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  She’d left her shoes in the car. She waded out calf deep, then shook the bag out, emptying it into the water just beyond the surf line. Returning, she crammed the bag back in the urn and closed it, then rinsed her hands in the water, a few feet to the side to avoid where she’d put Lydia.

  Then she stepped back to Max and Sean, who held each other.

  Sean was crying.

  She wrapped her arms around them, standing behind Sean.

  “I hated her,” he said. “At one time I loved her, but she turned it around until I hated her. We would have done anything for her in the beginning, and she poisoned us against her.”

  “I know, honey,” Cali gently said.

  “It was her, not us,” Max told him.

  “I know.” Sean sniffled. “And why the fuck am I crying over this? Her, of all people?”

  “Because you’re a compassionate human being,” Max said.

  “Fuck that noise.” Sean sniffled. “She didn’t deserve compassion because she didn’t give compassion.”

  He’d vacillated between anger and grief the past several days. She understood this was part of his process, and they both tried to just be there for him, however he needed them.

  Finally, he took a deep breath and walked over to the water.

  He spit.

  “Fuck you, Lydia,” he said. “Goddamned cunt.” He walked past them, grabbed the urn, and headed for the boardwalk from which they’d come. When he reached the garbage cans, he shoved it in one of them and kept going.

  “I think that’s recyclable,” Cali said.

  “I’m not going to argue with him,” Max said.

  “Good point.”

  She rinsed her feet and legs off at the showers. In the back seat of the car, she slipped out of her shorts and donned jeans. Max drove, while Sean silently sat in the front passenger seat and stared out the window.

  I hope this wasn’t a mistake.

  * * * *

  It literally felt like a weight had lifted from him, spitting in the ocean like that. When they’d moved Lydia out, Sean had wanted to lambast her but Max had convinced him not to. At the time, Sean had agreed with his logic.

  Give her no legitimate reason to speak badly about them.

  Do the right thing.

  Walk away knowing that they held the moral high ground.

  But the longer that had gone on, the more bitter it had tasted to him. Why should they have to hold their tongues after what she’d done to them? Especially to him?

  He’d always had it in his mind that, one last time, he’d walk up to her, laugh in her face, tell her what a fucking loser bitch she was, and list how wonderful their life was now, without her in it.

  Make her want to eat her heart out with jealousy.

  And…he’d done the right thing. The adult thing.

  “I’m done not talking about her,” Sean quietly said.

  “What, buddy?” Max asked.

  Sean looked at him. “I’m done not talking about her. She’s fucking dead. I don’t want to talk about all the gory details, but I damn sure want people to know she was a cunt. And yeah, I know that’s a fucking crude way to talk, but let’s be honest—that’s what she was.”

  Cali reached over the seat and patted him on the shoulder. “Whatever you want to do, sweetie.”

  “I mean, yeah, dying is a little extreme, granted. But fuck that shit of speaking well of the dead.”

  “No one expects you to speak well of her,” Max said. “Least of all us or our friends who know what she did.”

  “There’s something ironic in us getting to dump her ashes after we dumped her out of our lives.”

  “I agree,” Max said.

  “You have no idea how badly I wanted to blast her when we first heard she was whining that we’d abandoned her. Bitch, we paid your fucking hotel bill to give you a new start, and you wasted it, after you fucking stole money from us!”

  Max nodded but didn’t interrupt.

  “And she was going to bring other men into our motherfucking house? With our motherfucking names on the goddamned deed? I don’t fucking think so.”

  Sean fumed. “Why did I ever love that fucking bitch in the first goddamned place?”

  He realized he was screaming and took a deep breath. “Sorry.”

  Max reached over and patted his thigh. “Did you want to grab take-out and go home to eat?”

  “No. Dammit, I want to eat. I want to celebrate. Ding, dong, the witch is gone.”

