Hot Sauce [Suncoast Society] (Siren Publishing Sensations, Page 2

  Ever since Kaden died, I knew what I had to do. It started out a tiny seed, growing more over the past several months, until I can’t ignore it any longer…

  Vanessa frowned as she reached the bottom of the first page. She’d never heard of a friend named Kaden. Especially not one who’d died. That wasn’t exactly a fact her brother would usually conceal.

  Absently stroking Carlo’s head, she reread the first page.

  Poignant and sad, nevertheless very truthful and self-aware.

  While he’d lived with her, he’d tried his best to get her to relax, to lighten up. They’d even taken a vacation together, the first one she’d allowed herself in…ever. They’d taken a road trip with Carlo along the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Great Smoky Mountains Parkway, stopping at every park and attraction they could along the way, hiking, and generally enjoying themselves.

  Tony had been six months post-divorce and looking for something relaxing to do when he’d seen a show on TV about the parks and insisted that would be their sibling vacation.

  Of course she’d agreed to it. He was her big brother.

  And they’d had the time of their lives. For the first time in her adult life, she’d been able to not think about her job, not stress about anything, and just relax and enjoy herself with no expectations, no plans, and no worries about anything other than what they were doing at that moment. Tony had made sure of that.

  How am I going to make it through the rest of my life without him?

  * * * *

  Vanessa read the entire journal that night. There were eight blank pages in the back of it, and his last entry had been only two weeks earlier. She’d discovered a new, blank journal, also in the same bin, so he’d been planning on continuing the habit.

  I’ll have to go through his stuff in the garage and storage and see if there are any other journals.

  She couldn’t imagine this was a habit he’d just randomly picked up. In high school and college, he’d been interested in writing, but his business degree hadn’t exactly been made for that pursuit. And when he’d ended up promoted at his job at a grocery store chain to assistant manager, and later store manager, followed by area manager…he’d stayed with that because he was making good money.

  She gathered journaling was his way to fill the creative need in his soul to set words and thoughts down on paper.

  Apparently, he’d known he was kinky since his teenaged years, but he’d first assumed those thoughts were “wrong” and shouldn’t be pursued. College had allowed him to dip a toe into the water, both in terms of exploring his sexuality and his kinky side, but then he’d pulled back after he graduated as work took over. He’d started working part-time as a stock boy and bagger back in high school and had never intended to make it his career, but luck had been on his side. When he’d died, he’d been making close to a hundred thousand a year, and had been on track for a promotion to regional manager.

  She’d taken a similar track, except for an auto parts store chain. And she’d never gotten her four-year degree like he had. She’d spent her time as a kid hanging out with him, watching over his shoulder as he’d worked on his own beater rides in high school and college. When it came time for her to get a job, he’d talked to his friend, an assistant manager at a local parts store, and got her in as a part-timer, because the grocery store he worked for wasn’t hiring at the time.

  From that point, she’d taken her fate into her hands. It was challenging, but she enjoyed it and enjoyed the work.

  She wouldn’t deny secret satisfaction when she proved to men—co-workers and customers alike—that she was not only up to the task, but excelled in it. She learned everything she could about cars, poring through repair guides and Internet car sites, subscribing to car magazines and e-mail lists, and generally charting her own course.

  She hadn’t had the grades for an academic scholarship to USF like Tony had, so she’d opted for two years at the community college, paid for in part by her parents, while she still continued working.

  By the time she was twenty-three, she was a store manager, one of only four female store managers in the state of Florida for the chain.

  By the time she was thirty, she’d spent three years as an area manager before being promoted to regional manager handling over thirty stores in west-central and south Florida.

  And there she sat. She’d reached her comfort level, both with her salary and her job responsibilities. She could have pressed onward and tried to work her way up to a national corporate position, but she really didn’t want to. As it was, corporate frequently flew her out to other regions who were having issues so she could go over their records and help identify the problems as well as offer up possible solutions.

  That was enough for her.

  Her house was paid for, her car was paid for, and she didn’t have any significant debt. She paid her credit cards off every month. She had a modest retirement plan and savings, which would grow now that she’d paid off her house late last year and was putting all of that money into her retirement accounts.

  She considered herself very, very lucky.

  She also couldn’t deny she was lonely as fuck, and losing Tony drove that home in about as painful a way as possible. The only recreation she willingly engaged in, besides yard work or reading her Kindle, was working out at the gym on occasion. The only reason she did that was to keep her weight down.

  As it was, at five six and one-sixty, she knew she wasn’t exactly a twig. But she’d kept herself around this weight for a couple of years now and realized she didn’t want to kill herself working out when she despised it. It was enough to be healthy. So she wasn’t a size two.

  She didn’t need to be. She had well-rounded curves in all the right places, and while she ran into plenty of eligible men in her line of work, she never mixed business and pleasure.

  Unfortunately, she really didn’t do much socializing, either. Hell, she’d gone out to eat with other people more often in the past several years while Tony lived with her than she had in the years before he moved in.

