She had plenty of friends online, via Facebook and FetLife, as well as friends she regularly saw at events where she vended.
She could pay her bills, had a decent savings account built up, owned her home—technically—and had a fairly low-stress existence.
So what if she didn’t have a guy?
She had Chewi, at least.
I’m pitiful.
Chapter Two
How long are we going to keep going on like this?
Toby Sorto stared out the kitchen window at their large backyard garden. Herbs, vegetables, even some fruit, with a manicured tropical ornamental border around it. It was a beautiful Saturday morning, and Logan was still asleep, meaning Toby had peace until his partner awoke and they started what passed for their routine now.
He loved this house, loved what they’d done to it, loved that they’d put their heart and soul into it. But it felt like every day, more and more, that everything was slipping through his fingers.
Ever since Julie had left, it was like part of them had left with her.
Well, part of them, and a chunk of their bank account. They’d never expected her to betray them sexually or financially. They could have pressed charges, but unfortunately, they had nothing in writing and her name was on the account, too.
Thank god it was only money in checking and she didn’t have access to our savings account.
She could have wiped them out if she had. It was only because Logan had received text alerts about the withdrawals that he’d been able to immediately stop her from taking any more money out of the account.
At least the house hadn’t been in her name, and she hadn’t changed her driver’s license or car registration to their address. That meant when they dumped all her shit in the front yard for her to come get it, there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.
And they had thrown a tarp over everything when it started raining. They could have been dicks about it and let it get soaked.
Now, six months later, they both still stung and had drawn apart, and he didn’t know how to get “them” back.
Or if they even could.
Toby had tried coaxing Logan into seeing a counselor with him, but his typically closemouthed partner had shut down even more, like some hermetically sealed vault with no way in.
He didn’t know if it was the loss of Julie, or her multifaceted betrayal of them, or the fact that it had been Logan who’d met Julie and then pressed Toby to open their relationship to a poly triad that weighed on Logan’s mind heaviest.
Hell, he didn’t know what was weighing on Logan’s mind since the man didn’t want to talk.
He loved Logan, but if this was the kind of relationship they’d have for the rest of their lives, Toby knew he’d have to give serious consideration to thinking about moving on if Logan refused to deal with this. With him.
With them.
He was forty-two and Logan was forty-four. Long past the playing games phases of their lives.
Turning from the view, via the front windows he caught sight of the mailman heading their way. He walked outside and down their long driveway to meet him and say hi. Their expansive front yard was mostly lawn, with azaleas surrounding the four oak trees scattered around. Easy to maintain, unlike the high-maintenance backyard. They had nearly two acres total. They’d purchased it together seven years earlier and enjoyed working on it. They both worked in downtown Sarasota—him in the county’s zoning department and Logan at the Clerk of the Court’s office—and drove in together every day.
It meant the weekends were theirs to do with as they wished.
Except lately, those weekends had felt pretty empty, indeed.
He was waiting across the street at the mailbox when the carrier drove up. “Hey, Toby.” The carrier handed a bundle of mail out the window to him. “Thank god it’s Saturday, right?”
“You can say that again.”
“Hey, can I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“Is your neighbor okay?”
“Who, the Smiths?”
“No.” He hooked a finger over his shoulder at the property next door and directly to the west of them. This rural area in northeastern Sarasota County, east of I-75, had been a mix of agricultural and residential properties. As developers bought some of them, they were divided. But there were still larger properties scattered throughout the neighborhood. Theirs was one of them, as was their neighbor’s.
Only the neighbor owned a much older house, one story, maybe built in the 1950s, and had nearly ten acres.
“Jackson Hames?” Toby asked.
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know. We don’t talk to him a whole lot, but come to think of it, I haven’t seen him coming or going the past few days. Why?”
“His mailbox is overflowing, and I can’t fit anything else in there. No mail hold, like he went out of town or something. I know he lives alone. At least, he never gets any mail for anyone but him.”
A bad feeling settled in Toby’s gut. “I’ll take it up to the house.”
The carrier handed it to him. “Better empty his box, too.”
“Sure. Thanks.”
The carrier drove off while Toby walked over to Jackson Hames’ mailbox. Sure enough, it was filled to capacity.
His dread only increased as he realized some of the junk mailers were nearly two weeks old, based on ones they’d received.
With his arms full of mail, he crossed their rural road and headed up the man’s dirt drive. It looked like he hadn’t mowed in nearly two weeks, either, which also wasn’t like the man. He had a tractor with a mowing deck that he used. And his truck sat in the same spot it’d been parked in for a while, which also wasn’t like their neighbor. He remembered the man once counseling him and Logan not to park in the same spot every day so they didn’t get bare patches in their grass. To alter their pattern.
As he approached the house, the breeze shifted, coming to him from the north, from behind the house. On the wind a foul stench flowed over him, and Toby knew.
Still, he moved forward, hoping he was wrong.
He knocked on the front door as well as rang the bell. “Mr. Hames? It’s Toby, from next door. I have your mail.”
