He didn’t feel like the kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He felt like the kid with the sadistic parent who caught him with his hand in the cookie jar, and then proceeded to make him eat all the cookies as punishment.
Well, this definitely isn’t how I thought the evening would work out.
Chapter Twelve
Over the next couple of hours, Vanessa somehow found herself…subsumed by the others.
And she wasn’t even sure how.
It surprised her even more to realize she didn’t mind.
If this was the kind of treatment her brother had received when he first entered the local community, then she felt comforted to know these people had been his friends.
She ended up seated between Lyle and Reed at the table, talking with them most of the night about Basco, happy to answer their questions about what he was like growing up as well as them answering hers about him and the time they’d known him.
Yes, she realized logic dictated her instant affinity for them was due in no small part to their relationship with her brother. She got it. She wasn’t an idiot.
It didn’t mean she found it any less comforting to her, personally. Add to that both Eliza and Jenny seemed to think very highly of the two men, and it wasn’t difficult for Vanessa to want to trust them.
The club didn’t close until two, but by one o’clock she felt exhausted, mentally and physically. If she was going to go out on the boat with them tomorrow, she’d need to get to bed.
“I’m sorry, I’m not trying to rush you guys, but I need to go home. I’m sure I can drive myself. It’s okay if you want to stay here.”
“Nope,” Tilly said. “I don’t want you out there alone. Sorry, but the nurse training is kicking in.”
“You’re a nurse? I thought they said you worked for a film production company?”
“Once a nurse, always a nurse. Don’t worry, I wouldn’t let you leave with these guys if I didn’t trust them completely.”
Knowing it would be pointless to argue, because she knew she didn’t have the strength to argue with Tilly or Jenny or Eliza or anyone else, she nodded her head. “Okay. I’m sorry if it’s putting you guys through any trouble.”
“Stop,” Tilly said. “Listen, we take care of our friends. I wish I’d known Basco was sick, I would have dragged his ass to the ER for you.” Her bravado faded, replaced by sadness. “Please, let us be here for you. He was our friend, and he’d want us to all take care of you.”
That finished Vanessa off, her tears flowing again. Tilly pulled her close, holding her as she cried.
“I feel so alone,” Vanessa admitted. “He was all I had.”
“How about your parents?”
“I’m an adult. I can’t ask them to drop their lives and take care of me.”
“Then all the more reason why you need to let us take care of you and get you through this. Believe me, this is what we’re good at.” Somehow, Tilly slipped her into Lyle’s arms.
She wouldn’t deny it felt good to lean against someone male.
Someone strong.
“Come on,” he said. “Give Reed your keys. He’ll drive you while I follow in my car.”
After a round of hugs and good-byes to her new friends, Tilly, Eliza, and Jenny walked Vanessa and the men out to the vehicles. Lyle opened the passenger door of her car for her after Reed found and hit the unlock button on the key fob.
“We expect to see you at dinner tomorrow night,” Tilly said. “We’ll all be there, don’t worry.” She turned to Lyle. “I’m adding you on as three for the RSVP.”
The way Tilly said it almost sounded like an order.
“We’ll be there,” he assured her.
Once Vanessa was in the car and her seat belt fastened, and Reed was situated behind the wheel, she took a deep breath and let it out. It was only a minute or so later when she realized he’d started the car, but they were just sitting there.
When she looked at him, he kindly smiled. “Where to, madam?”
A haggard laugh escaped her. “Yeah, I guess that would be helpful, wouldn’t it? I’m not too far north of Beneva and Fruitville.”
“Perfect. We live about ten minutes from there anyway. See? It’s not out of our way.”
“Thank you, again, for this. And for tomorrow.”
“You don’t need to thank us. It’s what friends do for each other.”
* * * *
Reed hoped whatever this was, or was destined to become, that he didn’t do something to screw it up and hurt her. Whether they would be friends, or more, he desperately wanted to do right by the obviously suffering woman.
“How long are you taking off work?” Reed asked.
“I go back on Monday.”
“Monday? They only gave you a week off?”
“Oh, I could have taken longer. I actually have about six weeks’ of vacation time accrued. I didn’t want to.”
“Not to sound insensitive, but why didn’t you take more time?”
“I just couldn’t. Rattling around in the house without him there is hard enough. I’d rather get back to work.”
“I think he’d want you to take care of yourself, though.”
“This is the only way I know how,” she quietly said. “In a couple of months, I’ll go visit my parents in Seattle for a weekend or something.”
He snapped his mouth shut on what he wanted to say. He was a confirmed workaholic himself. Him telling her how to run her life was like him trying to tell Da Vinci how to paint a portrait.
He felt stupid for even thinking about trying.
Tilly, however, would be the perfect person to point in her direction. Now that Tilly was aware of Vanessa’s situation, and now that Vanessa had reached out to them, Tilly likely would make Vanessa her hobby—bringing her into the fold at the very least as a friend, even if Vanessa never got involved in the lifestyle.
He mentally stumbled to pick up the conversation and not let awkward silence fill the car. “Have you ever been out on a boat before?”
