into his brain from day one of BUDS training to became a Navy SEAL and the first principle was, "Seek responsibility and take responsibility for your own actions and the actions of your men."

He knew he wasn't literally responsible for Katie's death. She'd taken the pills. And yet he knew she'd needed him there with her at home, and still he willingly chose to be away from her month after month, year after year. So no, he hadn't killed her, but he'd 'put the gun in her hands' as it were.

"Hey? You okay?" Shelby asked.

"Sorry. I guess my mind was drifting."

"I asked you if you were going to eat." She smiled then said, "Twice."

"Sorry. You see, I tend to get lost deep in thought rather easily," he told her.

He looked right at her then said with a straight face, "That's not hard to do when you've got a mind as shallow as mine."

Shelby laughed immediately then said, "I've never heard that one before."

"Oh, I'm full of one-liners," he told her.

He leaned over then said, "That's not all I've been told I'm full of."

She jabbed him with her elbow as she laughed again then said, "Get outta here!"

"Are we leaving already?" Teddy asked as he looked up, his mouth still stuffed with pizza causing another round of laughter.

Lloyd glanced at Shelby who just kept laughing before she said, "I can't remember the last time I laughed this much or even laughed since...you know."

She smiled at Lloyd then said, "We may just need to keep you around."

He smiled back and told her, "I can think of worse things."

Then he said with a straight face, "Not many but I can think of a couple things worse than that."

Shelby feigned being hurt as she gasped and pulled her head back and gave him a look with wide eyes.

"Actually, I can't remember the last time I enjoyed myself this much, either," he told her sincerely.

"Yeah. It's really nice," she said before taking another bite.

They sat there and talked for nearly an hour before Lloyd took them back to the field.

"Looks like your chariot is still there in one piece," he quipped.

"Gee, lucky me," she quipped back.

"Shelby's car sounds like a machine gun," Teddy announced before making his version of machine-gun sounds.

"It's needs a new muffler," she said. "Among other things."

"I'm pretty good with cars," Lloyd told her. "I'd be happy to take a look at it for you."

"That's okay. I already owe you big time," she said with a smile. "Thank you for offering, though."

"No. I'm serious," he told her. "As you know, I have no job and time is the one thing I've got plenty of so I'd be happy to help out."

"Okay, but it's not like I have a spare car sitting around, and I need that hunk of junk to get to work," she told him as he parked next to the 'blue bomber'.

"What a coincidence," Lloyd said as he turned around to look at her. "I just happen to have a vehicle you could use while I work on yours."

"Oh, no. I'm not taking this truck. This thing costs more than everything I own put together," she told him as they got out.

"No, I really do have a smaller car. It's a 2010 Toyota Corolla."

He paused then said, "It was my wife's car, and I couldn't bring myself to sell it. It just sits in the garage, so you're more than welcome to use it."

"That's very kind of you, Lloyd, but I can't even afford to buy the muffler let alone the other stuff it needs, so...."

"That's fine. I can do a lot of stuff that won't cost you a dime," he told her. "It'll run better and you won't owe me anything."

"I...I don't know," she said. "It's very kind of you, I just don't feel right about that."

"Look at this way," he told her. "You'd be doing me a favor, too. I don't exactly have any friends here yet or even a sense of community, so you'd be helping me as much as I'd be helping you."

She opened Teddy's door and once he was inside she said, "You're quite the enigma, Lloyd Mullens. I've been trying to figure you out since you put the human dick with feet in his place."

Lloyd smiled and that made Shelby chuckle.

"Are you sure you don't mind? Really?" she asked with obvious concern.

"I am one-hundred percent certain I don't mind," he replied.

"I'm painfully aware this bucket of bolts needs a lot of work, and I do depend on it, so anything you could do would be very much appreciated," she finally told him.

"Then it's a done deal! Just follow me back to my place, and I'll give you the Corolla. I'll start working on your jalopy tomorrow morning."

Shelby stood there looking at him and felt a lump in her throat. She wanted to thank him but couldn't speak. When she felt herself tearing up she turned away hoping Lloyd hadn't seen.

"We all need a little help now and then," he told her again quietly.

She turned around and when she looked up at him a tear fell down her cheek.

