Hot Sauce (Suncoast Society #26)(26)

Scott covered Keith’s hand with his other one. “You’d better believe it. Damn, I can’t believe he died from that.”

“Believe it,” Tilly said. “It happens. People’s immune systems get compromised for too long, the body starts to shut down. If he’d gone to the doctor early on and they’d caught it, he’d probably be sitting here tonight instead of his sister sitting in there, talking to Tony.”

Reed had to fight the sudden urge to get up and walk over to the doorway separating the two spaces and peek around the edge to check on Vanessa.

Maybe it was because of her resemblance to Basco, maybe it was the shock of trying to process his own grief, but he wanted to take care of her. Basco had loved her, put her first in his life after too many years of his wife trying to pull the siblings apart.

The least he could do to honor his friend’s memory would be to help look after the man’s beloved little sister.

Right?

Lyle eerily echoed his thoughts out loud. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I plan on trying to be there for Vanessa as much as she’ll let us. I think Basco would have wanted us to welcome her and treat her like family. Especially since she went out of her way to seek us out.”

Nods of assent from all around.

“He would have,” Jenny said. “I know he would have. She was his life. Had he realized how cool she is with this, I know he would have told her. She was the main reason he kept such a sharp delineation between his vanilla and kinky lives. He deliberately asked me and Ken to come to dinner with them one night to meet her after he’d moved in with her. She’d had a rough week at work dealing with a sexual harassment issue at one of her stores. He wanted her to try to make friends, so we agreed there would be no mention of kinky stuff, and we genuinely did become friends with her. We also knew Rusty and Eliza, so they were sort of drawn into this as well. The vanilla beard-friends.”

Jenny made a point of making eye contact with Lyle, and with Reed. “Like I told Lyle on the phone, don’t take Basco not crossing that barrier with any of you as an affront. He was very protective of her. I don’t even think she realizes how much. He was scared she’d end up alone, working herself to death, and dying of a heart attack or something before she was forty. She literally only has work and home. Sometimes she’ll go to the gym, if she remembers. If it wasn’t for Basco, she never would have left the house for anything other than groceries and work. She reads for a hobby, takes care of the house, and that’s it. She’s a workaholic who doesn’t know how to relax. He was doing his best to try to get her to loosen up some like that.”

“Sounds like someone I know,” Lyle drawled as he reached over and took Reed’s hand.

“Hey, I know how to relax.”

“True, you do, but you’re very driven when you work. Even you have to admit that.”

“I have to make a living.”

“Everyone has to make a living,” Lyle said, “but if it wasn’t for me, you’d forget how to make a life at the same time.”

Lyle’s words stung a little.

Probably because he heard the truth in them. “I’m the one who ditched my old career for a better one, if you’ll recall.”

“Yes, I recall. But you are also as intense with this career as you were with your last one. Just in different ways. When was the last time you took a day off and refused a charter?”

“Tomorrow,” he shot back.

“Um, nooo. The charter cancelled on you. And don’t lie and say if someone called you at the last minute that you wouldn’t be out on the water in a heartbeat, despite the fact that you got a cancellation fee from the charter you lost.”

Reed stared at the table. “So?” he mumbled. “That’s smart business.”

Tilly laughed, a hint of her usual self sparkling through. “You, sir, are a workaholic. I hereby announce you tried, found guilty, and convicted in this kinky kangaroo court. I’d sentence you to a spanking, but I don’t have that kind of relationship with you. Lyle, you do the honors when you get home.”

Reed looked to find Lyle smirking at him. “I just might do exactly that,” he said.





Chapter Eleven


After Vanessa’s talk with Tony, she understood a little better why her brother had made some of his decisions. Losing someone like Kaden, and the impact it would have had among their close-knit circle of friends in the local BDSM community, definitely would cause anyone to re-evaluate their life the way her brother had.

That Kaden had been so beloved among their local community, even among people who barely knew him, stood testament to the positive impact he’d had on so many lives.

She wondered what kind of an impact Basco’s death would have on people. No, he hadn’t been a member of the community for as long as Kaden had, and wasn’t as well-known among them.

But if one person avoided an untimely death because they went to the doctor, or if one person decided to take the plunge and live authentically because of his loss, she’d be happy with that. It would mean…something. That he hadn’t died totally in vain.

By the time she and Tony emerged from their private talk, Mark—aka Scrye to the kinky folks—and a woman she suspected was his wife, were standing at the table with Jenny and everyone else. There was another man and woman there as well, whom Tony quickly introduced.