All Through the Night: A Troubleshooter Christmas by Suzanne Brockmann

started.
    But now it was Jules who was distracted by their wet clothes. He still had his jeans on, although the top button was unfastened, making him look more like a high fashion model than a high ranking FBI official. He’d gathered up their wet things and was heading for the living room door.
    â€œJules, wait,” Dolphina said.
    â€œYeah, babe, you’re dripping on the floor,” Robin pointed out.
    â€œI’ll get a towel and wipe it up,” Jules said, as Dolphina said, “Guys, really, you need to listen—”
    â€œDolph has worked with plenty of actors,” Robin spoke over them both. “She doesn’t care if you take off your jeans.”
    â€œYeah, well, I kind of think she
would
care today, because I happen to be going commando,” Jules said—to fifty close friends and coworkers as he opened the living room door. “Hi…everyone. Wow. Jeez. TMI.”
    Too much information, indeed. Jules’s good friend Sam, who was standing near the front of the crowd, started to laugh.
    Dolphina met Robin’s eyes and smiled weakly. “Surprise?”

    Will Schroeder tried to blend into the background of Robin Chadwick’s living room, wishing he could find the bar in the crush of people and laughter.
    He finally gave up and asked one of the men standing near him—tall, with military short hair—where they were hiding the beer. The guy gave him the strangest look. Or maybe he didn’t. Maybe the strangeness was all in Will’s head. GI Joe did, after all, have almost freakishly pale gray eyes. It was definitely disconcerting to be the focus of his full attention.
    â€œSoda’s in the fridge,” he said, holding out his hand. “I’m Cosmo. Robin’s brother-in-law.”
    â€œWill.” He’d learned, the hard way, that it was always better to use his real name. Making one up would surely come back and chomp him on the butt. “I’m a friend of Art Urban’s.” Not entirely a lie, although the word
friend
was stretching it into the realm of fiction.
    And as an award-winning, old-fashioned journalist, a reporter of the facts-and-truth-delivery-vehicle school, writing fiction was something he swore he’d never fall back on.
    Of course, lying to get a story was vastly different from lying while writing one.
    Or so Will told himself—especially at times like these.
    Although right now, he was feeling both enormously guilty and humongously brass-balled. He’d just walked in, joined this party. No one had challenged him. Not yet, anyway. Everyone he’d met so far had been incredibly friendly, but the guilt didn’t keep him from asking questions of—Cha-ching!—Robin Chadwick’s brother-in-law.
    â€œYou were in the…Marines, right?” Will had done way too little research for this gig, assuming he could fill in the blanks later, when he was writing the piece for
The Boston Globe.
But he did remember hearing that Chadwick’s sister—Hollywood producer Jane Mercedes Chadwick—was married to some kind of former bodyguard type.
    â€œNavy SEAL,” Cosmo corrected him. “Active duty.”
    Whoa. Okay. “Must be kind of weird,” Will said. “You’re a SEAL, but your wife’s brother is…you know.”
    â€œAn actor?” Cosmo was either dumb as a stone or playing with him.
    Will had met some SEALs and former SEALs during his world-traveling, investigative journalism days, and dumb as a stone didn’t line up. So he went point-blank, just to gauge the man’s reaction. “Gay,” he said.
    â€œWhy would that be weird?” The SEAL crossed his massive arms, as if resisting the urge to snap Will’s neck.
    So Will pushed it further. “You’re completely cool with this,” he countered, half question, half statement. “Robin gives up a lucrative movie career, announces he’s gay, and that he’s