Hot Sauce (Suncoast Society #26)(24)

“Sometimes,” Lyle said, “people don’t want to burden their families with this. It can be kind of personal. They worry they’ll be shunned or disowned. It’s happened a lot before.”

“But I wouldn’t have done that.” She stared at Tilly’s hands, trying not to remember how she’d clasped Tony’s hands, willing him to get better even as he sharply declined, before the medical staff forced her away from his bedside as they tried heroic measures to save his life.

“It’s like sex lives,” Reed said. “It’s not always something people are comfortable discussing with other family members unless they absolutely can’t avoid the issue.”

“Basco and I could talk about anything,” she said. “At least, I thought we could.”

“It doesn’t mean he loved you any less,” Reed told her.

“He told us how much you meant to him,” Lyle said. “How much he loved you. That he was glad he was living with you and able to be a part of your life. He made it clear to us from the beginning that you always came first with him. That there might be times he had to ditch us at the last-minute if you needed him, and we were perfectly fine with that. He hated that his ex got in the way of his relationship with you for so long.”

She didn’t know if that made her feel better or worse, even though it gelled with what she’d read in her brother’s journal.

“I wish I’d known about this. I would have told him I was okay with it since it made him happy.” She tipped her head toward where Tony was teaching. “I’ve read far kinkier stuff in books than I’ve seen here yet. This is not what I was expecting. At all.”

“Thought you’d see nekkid people swinging from the rafters, right?” Tilly joked, smiling as she gave Vanessa’s hands a final squeeze and sat back, releasing her.

“Well…yeah. If you want me to be honest.”

Everyone else around the table smiled and softly chuckled. “It’s both far more boring and mundane, while simultaneously being weirder, than anyone imagines,” Jenny assured her. “Look at me and Ken, here. You didn’t think anything about us was different.”

“True.”

She knew her friend was open-minded and liberal, but while the news that Jenny was kinky didn’t surprise Vanessa, no, it wasn’t a fact she’d readily foreseen.

Her brother was more proof of that.

There was something else she wanted answered. “So I can ask anything?”

Everyone nodded.

“Okay. Then who was Kaden, and why did his death have such an impact on my brother?”

Everyone froze.





Chapter Ten


“ To be best of my recollection,” Tony said, “Basco started coming around to munches and the club just before Kaden left the public scene for good.”

She was sitting alone with Tony on a couch in the club’s far side, a second space they’d recently added. The music was a little louder over here, and the lights dimmer, but there was only one couple playing, and they were on what Tony had called a St. Andrew’s Cross on the far end of the space.

For all intents and purposes, they were alone and could talk in private.

When she’d asked about Kaden, everyone gathered around the table had gone still and quiet for a moment before Tilly took the reins again, back to a very subdued, quiet tone.

“We’ll table that topic and let Tony talk to you about Kaden,” she’d said. “Of all of us here right at this moment, he knew him the best. It’s better he answers your questions.”

So now here she sat, just a few minutes after Tony’s class had ended. Vanessa had told him it was okay if he wanted to wait to talk about it, but he didn’t seem nonplussed by the topic or her desire to talk about it.

Tony continued. “People didn’t need to know Kaden personally, or deeply, to be effected by him. He was a very calming, serene presence. He and his wife, Leah, taught classes here. Rope, whips, other things.”

Tony seemed lost in thought for a moment. “So I’m not sure how well Basco actually knew Kaden, because I was around Kade a lot in those last months and don’t remember seeing him or hearing Kade talk about him. That doesn’t mean Kade’s death didn’t have an impact on him.” He caught himself. “Well, obviously it did have an impact on your brother, because he wrote about it. So he must have met Kade at least once or twice.”

“But why? Why would Kaden’s death have an impact on my brother if he didn’t know him very well?”

“Because Kaden died of pancreatic cancer. It took…a while. When he found out about it, he set in motion a series of events to put his life-long best friend, Seth, in place as his wife’s Master and husband.”

She blinked. “Say what?”

The sad smile Tony gave her made her regret her tone. “He was a complete control freak. And Leah…needed…things. Not need like, ‘Oh, I’d really like a spanking tonight.’ Without breeching a confidence, she needed a certain type of…” He seemed to search for the word. “She needed a certain type of loving managerial style to ensure she would keep moving forward.”

In her current state, Vanessa had no problem believing that. If it wasn’t for Carlo and her promise to her brother to take care of him, she’d find it damned hard to come up with a reason to get out of bed every morning.