  Silence descended until he felt another rant erupt. “Why was I stupid with her? I’m a reasonably smart guy, right? I’m a fucking engineer. In the US, they don’t just hand those degrees out in a fucking bath bomb. ‘Here’s a Hello Kitty ring and an engineering degree.’ What the fuck? Why did I lose my goddamned brains?”

  Cali’s hand squeezed his shoulder. “Because you have a good heart, and you didn’t expect her to not be honest with you, because you were being honest with her.”

  He was going to tell her she was wrong and had no idea what she was talking about…

  Except she wasn’t wrong, and she knew exactly what she was talking about, because her ex had fucked her over, too.

  He covered her hand with his and squeezed, his heart swelling with love for her. “Yeah,” he hoarsely said. “Exactly.”

  Chapter Nine

  Eliza held the back door of the SUV open. “Come on, you big baby. You lost the bet fair and square. Let’s go.”

  “Why can’t I call red for this?”

  “Because you were so convinced you’d win the bet that you took red off the table. If you don’t fulfill your end of the deal, you will forever in our family be known as Rusty the Welcher.”

  He let out a sigh.

  “Come on. You can’t stay out here all night.”

  “Sure, I can.”

  “Let me rephrase that—get your ass out of the car before I ask Max and Sean to come drag your ass out. Don’t think I won’t do it, because you know I will.”

  He grumbled, but Rusty started trying to make his way out of the SUV’s backseat. It wasn’t easy. He’d ridden over to their house stretched out in the backseat, and it was difficult for him to crawl his way out of the vehicle.

  Compounded by the fact that he was wearing a giant inflated T-Rex costume.

  Eliza shut the car door behind him before walking around to the back to grab their casserole dish. “This will teach you to drink six beers and then run your mouth that you’re a better fighter than me and can kick my ass if you wanted to.”

  “I’m not responsible for what I say when I’m drunk and horny. You had that stupid vibrating butt plug up me.”

  “Even more reason for you to suffer for your folly, buster.” She flashed him a wicked smile. “Besides, wait until you see what I have for you later.”

  The T-Rex head drooped. “I’m afraid to ask.”

  She cleared her throat.

  “I’m afraid to ask, Ma’am.”

  “That’s better.”

  A car slowed as it pulled up, stopping, the driver’s window rolling down. “Eliza? Oh, my god, is that Rusty?” Jesse was driving, but Leo, who’d leaned forward in the passenger seat to get a better view, looked like he was going to wet himself laughing. “I didn’t know this was a costume party.”

  The T-Rex waved one of its stubby arms, flipping him off with it.

  “It’s not,” Eliza said. “The barbarian lost a bet.”

  Jesse didn’t even try to hide his amusement. “What kind of bet?”

  “He drank six beers and then got mouthy with me in front of the neighbors. We were talking SCA combat at their backyard cookout. One guy asked how good a fighter I was, being all snarky like girls can’t fight, and Mr. Smart Ass, here, said he could kick my ass. Then I told him to put his money where his mouth was.” She waved her hands with a game show flourish, indicating Rusty’s status as Loser.

  Capital L.

  “Okay,” Leo said. “I have to hear this. What did you
do to him?”

  “Oh, after genius took red off the table and said he’d wear Humpty here to the next private party, versus me betting him a weekend of being his sexy French maid, I promptly flipped him and put him on his ass and had him screaming uncle.”

  “I was drunk,” the T-Rex said. “It wasn’t fair. And she nearly dislocated my damn shoulder.”

  “Oh, shut up, you big baby. I’ve dislocated your shoulder before. And the next time I try to cut you off at two beers, listen to me, dumbass.”

  The T-Rex’s head drooped lower, making laughter roll from Leo and Jesse.

  “We’ll get parked and see you inside,” Leo said. “This is going to be great.”

  The window rolled up as they drove off to pick a spot to park.

  Eliza sweetly smiled up at her husband. “If nothing else, take comfort in the fact that you’ll be amusing our friends tonight.”

  He sighed. “Yes, Ma’am.”