  Most of the friends she had now were only because they’d been Tony’s friends, and she got to know them through him once he moved in.

  I am fucking pitiful.

  Emotionally drained and mentally exhausted, she got up, with Carlo following close on her heels, and closed Tony’s bedroom door behind her. She would start again tomorrow.

  How she’d make it past then remained to be seen.

  Chapter Two

  It was a great day to be alive, a gorgeous, picture-perfect southwest Florida Tuesday, the kind of day the county tourist boards loved to brag about.

  Reed Hibbard stood at the wheel of his twenty-eight-foot Mako fishing boat. His five charter passengers held on while he blasted over the glassy Gulf rollers, up on plane, both outboard engines at full throttle.

  They were heading in to the marina, right on time for him to reach the dock, refuel, get more bait, lunch, pick up his next charter at one, and head out again. Hopefully they wouldn’t have much in the way of summer storms today. The seafront pattern had moved east, toward the center of the state, and the afternoon thunderstorms were usually blowing up over land. If that same pattern held this afternoon, he wouldn’t have to cut the afternoon charter short.

  Meaning happy customers.

  Right now, he didn’t even need his GPS unit mounted on the dash. He’d made this inbound trip countless times over the past couple of years, had all the landmarks and channel markers embedded in his brain. Going out, yes, he needed to be right on the numbers, but coming home was easy once he was close enough to make out the landmarks on shore and the head marker.

  His phone, which he had strapped to the bottom recorder bracket with a Velcro strap while underway, lit up with several text messages from Lyle as they ventured back into cell tower range.

  I really need a new cell phone. And a new service provider.

  It wasn’t uncommon for his customers to have cell coverage long after a
nd before he did when heading offshore and returning again. But the cheap-ass plan had saved him hundreds of dollars every year at a time early on when he’d needed to cut expenses. Now that he was making money again, and out of the initial locked-in contract period, maybe it was time to look into switching to a company that was better than two tin cans and a piece of rotted string.

  Hell, there were days he’d settle for two tin cans and a piece of rotted string when compared to his current cell provider.

  He’d wait to respond to Lyle until he was safely docked at the marina he used as a home base. He was coming up on the head marker, and with it being low tide, he wanted his full focus on where he was going. The shallow channel could be treacherous to lower units and props if someone veered too far out of it and into the rock-strewn shallows surrounding it. He’d busted one prop in his time as a charter guide, and that was more than an expensive enough lesson to last him a lifetime.

  Thirty minutes later, he was safely tied up at the dock, the passengers were unloading their stuff and happily heading toward a cleaning table to filet their catch themselves, and he could finally text Lyle back.

  Just got in from morning run. Doing turnaround now.

  Lyle replied.

  Dinner?

  Reed thought about it. He had a grouper of his own in the cooler that would easily feed both of them, but he wasn’t sure he’d feel like cooking after he got home tonight.

  I’ll clean it if you’ll cook it.

  Lyle responded a minute later.

  :)

  Reed headed in to the bathroom before refueling. He had an account at the marina, and they charged him automatically every week, so he didn’t have to worry about paying for it or his fresh bait right then.

  One of the perks of using the place as his home base. Most guides who launched their boats from the marina’s ramp didn’t get credit accounts. Some of them didn’t even get discounts, if they were too cheap to buy a monthly launch pass from the office and instead paid on a per-launch basis.

  He got it. Some of the guides only did it part-time and needed to save every penny they could. But he’d discovered the added benefit of free advertising, both from the marina’s referrals and from having his boat parked there in a covered slip near the fuel dock, meant it was worth the trade-off. He had his name and number on the side of the boat, and he had a full-color sign mounted on a piling on his slip, with a business card holder. Plus, he could deduct it from his taxes as a business expense.

  Yes, early on, when he’d first started working as a fishing guide, he’d scrimped for every penny, too. He got it. If it hadn’t been for moving in with Lyle, he’d probably still be scrimping.

  But at least he was happy. That was a hell of a lot more than he could say before his divorce and career change three years ago. Fifteen years as a financial advisor had burned him out, especially when layered on top of nine years married to a woman whom he’d discovered he was totally not compatible with.

  The first year married to her had driven home his misery in a way he wouldn’t repeat. He’d married Marie at twenty-three, which had also been a mistake, because he hadn’t even known everything about himself yet. Then, five years after the divorce, he’d finally said fuck it to his career, which even on a good day had felt like treading water in a shark tank while bleeding profusely. He got his captain’s license and bought a boat. Fishing had been his hobby for years, and he’d owned his own boat before—and had to sell it in the divorce.

  Which, ironically, worked out all right. It would have been too small for commercial work anyway.

  Good credit got him a loan to buy this one. He obtained his captain’s license—and bought the boat—before he quit his job. He hadn’t had any alimony to pay—and no child support, fortunately. He’d saved up enough to get him by for at least six months.

  A sore spot for him, but again, in reality, something that turned out to be a good thing in retrospect.

