Hot Sauce (Suncoast Society #26)(32)

“Fair warning—dinner and the club tomorrow? Tilly and Eliza have already set their sights on trying to play matchmaker with the three of us.”

She blinked. “Say what?”

“Yeah. It’s kind of their fetish, fixing up their friends they feel are lonely with each other.”

“I…” Her jaw snapped shut. “I don’t even know how to respond to that.”

“I know, right? And again, I hope it doesn’t weird you out.”

It…didn’t.

It had sent her mind, surprisingly, spinning toward some of the erotic books on her Kindle.

“Um…” She tried again after stumbling. “But you don’t even know me.”

What she didn’t want to do was admit that yes, she did think the men were attractive, and yes, it’d been too f*cking long since she’d been laid, and yes, she’d even consider the idea of some less-than-permanent sex with them just to get herself out of her own head for a couple of hours, get laid, and not think about her brother’s death.

And she didn’t want to admit all of that and then get shot down if they didn’t find her attractive, regardless of what he’d said about her appearance.

“I realize that. But Tilly is very…persuasive when she wants to be. As we all told you earlier, we’re a pretty forthright bunch. Yes, I find you attractive. Is that the basis of an entire relationship? No. You might get to know me and Lyle and not like one or both of us as anything more than friends. That’s okay, too. We do want to be your friends. Partially for our own selfish reasons, because of Basco, and partially because we’ll never turn down the opportunity to make new friends. And you seem to be someone who could use a few friends in your corner right now.”

“You ain’t kidding.” She had a thought that might help her salvage her ego and possibly get her laid at some future time. “Okay. So if they’re intent on doing that, how about we give them what they want?”

“How so?”

She shrugged. “Let them think they’re doing what they set out to do. Like you said, even if we don’t end up together, we can still be friends. It’ll keep them off your case and mine.”

“Hmm. A little subversive counter-operation against Tilly and Eliza. It’s dangerous…it’s sneaky…” He grinned. “I like it.”

“Dangerous? Tilly seemed very sweet.”

He burst out laughing. “Don’t let her fool you. She would—no shit—literally take a bullet for a friend in danger. But if someone crosses her or does what she considers harm to one of her friends? It’s like feeding the Tasmanian Devil a case full of Red Bull and sugar, winding him up, and setting him loose. A blender set to frappe would do less damage to a person’s hand stuck in it than Tilly could do metaphorically. Maybe even literally. She has a rep.”

“She does?”

He proceeded to tell her about the time Tilly was the first on the scene at Mallory’s, and how Tilly had backed down Mallory’s uncle until backup arrived. How she’d helped orchestrate another friend’s protection and care from LA after the woman’s boyfriend had beaten her. How she’d come unglued and gone after another woman’s ex—physically restrained only by her two men holding her back—when the ex showed up at the club one night. The man had dumped the woman the day she’d found out she needed serious back surgery.

“And then it was Tilly who helped Gilo take care of Abbey post-op. When Abbey got an infection, it was Tilly who called the ambulance and got her help.”

“I wouldn’t have imagined she has such a mean side.”

“She does. She’s very protective of her friends, like I said. When you finally meet Cris, one of her guys, ask him how she beat the crap out of him once.”

“Isn’t that kind of what people do to each other in this lifestyle?”

He snorted. “He was her Master. Without warning, he left her. Landry, her husband—not her husband at the time—brought Cris back a few years later and Cris was Landry’s slave. She lit into Cris like a woman possessed.”

“Wow.”

“And he took it.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “He felt he deserved it, and more, for what he’d done to her.”

“Why had he done it? Left her?”

“I’ll tell you the details as I know them tomorrow, but Landry was in an accident and they discovered he had cancer. Cris had been his slave before and had never told Tilly. He released her and left without telling her why or even saying good-bye, just a letter. When Landry found out a few years later what Cris had done, he orchestrated a reunion.”

“But…” She was trying to figure it out. “You said Landry is her husband?”

“Right. When he showed back up, he had cancer again and made a deal with Tilly to marry him and nurse him through the treatment, and he’d make her a rich woman. Literally.”

She wondered if she’d trusted Tilly too soon. “So she only married him for the money?”

“No, she married him because she felt it was the right thing to do, to help him heal, to make sure Cris could have access to him through everything. Eventually, she did fall in love with him, and she and Cris worked things out between them. Now, the three of them, they’re crazy in love with each other.”