“Not really, no. I mean, a canoe and stuff. When we were kids. Not out in the Gulf.”
“Oh.”
“I like the beach, though. And Tony used to take me fishing when we were kids.”
It took him a second to remember Basco’s real name was Tony. “So what do you do for a living, again?”
“I’m a regional manager for Karr Partz,” she said. “I’ve got thirty stores under me.”
“Uh, wow. That’s impressive.”
He risked a glance over at her.
She stared forward, but shrugged. “It’s okay. It’s a job. I’ve never worked anywhere but there. I started out a part-timer in high school and worked my way up.”
“Do you work on your own car?”
At that she did let out something resembling a chuckle. “I wouldn’t have time to even if I wanted to. I mean, obviously, I know the basics, the parts. I’m not a diagnostician.”
“So how did you end up doing that?”
She told him about how her brother had gotten her the job originally…
And then he felt like shit, realizing that talking about her work wasn’t actually getting her mind off her brother, now that she’d pointed that fact out to him.
He desperately tried to come up with a way to salvage this. “I guess there aren’t a lot of women in your field.”
“More than there used to be,” she said. “Although I’m still a rarity at the monthly corporate meetings. There’s only one other female regional manager east of the Mississippi River, and she’s up in Tennessee, near headquarters.”
“Wow. That’s impressive.”
“There are a lot more female store managers, though, than there used to be. That’s something. I’ve tried to encourage any female employees who go to work in the stores to push harder and learn as much as they can to try to advance. It’s not a bad career once you hit the store manager position. The salary and benefits start to finally add up then, and the work isn??
?t exactly rocket science. There’s a lot to learn, but once you do, the routine is keeping up on the reports, watching sales trends, making sure inventory is correct, riding your crew to keep up with truck shortage checks, loss prevention protocols, things like that. It’s not like lives depend on what we do.”
She went quiet for a moment and he suspected he shouldn’t interrupt her.
Finally, she spoke again. “Is there anything I should wear or bring special tomorrow?”
“Oh, a hat. Sunglasses, if you have them. Sunscreen, or I have some in the boat. Might want to wear a bathing suit if you want to catch some sun or go swimming.”
“Food?”
“We’ll pack drinks and snacks, unless there’s something special you want to bring or you have a special diet.”
She snorted. “If you haven’t looked at me, I’m not on a diet, even though I should be.”
He was a little surprised to catch the bitter undertone in her voice. “I think you’re beautiful,” he said, and meaning it. “What’s wrong with you?”
* * * *
Great. There’s a blind man driving my car. And I’m riding shotgun.
She stared at him. “Are you serious?” she asked.
“Dead serious.”
She scoffed. “Um, I know Basco said this outfit looked great on me, but I didn’t know it hid my extra pounds so well.”
“That outfit does look great on you, and so what if you have a few extra pounds? I do. So does Lyle. Not every man is into a woman who starves herself into a size 0, you know.”
She didn’t want to hurt his feelings and call him a fucking liar. “Then I guess I’ve never met any of those men before,” she said
“Lucky for me.” From the way he snapped his mouth shut, she wondered if he’d meant to say that out loud.
He finally looked at her when he stopped for a light. “Seriously,” he said, as if he’d regained a little bravery. “You’re beautiful.”
“You’re also gay.”
“FYI, I’m bi, not gay. So’s Lyle. Ask him. He’ll be honest with you, too. I’m also not blind or dead. When my dick tries to get hard over a woman, duh, I find her attractive.”
Oookaaay…
That put a slightly different twist on things. She wondered if Tilly and Eliza and Jenny realized the men weren’t gay.
“And, also FYI, sometimes I tend to speak a little too honestly,” he added, his hands tightly gripping the steering wheel. “I hope I didn’t just freak you out and make you want to cancel tomorrow, because, seriously, Tilly will kill me if you do that, and Eliza will castrate what’s left.”
That made her giggle. She could picture Eliza doing that.
“Is that why you invited me out?” she asked. “Because Tilly and Eliza told you to?”
“No, that was all my idea. My charter for tomorrow cancelled. And I realized that trying to talk there at the club might not have been the easiest thing for you. Alone, just the three of us…” He shrugged. “I’m not going to deny I have my own reasons for wanting to spend time with you.”
“Like?”
He let out a sad sigh. “You’re looking for answers about your brother. I’m looking for any last trace of him I can hold onto. This might sound weird, but Lyle and I were talking about asking Basco if he wanted to be more than just play partners with us.”
“You were?”
“Yeah. And I feel guilty as fucking hell we waited. Maybe if we hadn’t waited…maybe we would have known he was so sick and maybe we could have helped you get him to the doctor sooner. Maybe he’d still be alive.”
Her heart nearly broke at revelation. She hadn’t thought about things like that.
Taking a chance, she reached over and rested her hand on his thigh. He covered hers with his and gently squeezed.
“I’m looking forward to tomorrow,” she softly said. “I’d like the chance to spend time with both of you, talking about him.”
