Hot Sauce (Suncoast Society #26)(27)

“Scrye, I guess you already know,” he said.

Vanessa bashfully lifted a hand in greeting at her CPA. “Funny running into you here.”

He grinned. “Not if you knew me better, no, not really.” His smile faded. “Sorry about your brother.”

“Thanks.”

June, the slim, petite woman a stark contrast to Scrye’s bear-like bulk, was in fact his wife. Then Kel and Mallory. Kel had been one of the ones Tony thought Basco played with, and was not only a part-owner of the club, but the landlord as well.

Vanessa couldn’t exactly talk in private with the two men since more people were now over on the other side playing, but the men settled with her at a far table, drawing close. She wanted to get her talk with them out of the way so she didn’t mess up their plans for the evening. She knew Reed and Lyle would be there all night, and had no plans to leave early. They’d insisted it was all right for her to get this over with, and she appreciated their generosity for it.

“Like I told Tony, I’m not sure what to ask. I want to know more about my brother and why he liked this.”

Kel shrugged. “Speaking for myself, I can’t give you a solid answer. There are as many reasons why people like this as there are people involved in it. Why do some people like vanilla over chocolate ice cream? Why do some people like rap music versus country versus classical? It just…is. Some people fall into it accidentally and fall in love with it, and some people are simply hard-wired to be kinky because it’s a part of who they are in their DNA.”

Scrye nodded. “What he said.”

“I guess something else I want to know is, was he happy? Did he seem happy to you?”

“He was,” Scrye said. “The first time I suspended him, he was still relatively new to the scene and asked for a really strict bondage suspension. He’d been suspended a couple of times already.” He looked at Kel. “You popped his rope cherry, didn’t you?”

Kel smiled. “I did. He came to a class I taught and eagerly volunteered to let me suspend him when I was talking about the physiological differences between suspending men and women.”

“He was enjoying himself,” Scrye said. “I never saw him without a smile. Especially when he played.” He tipped his head toward the table where the others still sat. “I know he was really fond of Reed and Lyle. He’d been playing mostly with them over the past several months, as far as I know. Well, as far as I saw when I was here. You’d have to ask them about that.”

Words failed her. Now that she was here, she wasn’t even sure what to ask, much less how. A week ago this time, she’d been sitting in an ICU room with her brother, softly begging him to hold on, to get better.

To not leave her alone.

She’d called her parents when they’d gone to the ER, just an FYI, never dreaming what would happen a few hours later.

She felt like she’d failed him then, and she felt like she was still failing him.

The men patiently sat, waiting for her to speak.

Tears tried to surface again and she shoved them away. “I know retracing his steps won’t bring him back,” she admitted. “But I don’t know what else to do right now.”

The men both reached out, each one clasping her hands.

“It’s okay not to know,” Scrye gently said. “You’re still in shock. And that’s okay, too. Anyone who tells you to buck up and move on is an idiot.”

“Yeah,” Kel said. “It’s going to take you a while to even begin to start processing this. Do you have any friends you can lean on?”

She glanced over at Jenny. “I’m guessing Eliza and Rusty are kinky, too, aren’t they?” she asked. “They were friends of my brother and he introduced them, and Jenny and Ken, to me.

Kel laughed. “Um, if it’s the same Eliza and Rusty I know, that would be a definite yes.”

Her gaze dropped to the table. “Then I guess,” she quietly said, “I technically don’t have any friends. They were his friends and he introduced me to them. I don’t know if it’s fair of me to ask them for their support when they’re going to be grieving for him, too.”

“Stop,” Scrye said, gently squeezing her hand. “Look at me.”

She finally did, finding it hard not to cry.

“If your brother was their friend, they’ll want to be there for you. Let them. This is, no kidding, an extended kind of adopted family. Don’t push them away because of what you think you should or shouldn’t do. Let them make that call. Ask. Reach out. You’ve got a table full of ready-made friends over there already, and I think I can speak for Kel in this case and add the two of us and our significant others to that list, too.”

Kel nodded.

“Thank you,” she said, her voice failing her. “I just…I feel so damned guilty,” she forced out.

“Don’t,” Kel said. “He was an adult and made his own choices, as cold as that sounds. You couldn’t force him to the hospital any sooner than you did.”

That wasn’t the sole source of her guilt, but she’d let it go for now. She’d about hit her limit of processing things.

The men led her back to the table, where she once again sat between Tilly and Jenny.

“We’d like to have a memorial service for him here, if that’s okay,” Tilly said. “You are, of course, invited.”