Lloyd reached out and gently wiped it away before saying, "You seem to have sprung a leak, lady. You should get that checked."

Shelby nearly choked as she laughed then said quietly enough so Teddy wouldn't hear her, "Asshole!"

"At your service," Lloyd said bowing slightly. "Come on. Follow me and we'll get you all set up."

It was the middle of May and the weather was still cool and cloudy in the Seattle area or more specifically the area about 30 miles south of the city. It even started sprinkling on the drive to Lloyd's, and he couldn't help but Shelby didn't turn on her wipers. After she pulled into the driveway of his modest home in the small town of Sumner, Washington, he found out that's because they didn't work, either.

"As loud as the muffler is it won't hurt you. But those wipers are a safety hazard. I think I'll start with those unless I find something more serious first," he told her.

"It might be easier to just blow it up and start all over," she told him only partially joking.

"I need to pee really bad!" Teddy said. He'd put away two 20-ounce diet Cokes and he was about to explode.

"Come on inside and you can use my bathroom," he told him.

He smiled at Shelby then told her, "You, too, if you need to."

"Hah! I'm not the guy with the aging prostate!" she teased. At yet she no sooner got inside than she confessed she was about to bust, too.

He tried not to laugh as he dropped Shelby off in the hallway bathroom and led Teddy to the master bedroom.

"Right back there in that corner, my friend," he told him pointing to it.

He went to his dresser to get the keys for the Corolla and hoped it would still start. He'd had it in storage up on blocks since he got back from the deployment when Katie died and now started it up once a week and drove it around the block maybe twice a month just to make sure it still ran since towing it to the Pacific Northwest . So unless the battery was dead he thought it would probably be okay.

When he came back out he saw Shelby looking at what military folks called an 'I love me wall'. There were all kinds of plaques, certificates, and photos of Lloyd with each of the SEAL teams he'd served with and she'd been checking them out for several seconds.

"You didn't tell me you were a Navy SEAL," she said as he walked up behind her.

"In a previous life," he said.

"If Teddy sees this he's going to...."

"See what?" they heard the boy say.

"Cat's out of the bag now," Shelby warned Lloyd.

"Mr. Mullens was a Navy SEAL, buddy," she told him pointing at his wall.

"No way!" he said as he looked up in awe at the pictures of Mullens in uniform.

"Is that gun real?" he asked pointing to one of Mullens's pictures with four of his buddies in Iraq. One of them was his best friend who'd been killed two months later.

"It is," Lloyd said without fanfare.

"This is SO cool!" the boy said ignoring the Bronze Star with 'V' for valor and the purple heart. Teddy was all about the photos and the guns.

"Do you have a gun like that now, Mr. Mullens?" he asked his eyes bright with happiness.

"No. Nothing like that. That one belongs to the Navy," he told him. He did keep a 9m pistol for personal defense but that was it.

"Connor is never gonna believe this!" he said as he kept looking.

Shelby had stopped looking at the wall and was looking at a photo on his desk.

"Is this your wife?" she asked politely pointing to the picture of a beautiful woman with long, dark hair.

"Yes. That's Katie," he told her.

"She's beautiful," Shelby said admiringly. "Again, I'm so sorry, Lloyd."

"Me, too," he told her before desperately wanting to change the subject.

"All right. I've got the keys to your new chariot so let's go see if we can fire it up, shall we?"

"We're getting a new car?" Teddy said just as excitedly pulling himself away from the photos.

"No, buddy. Mr. Mullens is lending this one to us for a day or two while he sees how bad our blue bomber is."

When they stepped into the garage, Teddy was once again chattering away.

"This car is awesome!" he said.

It was black and although it was seven years old, it still looked brand new. Like his Tundra it had very low miles on it as Katie had spent most of her time at home in bed the year she'd had it.

Lloyd opened the garage door, handed Shelby the keys, then said, "Give it a go."

It started up immediately and ran so quietly it made her laugh.

"I forgot what a decent car is supposed to sound like!" she said through the open window.

She turned it off and got out again. She stood there just looking at Lloyd the way she had earlier when, without warning, she threw her arms around him and hugged him. He was so surprised he kind of just patted her on the back as Teddy stood there smiling.