Tom chuckled, as he sat down next to Bette, after motioning to Bette to ask if he could. She nodded at him with a smile. Is that a trick of the fire light, or did his eyes sparkle just then? Tina asked herself, as she looked up at Tom. The captain was answering Bette’s question, “Brom was keeping it from me at first, but I figured it out soon after we were got there.”

From his prone position, still lying face up to the sky, Brom answered, “A divorce lawyer’s.”

From his own relaxed position several feet away from them, John, Sarah’s brother, asked, “And why didn’t Brom want to tell you, Tom?”

Tom accepted the cold beer bottle Logan had tossed him, catching it in mid-flight. He caught the bottle opener that somebody had tossed at him with his other hand. After popping the bottle cap, nodding his thanks at Logan, he answered, “I’d told him earlier today that being in a divorce lawyer’s office or any place owned by a divorce lawyer, makes me nervous.”

The women around the fire exchanged glances, their eyebrows arched in questions. Jules voiced out the question uppermost in their minds, calling out from across the bonfire, where she and Diane sat, cuddled together, “Why would a big, strong captain be nervous around a divorce lawyer?”

Most of the women had open questioning looks, but the men around the bonfire were nodding, in silent solidarity with Tom, as they stared into the fire.

Logan responded quietly, after a pregnant pause settled around the group, “Because it reminds him things can fall apart.”

Bette and Tina exchanged a quick glance, and then looked across Tom, eyeing Logan anxiously.

“Logan,” Bette started.

Logan shook his head, motioning to her and Tina he was alright. Then he asked Tom, “Never easy is it?”

Tom pursed his lips, and tossed a pebble his fingers had dug out of the sand into the fire. As sparks flew from the embers he’d struck, he answered quietly, “Yup. Relationships are not easy.  The thing is, at first it’s the strangest thing when you think love happens … then it’s tough when you realize that you are just not meant to be together.”

Another silence settled over the group as they digested what Tom and Logan talked about.