Nothing.
Fighting the tight, sickly feeling that grew thicker with every second, he did it again, and again.
The front curtains were drawn, so he couldn’t see inside. But he walked around the house and found curtains that were open on two of the back windows. One was a bedroom, he guessed. It looked like there was a bed in there, somewhere.
Maybe.
Although there were some flies inside the window, ineffectively beating themselves against it, a pile of them dead on the windowsill.
He’d never been inside the man’s house, although the few times they’d chatted, he was friendly. Didn’t seem to be an asshole about them being gay. He’d had no clue the man was a hoarder.
The next window opened on an equally cluttered dining room. This time, there were more flies, and he saw a bare foot, and the lower cuff of a pair of jeans, on the floor and disappearing out of sight behind a couch.
Dammit.
Between the flies, and the fact that the foot was a blackish blue color, he knew.
Turning, he pulled his cell phone out and called 911.
Twenty minutes later, Logan, who he’d called and woke up, was standing in the front yard with Toby, comforting him as he talked to the deputy who’d initially responded. The man had obviously been dead for a while.
A deputy from the county’s forensics team, who wore a full hazmat bunny suit, emerged from the house. He held an envelope in a plastic evidence bag pinched in his fingers as he walked over to them.
“Do you know a Rebecca Hames?” he asked them through his respirator and protective face mask. The smell of decomposition washed off the man.
“His last name was Hames,” Toby said, “but I don’t know a Rebecca.”
He showed them the envelope. In black
marker in a spidery hand was also written Emergency Stuff in large letters. “It’s got her name on it, and the name and phone number of an attorney in Sarasota. It was stuck to the front of his fridge by a magnet.”
“Sorry. Don’t know her.”
“We’ll contact the attorney. Must be his next of kin.”
After questioning, they were allowed to leave. One of the deputies let Toby put the man’s mail in another brown paper evidence bag large enough to hold it, and said they would deal with it.
Toby didn’t want to see them wheel the man out. Fortunately, he didn’t have any pets.
When they closed the front door behind them, Logan turned to him, his hands resting on Toby’s shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” Logan quietly said, sounding, for once, like the man Toby had fallen in love with.
“For what?”
“For being an asshole the last few months. I don’t want to end up like that, alone and dead and the only reason someone figured it out was because the mail stacked up. I’m sorry. We can go to counseling, if you still want to. I love you, and I don’t want to lose you.”
Toby threw his arms around him. “I think that’s the best thing I’ve heard in the past six months. And I love you, too.”
* * * *
Normally, neither of them were heavy drinkers. But that morning, they both needed something after what they’d seen.
And smelled.
And now they knew what they needed to do, which was rebuild that shattered bridge between them. After they grabbed a shower to sort of symbolically restart their day on a more positive note, Toby made them a pitcher of mimosas while Logan prepared an omelet.
They took everything outside onto their screened lanai and talked.
And talked.
And drank, but they mostly talked.
Hope returned to Toby’s soul as Logan admitted he felt guilty about bringing Julie into their lives, only for her to betray them.
“You were so good about everything,” he said. “You agreed to trying poly, to letting her into our lives, and then she did…that. I feel like this is all my fault.”
“Hey, I was willing,” Toby said. “Don’t shoulder this burden alone. I fell for her, too. It wasn’t like you had to force me into it. You know I’m bi, just like you. I thought she was our unicorn, I really did.” He reached over and took his partner’s hand. “She just wasn’t the right unicorn for us.”
Logan let out a snort. “She was a goat masquerading as a unicorn.”
“Hey, that’s an insult to goats.”
Logan finally smiled. A genuine, pain-free smile.
The first one of those Toby had seen on his face since…then.
The day.
The day their lives turned upside down and everything they thought they knew was questioned.
The loss of trust.
“I really want us to be okay,” Toby said. “I love you.”
“I love you, too. And if you can forgive me for being a jackass, and I haven’t totally screwed us up yet, I’d like another chance.”
* * * *
“You haven’t screwed us up,” Toby said. “And you’re not a jackass.”
Logan felt like a jackass. That morning’s discovery right next door, however, had rattled him to his core.
Life was too damn short. He didn’t want to waste another day. Especially not when he had a damn good guy by his side to share life with.
A guy he loved.
“So, date night tonight?” Logan asked.
Toby smiled, his handsome blue eyes lighting up. “We haven’t had a date night in months.”
“I know. I feel badly about that, too. I haven’t felt like going out much.”
“Sigalo’s tonight?”
“Sure. It’ll be good to see the gang.” They hadn’t even been out to the club in months. The first few times they had, it painfully reminded them of Julie and what she’d done to them. Add to that people who had no clue what had happened asking where she was…
It was a painful situation.
“I’ll text Loren and make sure that’s still happening,” Toby said.
“And we can go to the club after.”
Toby’s smile widened to a grin. “Really?”
“Really. I know we won’t play, but I miss our friends.”
Toby leaned in and kissed him. “I really missed you most of all.”