  She patted the T-Rex’s nose. “Good boy.”

  * * * *

  Cali did a double-take when she opened the front door and saw the T-Rex standing behind Eliza.

  “Ummmm…context?”

  “He lost a bet.” Eliza hugged Cali.

  Cali snorted. “Dumbass.”

  “That’s what I told him. Never bet against the Domme.”

  Cali laughed as the T-Rex’s head bowed a little in obvious shame.

  “I got the idea from that turkey costume you had Sean dressed up in for the website header.”

  “You can borrow it, if you want.”

  “Red,” the T-Rex groused.

  Eliza turned to stare at him. “Really? That’s your limit?”

  “It would have been my limit this time if I hadn’t been drunk and stupid.”

  “Well, that’s your fault,” Eliza said.

  Leo and Jesse walked up behind them, apparently still laughing from having seen them earlier, based on comments they made. This was all made even funnier by the fact that Rusty was carrying Eliza’s implement bags with his stubby little T-Rex arms.

  From behind Cali, Max burst out laughing. “Now I’ve seen everything. Did he lose a bet?”

  “You betcha,” Eliza said. She handed the casserole dish off to Max so she could take the implement bags from Rusty. “Go find yourself a safe place to stand on the lanai so you don’t wipe out anyone or anything with that costume until I’m ready to beat your ass.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.” Rusty carefully slid himself through the foyer, barely avoiding taking pictures off the wall as he passed, and headed for the open real estate in the living room on his way to the sliders.

  Max looked at Cali. “Red.”

  “Goddammit,” she muttered, but she smiled. “You’re no fun.”

  “You get to do plenty of shit to Sean. I think keeping myself out of a T-Rex costume for this context is more than fair.”

  “True, when you put it like that.”

  * * * *

  Cali wasn’t sure why Eliza held her back in the foyer with a staying hand on her arm, letting Leo and Jesse and Max go on ahead.

  “How’s Sean?” Eliza whispered.

  Cali nodded. “Better, thanks. I think that was cathartic for him.”

  “Good. Still like Scrye and June’s idea of dumping her in the butt bin outside Venture.”

  Cali chuckled at Eliza’s evil smile and didn’t bother trying to explain all the reasons why that wouldn’t have worked.

  If her sadistic friends wanted to engage in their own revenge fantasies, it wasn’t her job to stop them. She realized that now.

  It was their therapeutic purging of their negative feelings about the woman.

  As more people arrived and quietly inquired of Cali how Lydia’s “disposal” had gone, as they were referring to it, she realized something else.

  There were a lot of damn people who hadn’t liked the woman. And, somehow, the very act of contributing to a final good deed done for someone who damn sure hadn’t deserved it in life had…cheered everyone up.

  Oh, no one, as far as Cali could tell, was seriously glad Lydia had been murdered.

  They were sadists, not assholes.

  But it was like the ultimate payback that Lydia could never one-up.

  Fuck you, you bitch, we paid for your funeral.

  Ha. Top that.

  They had, collectively, had the final word over someone who hadn’t been deserving of the kindness they’d done her.

  Cali could live with that.

  * * * *

  Cali had headed down the hall to check on Baxter when she heard his howls. Panicking, she yanked the office door open just to find him rolling around on the floor on his back in a massive pile of catnip.

  Somehow, she must not have gotten the top screwed back on the plastic canister when she’d sprinkled some out earlier for him.

  He’d also dragged a coil of rainbow-colored paracord out of a box and had unraveled a lot of it. It was now covered in catnip…and Baxter. He’d twisted it around himself several times.

  “Great. I can’t sell that one now. Pre-used by a stoned pussy.”

  He noticed her entrance and lazily swatted a paw in her direction while letting out one of those howls.

  “Oh, hai! Did you see the fricking DRAGONS running around here with the pink elephants?”

  She closed the door and took a picture first—just to remember this by. Then she scooped up the now-empty container, which had been almost full.

