Hot Sauce (Suncoast Society #26)(2)

She’d insisted it wouldn’t.

This time she’d won, in typical little-sister fashion.

After refilling the glass with wine and more ice cubes, she sat on Tony’s bed with Carlo curled up next to her and started reading. Apparently, this journal was one of several, based on the dates and indications he’d made on the inside cover. This one had been started over four years earlier, just before he’d filed for divorce and a few weeks before he’d moved in with her, and he didn’t write in it every day.

It did, however, uncover startling revelations about her beloved brother. Nothing that would make her hate him, or lose respect for him.

But it made it perfectly clear she’d done the right thing following her instincts to handle this herself. Especially when she started reading and learned there was a lot more to her brother than she’d ever suspected.

Like the fact that he was bisexual, something he’d successfully hid not just from his family, but from his ex-wife as well.

And the fact that he was into BDSM.





I can’t take it anymore. I’m going to file for divorce from Kelly and move in with Nessie. I’ve dragged this out long enough and I can’t deny the inevitable. Hence, the new journal. All fresh and empty and ready to be filled.

There’s a joke there, but I’ll avoid making it…

Vanessa couldn’t help but laugh. That was sooo Tony, always ready with a quick double-entendre to crack her up. Not at work, no. He was professional at work, but at home or around friends, he was easily the funniest guy in the room.

…but I’ll avoid making it and instead take a moment to reflect. Ten years of my life where I denied who I was even more than I had in the past. Where I stuffed my needs and tried to pretend I could be that “normal” guy with the dog and the wife and the great job and the great house and maybe even kids.

Kelly wasn’t the person for me. I know that now, and no, this isn’t fair to her. I thought I was going through a phase in my life and thought I’d successfully locked the door.

All it did was point out to me in glaring clarity how wrong I was. How I should have listened to that still, quiet inner voice that always told me I wasn’t vanilla. That I wasn’t strictly hetero. That I wasn’t the image I’d tried so hard to portray to everyone.

And now I will, unfortunately, be hurting Kelly in the process. I’ve tried to hint around at it, but she’s not taking the hint. I thought maybe she was as unhappy as I am, but apparently not. The crater-pocked battlefield of her parents’ marriage must have numbed her to dysfunction at an early age.

Yay, me.

Yes, red flags I should have looked at, but I thought it would be okay. The fact that she doesn’t like Nessie and hates spending time with my parents, too, should have been another. Not that she doesn’t have her good points, because she does, but she’s not the person for me.

I suspect this won’t go well, that there will be a lot of anger on her part. That there will be more than a little bit of fighting before I get through to the other side. Hell, no, I won’t tell her everything. I hate to say it, but I can’t trust her not to fling it in my face or take it to my family and friends. Hell, maybe even my regional supervisor.

What does that say about me, that I settled for someone that I can’t fully trust like I can Nessie? Hell, there’s shit I told Nessie as a kid I know our parents never heard about. She’s about the only person I can trust in this world…

Now she broke down crying again. That was the other thing that greatly sucked about this, beyond the grief over losing her brother.

She’d lost her best friend, her confidant.

The one person she knew would never pick on her in a mean way, who would never violate her trust. Well, yes, she loved her parents, but they were her parents, not friends.

Tony had been her best friend, not just her brother. It saddened her a little that he’d never admitted any of this to her before, but she suspected she understood. He thought it better to hide it away completely than to risk her freaking out over it. He knew she never snooped in his room or about his life.

Another reason she’d wanted to be the only one going through his things. She didn’t know what she’d find—case in point—and didn’t want anyone else finding it.

That’s not what he would have wanted, and she knew it.

And yes, Kelly had made Tony’s life a living hell during the divorce. Now knowing that he’d tried to make things easy on Kelly, that just pissed Vanessa off even more, that he’d martyred himself in the divorce for a woman who wasn’t worthy of him.

…trust in this world to not tell my secrets. I wish I could tell her about all of this but I don’t want to burden her with it. No, I’ve never cheated on Kelly, but I have started going to events on the side to make sure, and now I know this is what I need. I’m going to have to walk a bitter line and come up with a valid excuse as to why I want—need—out. It’ll mean giving up a lot, maybe everything.

But that’s just stuff. Things. Material possessions I can replace later.

I think I married Kelly partly because I was worried I was missing out on something. But then when Kaden died…I think that was the final wakeup call that shook me to my core.

Life is short. Too damn short. I don’t want to be at the end of my life and looking back at all the things I wish I’d done in the limited amount of time that I had. I don’t want it to be a series of regrets over things I didn’t do. Better one large regret of having to divorce Kelly to be my real self, which will also allow her to find someone better for her than I am while she’s still young enough to rebuild her life.