“I missed me, too.” He laced fingers with Toby, stroking his thumb across the other man’s hand. “If I let what she did to us ruin our life, our happiness, who we are, then she’s won. I choose not to be chained to her anymore.”
Toby lifted their hands to his mouth, kissing the back of Logan’s. “Thank you.”
He smirked. “Sure, you thank me now. Wait until I feel like playing again.”
“Maybe tonight after the club?” He waggled his eyebrows at Logan in a playful way, another aspect of their relationship that had been missing.
The fun.
“Maybe. If someone’s a good boy.” Between them, Logan was more dominant, even though they didn’t have a formal dynamic. And he was a bit of a playful sadist. Toby was a masochistic switch, which was why when submissive masochist Julie came into their lives, it seemed like a perfect match for them all.
“And I want to put it out there on the table that if we do meet another woman who we click with, I’m okay with exploring things.” Toby lowered their hands. “This time, we won’t let her have access to our bank account.”
“Damn straight,” Logan agreed. “Play only, at first. Or sex. She’ll have to prove herself before we take it any farther than that.”
“Agreed.”
Julie wasn’t the first woman they’d shared, or the first woman they’d played with.
But she was the first woman they’d felt a stronger, closer bond with.
Enough so that they’d moved her in with them when her roommate moved out, leaving her unable to pay her rent when she couldn’t find another roommate in time.
In retrospect, they knew that should have been a red flag, but they’d been so eager to help, to rescue the damsel in distress, that they’d ignored all the red flags.
After breakfast, they finished off the mimosas and headed into the backyard to work on their garden.
Logan was relieved to hear Toby humming, to see the change in him. That he’d relaxed, and not just because of the drinks. But genuinely happy.
He knew he’d been so wrapped up in his own pain and guilt lately that he’d neglected Toby, sinking deeper and deeper into a spinning cycle with no end.
That stops now. Today. It’s me and my guy. Julie can go fall off the face of the earth, for all I care.
Chapter Three
Rebecca was having a very brisk day of sales. Even by Saturday standards, it was busy. She’d sold two of her more expensive pieces, as well as took deposits on three custom pieces.
It would easily take her a week or longer to get caught up at the current rate, which was a problem she definitely didn’t mind having.
Feast or famine.
She’d take the feast any day.
When she heard her cell phone ringing in her messenger bag, she ignored it the first time. She had several people browsing and didn’t want to take her focus off them for fear of appearing rude…or giving anyone a chance to walk off with something.
When it rang a second time fifteen minutes later, she still didn’t look at it.
The third time it rang ten minutes later, she had enough time to reach into her bag and grab it, glancing at the screen to see the three missed calls were from Eliza before she slipped the phone into a pocket on the front of her wench’s skirt so she could greet a customer who’d just walked up.
Then an alert for a text message, Eliza’s custom tone.
Finally, a half hour later, the joust was in session and Rebecca remembered the phone calls. Eliza had left voice messages, but the text said CALL ME in all caps.
A dark cloud shifted over her. C
ouldn’t be about Sam, could it?
She called Eliza rather than wasting time listening to the messages.
“Hey, what’s going on?”
“Did you listen to my messages?”
“No, I’m swamped with this fair. What’s wrong?”
It sounded like Eliza had to take a deep breath. “Honey, there’s no easy way to say this, but your Uncle Jackson has died.”
Rebecca sank into her chair. “How? What happened?”
“Well, apparently he died maybe a couple of weeks ago, they don’t know for sure yet. His neighbors found him. The mailman had told them his mailbox was full, so they went over to check on him and then called the cops. His attorney just left here a little while ago. Your uncle had an envelope on his refrigerator with the guy’s name on it and yours. You’re the executor of his estate.”
“Me?” She was still trying to digest the news her uncle had passed. She hadn’t seen him in six years, but they usually talked a couple of times a month. He always called her, because he didn’t have an answering machine or voice mail. The man was very old-fashioned and technophobic.
Now she felt guilty she hadn’t tried to call him.
Jackson had been the eldest of three brothers, and the black sheep of the family. Never married, he’d pretty much cut himself off from everyone else, except, for some reason, Rebecca. She remembered as a kid going over to his place and getting to drive his tractor, thinking it was fun to mow the property.
He’d also been the one who, when he found out Rebecca was divorcing Sam, volunteered to front the money to her for the divorce proceedings. She’d paid him back in less than a year, but they’d remained reasonably close, when compared to his relationship with the rest of his family.
He’d retired from the military and purchased his property, living on his pension and buying and selling antique farm equipment at various shows.
Great.
“You still there?” Eliza asked.
“Yeah.”
“I’ll text you the attorney’s information. He asked me to have you call him.”
“Why didn’t he call me directly?”
“Your uncle didn’t list your phone number. He listed my address, which is why the attorney came by. And that’s why I’ve been trying to call you, while he was here. And you gave me specific orders to never give our your number. Duh.”
Chains [Suncoast Society] (Siren Publishing Sensations) Page 2
