“T-boned?” Kira asked. “You got in a car accident?”
“No. It’s when the woman does a split lying down on the edge of the bed, and the guy kind of . . .” She tried to demonstrate with her hands, but failed. “I mean, it’s more like a lowercase t, I guess. The top of the t would be the—”
“We get it,” I said. “And I just finally realized I don’t need to worry so much about all that. Let them gossip. I’m not going to lie: it still bothers me. But I’m not going to let it dictate my life anymore.”
“Hell yeah,” Kira said with a grin. “You should’ve got laid a long time ago.”
I laughed. “It’s not like I was a virgin. This isn’t about sex.”
“But,” Iris said, wiggling her eyebrows, “this conversation just became about sex. How was it? Genetically speaking, Kira and I are riding the same dick, so it’s no fun asking her.”
“Ew!” Kira said. She threw a crumpled-up napkin at Iris. “That’s disgusting.”
“What? Don’t tell me it never occurred to you,” Iris said. “They are genetically the same. Identical.”
“Well, I didn’t marry Rich’s DNA. I married the man.”
“You did kind of marry his DNA too,” I said. “Just playing devil’s advocate here.”
“Changing the subject!” Kira announced quickly. “How was everything with Nick? Not just the sex, obviously. But . . . that too.”
“Hot?” I said. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
Iris made a disgusted noise. “Come on. I gave you the dirty details. Don’t make me beg. Or torture you,” she added under her breath.
“I feel stupid saying it out loud. But it felt special,” I said. “I mean the passion was there, and it was everything you’d want it to be. But it felt like there was something else. It was different. Like if you’d only ever seen a movie with the sound muted for your whole life, and then suddenly somebody cranks the volume up.”
Iris and Kira turned to each other with raised eyebrows and knowing smiles.
“What?” I asked.
Kira shrugged. “You’re falling for him harder than I thought.”
“Maybe I am,” I said proudly. “I’m not going to apologize for that.”
“Coincidentally,” Iris said, “I think Harper and Edna King are about to ask you to do more than apologize. Prepare your butthole; they like it rough and raw.”
I followed her gaze and saw that she wasn’t kidding. Harper and Edna King looked completely out of place in Bradley’s, which was very much a working-class kind of restaurant. Harper had on his usual fresh-off-the-yacht-style clothes with oversize buttons, a sport coat despite the heat, and his rich-guy hair. Edna looked like she wasn’t above kidnapping a few dozen dalmatians and using their coats to update her wardrobe.
I had to admit to being a little satisfied to know the King brothers had all finally cut them off financially. I knew Harper and Edna would never let it show to anybody, but they were being forced to downsize their home and let go their “service” staff. Rich thought it would be better for them in the long run. Cade was just happy he didn’t have to write checks anymore, because he said his hands were cramping from all the writing. I hadn’t picked Nick’s brain on the topic, but I thought he probably agreed with Rich.
Harper and Edna sat down at our table and smiled.
I grimaced. I’d heard the horror stories from Kira and Iris about them, and I’d even witnessed some of it firsthand. They had fought tooth and nail to keep Rich from marrying Kira and Cade from marrying Iris. Now Nick was their only remaining son who could possibly give them the kind of prestigious, wealthy match they would’ve wanted. I braced myself for what was about to come.
“Hi,” I said innocently.
“Don’t worry,” Harper said. He flashed an easy smile. “I know what you’re probably thinking, but we wanted to come personally to tell you what Robbie asked us to do.”
I felt my stomach sink. “What did he ask?”
Edna didn’t look quite as gracious as Harper, but she sat silently, nose pointed upward and lips pursed. I decided it was a good sign that she was letting her husband do the talking, at least.
“He asked us to help him with his little scheme to get you back to LA. He wanted us to make it look like Nick was seeing some other woman so you’d want to break things off and go back to Robbie,” Harper said.
Edna rolled her eyes, which told me all I needed to know. She’d been all for the plan, but Harper had apparently overruled her.
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.
“Because we made the mistake of thinking we knew what was best for our sons twice now. We tried to keep them away from these two,” he said, nodding to Iris and Kira. “But look at them now. I’ve never seen them happier. Well, I’ve never seen Cade weirder, either, but I guess he’s happy too. Nick has had a dark cloud around him for years now. If you make him happy, then we are going to support that.”
“Oh,” I said. I felt honestly touched. After everything Iris and Kira had gone through with these two, I had already been planning which chair I’d bash them over the head with before I made a mad dash to the exit. But they were just coming to give me their blessing? And they tipped me off to what Robbie was planning next. “Thank you. Really, I mean that. Thank you so much.”
Edna leaned forward. “It’s a good thing you look like you have a solid future ahead of you. If you were just another country bimbo, I wouldn’t have let Harper do this. Maybe you’ll be able to talk our son out of this nonsense about ‘bringing us down to earth,’ even.”
Harper made a bored sound, then hugged her with one arm as if she’d said something cute.
“I may be a country bimbo,” Iris said, “but at least my boobs are still winning the battle with gravity.”
Edna didn’t give the slightest indication that she had heard Iris as she got up and left with Harper.
I laughed once they were gone. “Do you seriously talk to her like that?”
Iris shrugged. “Only when she’s being vile. I treat her like a kid. She gets a fresh start every day. If she’s being a raging bitch, she gets it just as hard as she gives it. If she’s nice, then I’m nice.”
“I just avoid her,” Kira said.
As she suddenly straightened in her seat, I realized that Kira had appeared to shrink a few inches while Edna had been here.
“Were you going to hide under the table?” I asked.
“Maybe,” Kira said.
A couple I recognized from high school passed by our table and then stopped to turn around when they saw me. The woman was Beth Stevenson, who had always been a bit of an academic rival of mine. She wound up working for Crawford around the same time as me but never saw the frequent promotions I did.
“Beth, hey,” I said, smiling.
She gave me a tight, unfriendly smile. “Just wanted to say I always knew you were sleeping your way to the top at Crawford. I guess you’re fine with everybody knowing you’re still doing it now that you’re at Bark Bites, huh?”