  “Dammit, Baxter, that’s expensive cat weed you’re bathing in.”

  After she got him untangled from the paracord and shoved it into the closet for now to get it out of his way, she used a folder to try to scrape up as much of the catnip as she could and dump it back into the plastic container.

  The door opened behind her. “What the—oh.” Sean slipped inside with her and closed the door behind him.

  “No, you missed the best part.” She handed him her phone. Sean exploded with laughter, which drew a responding howl from Baxter.

  “Holy fuck, he’s really stoned,” Sean said.

  “No shit. Care to help me, or at least go on a tuna run for him? He’s going to have the munchies like crazy later.”

  Between the two of them, they managed to get the worst of the spilled catnip cleaned up. She didn’t want to grab her cordless vacuum cleaner, because that would freak Baxter out. It’d have to wait until after the party, when she could let him loose in the house.

  Meanwhile, Baxter continued rolling around on the floor.

  “Duuuude!”

  She shook her head as she stared at him. “Do they have pussy rehab?”

  Sean snorted. “Yeah, but I heard it’s run by these really strict Rottweilers and it turns the pussies into fucking whore hounds.”

  “Did you hear me roll my eyes? I feel like they made a sound when I rolled them.”

  He snorted, pulling her in for a kiss. “This is why I love you so much, babe.”

  “Why? Because my nip-addicted pussy provides you with amusement?”

  “No.” He brushed the hair away from her face and tenderly tucked it behind her ears. “Because you never let me forget that life should be fun.” He slanted his lips over hers, stealing her breath, stealing her heart, stealing her—

  “GODDAMMIT, Baxter, fucking OW!” Sean jumped back on one foot. Baxter was rolling around on his side, reaching out with a paw.

  “Where you goin’? We havin’ fun!”

  “He fuckin’ bit me!” He attempted to balance on one foot, trying to see if Baxter drew blood.

  “You don’t gripe like that when I bite you,” she teased.

  “Yeah, because you suck my cock in consolation.”

  “Well, I don’t think he’s going to do that. He’s straight.”

  Sean stared at her for a moment before bursting into laughter. He forgot his foot and pulled her in, nuzzling noses with her. “I love you so fucking much. Did I tell you that today already?”

  She smiled. “Yeah, but I lo
ve hearing you say it, because I love you, too.”

  He stared down at Baxter. “You need rehab, buster.”

  “Maow!”

  Chapter Ten

  Gilo emerged from the bathroom, wearing his leather cuffs, collar, hood, and leather jock.

  And nothing else.

  He’d tucked his clothes into his bag and went to go put it with the rest of their things. He’d been in the mood for a good beating tonight after a hectic work week, complete with an accidental and totally preventable death at the power plant, meaning a nightmare of meetings and paperwork in addition to the heartbreak of having to notify the man’s family.

  Sorry, your husband died because he was a dumbass and didn’t take the time to follow a basic—and mandatory—safety procedure that would have saved his life.

  Yeeeaaah, no. Not something he could—or would—say to the grieving widow, even if he was thinking it.

  And boy, was he thinking it.

  Abbey had gotten her spanking earlier that afternoon at home and was currently wearing a butt plug—vibrating, thank you very much—that he promised to remove from her upon their return home that evening.

  If she was a very good girl for him.

  Meaning if she gave him a damn good beating. Right now, he had the vibrator turned off, but planned on switching it on after their scene just to fuck with her and see what happened.

  Lately, their play dynamic had tipped heavily into a him Top, her bottom arrangement. Not that there was anything wrong with that, because he naturally tried to balance it in other ways, like making her morning coffee, cooking her dinner, or folding her clothes.

  Tonight, however, he wanted it to be the Ma’am show.

  Well, mostly Ma’am. Once he was back up and running, he knew he’d feel the energy slip and flip as Abbey was ready to hand the reins over to Sir once more.

  He pulled up short as he spotted a…

  What the actual fuck?