“You’ve been going on and on about me?” Raz asked, curiosity lacing the question.
The mortification meter kept on ticking.
Libby cringed. Out of every word that had gotten jumbled in the recording of her confronting Raz, it was just her luck that beefcake would ring out with acoustic precision.
She ignored Raz’s question. “So, you’ve seen the entire viral video?” she asked, surveying the couples.
Rowen laughed. “Oh, Libby, of course, we have. The sports shows and websites picked up on it first. But now it’s made it to the nerds and the hackers. There are already tens of millions of views.” Rowen slipped his phone from his pocket. “Wow, almost one hundred million now. Pretty soon, nearly the entire planet will have watched it. And I almost forgot. Even people off-planet know about it.”
“Off-planet?” Raz repeated with a crinkle to his brow.
Libby swallowed back a wave of nausea. It was one thing to have a decent percentage of the population of the planet revel in her embarrassing moment. Who in the world off-planet could have seen the video?
Rowen held out his phone. “They showed it to the astronauts on the International Space Station.”
“They’re floating and laughing,” Libby lamented.
“Tell them the good part, Row,” Penny said, beaming at her nerd.
“The astronauts are rooting for Raz to win in the upcoming fight. So at least you’ve got that,” Rowen added as he grinned at Penny.
“It’s pretty great,” Mitch added, pulling out his phone. “They reenacted the vibrator throwing in space using extra PVC tubes. People love it.”
“Is screaming and throwing things a yoga technique?” Charlotte asked.
Speechless, Libby shared a look with Raz. In his eyes, she saw the same question she had.
How had this blown up so quickly?
“We get it,” Raz began. “You’ve seen the video. People floating in space have seen it. But why are you at my house? I don’t mean to be rude, but how the bloody hell did you get in?”
“Obviously, we broke in,” Rowen supplied smoothly. “Scratch that. I hacked in and bypassed the alarm.”
“Now, Raz,” Penny interjected. “I usually stop Rowen before he does anything like this, but we had no other choice. Neither of you would answer your texts.”
“Penny’s right,” Mitch continued. “First, Libby texted her friends, saying that she was getting arrested, and then you texted us and said the same thing. What were we supposed to do?”
Raz scoffed. “Oh, I don’t know—not break into my house.”
Her beefcake had a point. This was going to the extreme. Then again, she would have probably freaked out if Penny, Harper, or Charlotte texted a going-to-jail message, too.
“We went to Libby’s place first, but some lady named Ida lives there now. When did that happen?” Charlotte questioned, then narrowed her gaze. “And what’s that on your shoulder, Libbs?”
Libby stared at the sea of vibrators scattered across the floor before taking in her crusty shoulder. “It’s crow poop.”
“Crow poop?” Rowen, Penny, Charlotte, and Mitch exclaimed.
Libby sighed. “It happened after I got kicked out of my apartment.”
“And what about your meeting for your yoga center?” Charlotte asked, coming to her side.
“That turned out to be a sham. They weren’t looking to invest. It was a joke to meet women.”
Just saying that out loud made her want to throttle the stupid Derricks.
Penny joined Charlotte as the women huddled. “No wonder you went a little crazy, Libbs.”
“And shame on you, Erasmus,” Charlotte said, turning her wrath on the boxer.
“Shame on me? What do you mean?” the man exclaimed.
“Her chi, Raz,” Penny chided, getting in on the Raz bashing.
“And don’t forget about her O,” Charlotte added.
Mitch sucked in a tight breath. “That’s a tough one, Libby.”
“Yeah, the worst,” Rowen agreed.
And the humiliation hits kept coming.
The mortification meter had blown clear off the charts.
“Listen,” Raz explained. “I don’t know how it happened. I never meant to de-chi or de-O your friend. But now, we have to make the best of this peculiar situation.”
Peculiar was one way to describe it. Totally freaking insane was another.
“So, it’s true? Libby is going to be your son’s nanny and your spiritual advisor?” Mitch asked.
“Yes, and you can add burro racing partner to that list,” Raz said.
“Burro racing and mechanical hot dog torpedoes?” Mitch observed the vibrator-laden floor, then shook his head. “This night keeps getting weirder and weirder.”
The vibrators!
She’d almost forgotten about them, and she sure couldn’t leave the sex toys on the foyer floor.
Libby grabbed her bag and tossed a few inside when a crash erupted from inside the house.
“That can’t be the kids. The sound came from the other side of the house. How many people are breaking into my place tonight?” Raz growled.
“Jesus Christ, Landon! Sneak into mansions much?”
“Um…no, like most normal people, I usually use the front door,” an exasperated man’s voice shot back.
Libby craned her neck to look past Raz as two people rounded the corner.
“Harper?” she exclaimed.
“Landon?” Raz cried.
Welp, the whole gang had made it.
“I got the texts about meeting up here and to enter through the back,” Harper said in a tumble of words. “Now,” the woman continued, taking in the scene, “what the hell happened outside that boxing gym? And also, Libby Caroline Lamb, why didn’t you tell us Erasmus Cress was the beefcake?”
“We’ve already yelled at Libbs for that,” Penny said gently.
Harper’s chestnut brown ponytail swished as the woman zeroed in on Raz. “And you!”
“We took care of that, too,” Charlotte interrupted.
Harper threw up her hands. “Then why am I here? Who am I supposed to yell at?”
“We’re here because we love Libby and care about Erasmus, and we needed to make sure that they were okay,” Penny supplied.
“Gotcha,” Harper answered, but the fire in her eyes hadn’t diminished. “Libbs, that video is crazy town. Where are your crystals and your Buddha stuff? Should we chant or burn some sage?” She turned to Raz. “Do you have any sage on hand?”
The man was back to looking befuddled. “No.”
Harper tapped her chin. “There’s yoga. It’s your thing, Libbs. We could get into tree pose or donkey pose.”
“Donkey pose!” Mitch exclaimed.
Harper met Charlotte’s gaze. “Is your food truck fiancé okay, Char?”
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Mitch replied. “You said donkey, and that made me think of Raz.”
Harper studied Mitch, then eyed the four men. “You guys have a strange dynamic going on.”
“It’s nothing creepy,” Mitch clarified. “Before you got here, Raz mentioned that, in addition to Libby getting hired on as his nanny and spiritual advisor, she was also his burro racing partner.”