  He’d wanted kids but Marie really hadn’t. Thankfully, he’d never talked her into it.

  Now he was two months past forty, happy overall, owned his own business free and clear, and had a guy he could honestly say he loved and who he could see himself spending the rest of his life with.

  And he didn’t have to feel like a deviant or a pervert because he liked to both get his ass spanked as well as do some spanking himself.

  He’d met Lyle over two years ago through the Suncoast Society munches and their mutual memberships at Venture. They played a few times at the club, and Reed invited Lyle out on his boat.

  If Lyle hadn’t enjoyed that, there was no way they would have worked out. He wouldn’t make that mistake twice.

  Fortunately, Lyle had loved it.

  His ex-wife had hated going fishing, hated the boat, hated everything to do with it, and had resented the time and money he spent doing it.

  Which is why he knew she took great satisfaction in demanding he sell it as part of the marital assets, so she could get her half in cash.

  Bitch.

  Water under the bridge, though. She’d already moved on and married a guy he knew from another brokerage firm. It wouldn’t have surprised Reed if he found out at some point that she’d been cheating on him, because she hadn’t exactly acted shocked or dismayed when he’d asked her for the divorce. She’d loved the perks of being a retirement fund manager’s wife, including the pay, cars, parties, and all of that.

  Another thing he’d been glad about, that he hadn’t let her quit working at the bank she’d started at as a teller. She’d moved up to assistant branch manager by the time they divorced, her average salary almost equal to his own.

  She’d wanted to quit and go back to school at one point, but he’d been having a shaky patch with the stock market doing the hokey pokey and playing hell with his own earnings. He hadn’t been sure he’d even have a job before it finally turned around.

  Fortunately, in that case, he had gotten his way, she had kept working, and by the time they finally divorced his income had rebounded.

  Then he promptly had to sink it into attorney’s fees.

  But unlike his bride, who liked all the finer things in life, he was perfectly happy settling in a small two-bedroom condo he’d rented from a friend. Utilities and everything except cable and Internet were included, and that’s where he’d been living until he moved in with Lyle twelve months earlier.

  Marie and her new hubby were living in a fancy gated community in a section of Lakewood Ranch where cheap homes started around four hundred grand.

  And they weren’t living in a cheap home.

  He shared Lyle’s thirty-year-old house off Beneva, which wasn’t fancy, but they’d redecorated the interior and revamped the pool, so it felt fresh and new. And except for the home equity loan Lyle had taken out to pay for those upgrades—and which Reed was paying half of—it was owned free and clear.

  Lyle owned an insurance company specializing in writing policies on the kinds of homes Reed’s ex lived in, as well as other high-risk properties, like beachfront condos. Even before meeting Reed he’d lived an understated, yet comfortable and easy life.

  Another reason Reed had fallen hard for him. He felt he could be his real self around Lyle with no need to put on airs.

  After refueling, taking on fresh bait, wolfing down a sandwich from the marina store’s deli, and getting his afternoon charter customers on board, he cast off his lines and headed out of the marina basin again, happy to be alive. Other than a little residual indigestion he suspected was due to how fast he’d eaten, he felt great, his soul light and airy.

  He’d never felt like this at his old job, eager to get back to it, enjoying every day, even the crappy ones. Yes, the trade-off was a lower salary, but the reduced stress and increased happiness was well worth it.

  Life is good.

  * * * *

  With a smile, Lyle Bracken set his phone aside on his desk. He didn’t know what species of dinner Reed would bring home, but absolutely he’d co
ok it. One of the perks of having a charter captain as a partner was all the fresh-caught fish he could handle.

  Lucky for him, he adored fish.

  More than once he’d thanked his lucky stars for meeting the man, as well as for the stupidity of Reed’s ex-wife. If it hadn’t been for the perfect confluence of events, they might never have met.

  And that would have been a damn shame, because Reed was the love of his life.

  Yes, they both played around with men and women at the club, and occasionally even fooled around in bed with women, but they weren’t interested in dangerous casual flings that might break them up. Some of their friends had gone from happy twosomes into gleeful threesomes, but that wasn’t really on their radar.

  Although, never say never.

  That weekend, they were going to the club again. They had been scheduled to meet up with another friend of theirs, Basco, last Saturday night to play, but the man had been a no-show without so much as a message why.

  Which was unlike Basco, but sometimes life intervened. They knew Basco lived with his sister, who had no idea about the kinky and bi side of her brother’s life. He’d warned them that there might be times he’d have to ditch them at the last-minute, without warning, if she needed him.

  Before now, that had rarely happened. Also, Basco was always good about sending them a note via FetLife or Facebook if he had to cancel on them.

  Basco was an acquaintance and play partner, but they hadn’t taken things farther than that with him, yet. Not that they wouldn’t have liked to, but they knew Basco was still struggling with keeping his vanilla life separate from his kinky life because of his sister, and even because of his job, to a certain extent. Basco didn’t like to lie to his sister any more than he had to about his activities and time spent away from home.