“Fair warning—dinner and the club tomorrow? Tilly and Eliza have already set their sights on trying to play matchmaker with the three of us.”
She blinked. “Say what?”
“Yeah. It’s kind of their fetish, fixing up their friends they feel are lonely with each other.”
“I…” Her jaw snapped shut. “I don’t even know how to respond to that.”
“I know, right? And again, I hope it doesn’t weird you out.”
It…didn’t.
It had sent her mind, surprisingly, spinning toward some of the erotic books on her Kindle.
“Um…” She tried again after stumbling. “But you don’t even know me.”
What she didn’t want to do was admit that yes, she did think the men were attractive, and yes, it’d been too fucking long since she’d been laid, and yes, she’d even consider the idea of some less-than-permanent sex with them just to get herself out of her own head for a couple of hours, get laid, and not think about her brother’s death.
And she didn’t want to admit all of that and then get shot down if they didn’t find her attractive, regardless of what he’d said about her appearance.
“I realize that. But Tilly is very…persuasive when she wants to be. As we all told you earlier, we’re a pretty forthright bunch. Yes, I find you attractive. Is that the basis of an entire relationship? No. You might get to know me and Lyle and not like one or both of us as anything more than friends. That’s okay, too. We do want to be your friends. Partially for our own selfish reasons, because of Basco, and partially because we’ll never turn down the opportunity to make new friends. And you seem to be someone who could use a few friends in your corner right now.”
“You ain’t kidding.” She had a thought that might help her salvage her ego and possibly get her laid at some future time. “Okay. So if they’re intent on doing that, how about we give them what they want?”
“How so?”
She shrugged. “Let them think they’re doing what they set out to do. Like you said, even if we don’t end up together, we can still be friends. It’ll keep them off your case and mine.”
“Hmm. A little subversive counter-operation against Tilly and Eliza. It’s dangerous…it’s sneaky…” He grinned. “I like it.”
“Dangerous? Tilly seemed very sweet.”
He burst out laughing. “Don’t let her fool you. She would—no shit—literally take a bullet for a friend in danger. But if someone crosses her or does what she considers harm to one of her friends? It’s like feeding the Tasmanian Devil a case full of Red Bull and sugar, winding him up, and setting him loose. A blender set to frappe would do less damage to a person’s hand stuck in it than Tilly could do metaphorically. Maybe even literally. She has a rep.”
“She does?”
He proceeded to tell her about the time Tilly was the first on the scene at Mallory’s, and how Tilly had backed down Mallory’s uncle until backup arrived. How she’d helped orchestrate another friend’s protection and care from LA after the woman’s boyfriend had beaten her. How she’d come unglued and gone after another woman’s ex—physically restrained only by her two men holding her back—when the ex showed up at the club one night. The man had dumped the woman the day she’d found out she needed serious back surgery.
“And then it was Tilly who helped Gilo take care of Abbey post-op. When Abbey got an infection, it was Tilly who called the ambulance and got her help.”
“I wouldn’t have imagined she has such a mean side.”
“She does. She’s very protective of her friends, like I said. When you finally meet Cris, one of her guys, ask him how she beat the crap out of him once.”
“Isn’t that kind of what people do to each other in this lifestyle?”
He snorted. “He was her Master. Without warning, he left her. Landry, her husband—not her husband at the time—brought Cris back a few years later and Cris was Landry’s slave. She lit into Cris like a woman possessed.”
“Wow.”
“And he took it.”
“Why?”<
br />
He shrugged. “He felt he deserved it, and more, for what he’d done to her.”
“Why had he done it? Left her?”
“I’ll tell you the details as I know them tomorrow, but Landry was in an accident and they discovered he had cancer. Cris had been his slave before and had never told Tilly. He released her and left without telling her why or even saying good-bye, just a letter. When Landry found out a few years later what Cris had done, he orchestrated a reunion.”
“But…” She was trying to figure it out. “You said Landry is her husband?”
“Right. When he showed back up, he had cancer again and made a deal with Tilly to marry him and nurse him through the treatment, and he’d make her a rich woman. Literally.”
She wondered if she’d trusted Tilly too soon. “So she only married him for the money?”
“No, she married him because she felt it was the right thing to do, to help him heal, to make sure Cris could have access to him through everything. Eventually, she did fall in love with him, and she and Cris worked things out between them. Now, the three of them, they’re crazy in love with each other.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. Exactly.”
Was possibly fooling around with a couple of handsome guys who had been close to her brother any weirder than that?
Not even close.
Chapter Thirteen
Lyle parked behind her car in the driveway. He recognized Basco’s car parked there as well and fought back a wistful pang of emotion.
Of course Vanessa still had his car. She said she hadn’t been able to really go through his things yet, and he didn’t blame her. It was too soon.
She didn’t live in a bad neighborhood, but the thought of her walking her dog alone this late at night didn’t settle well with him. He shut off the engine and got out before she’d even emerged from the passenger side of her car. He hurried to open her door for her and help her out.
“Thank you guys for this,” she said. “I appreciate it.”