Read Manties in a Twist (The Subs Club Book 3) for Free Online Page A

late at night, and—this’ll sound weird—I’d been thinking about Hal all day. And sometimes when something big—good or bad—was about to happen to someone I knew, I thought about them a lot just before the thing happened. I wasn’t saying I could predict the future, but I was obsessed with Stephen Hawking and very aware of the changeable nature of space and time, so we had to at least consider the possibility I was tapping into other dimensions where these things had already taken place.
    “Yeah?” I said.
    “Have you talked to your friend Ricky?”
    I glanced toward the living room, where I’d last seen Ricky Chuy. Ricky was new to kink, and had been the Subs Club’s MVP for a while—he’d helped us with our website, and he’d contributed lots of articles to the Sounding Board and had participated in pretty much every discussion. He was this skinny little guy who looked about twelve. Dave called him the Little Mermaid, ’cause he thought Ricky was super innocent and asked way too many questions. But I figured Ricky was way filthier than he looked. I mean, Miles dressed like Jimmy Carter but liked to be cut with knives, so . . .
    “You mean tonight?”
    “I mean recently.”
    A group of Ryan’s friends came in looking for the brownies. “Hey, Mrs. Pell,” Amanda said, stopping to hug my mom. They took the whole tray back to the living room, one holding each corner, like they were carrying a casket.
    I turned to Mom again. “It’s been a while since I’ve hung out with him. I think he’s with some guy. I told him he could bring the dude with him tonight, but I guess he didn’t want to.”
    She pushed her platinum-blond curls behind her ear. “Yes.” Her expression was strange. She seemed like she wanted to say something more.
    “What’s wrong?”
    She looked at me sort of pleading-like. “He seems very happy.”
    “Okay. That’s good, right?”
    “Just keep an eye on him. He’s new, and it’s easy to be . . . taken advantage of.”
    Ohhh. So that’s what this was about. My mom’s first serious play partner had pretty much tricked her into being his sugar mama, then made off with a bunch of her jewelry and credit cards. Now she had a real thing about warning newbies to be careful. “We look out for him.”
    “Good.” Mom made another chip stack in her hand.
    I decided to change the subject. “So what’s Dad coming here for?”
    She picked up a chip. “I think he’s missing you.”
    “Yeah, but he never leaves Oregon. And I told him I’d fly out there as soon as I can get the time off.”
    “Well, I don’t know.” She glanced into the living room. “I haven’t talked to Maya yet. I should go catch her before someone else takes her.” She turned back to me. “Congratulations, sweetie. The place looks beautiful. I like your painting.”
    She headed off in search of Maya, leaving me alone in the kitchen once more.
    Except I didn’t even have time to put a burger on a plate before I heard commotion on the back balcony. I went over to check it out.
    Gould was standing by the deck’s wooden staircase, his arm around Dave, who was holding him up by the waist. He looked pretty drunk, for Gould, and he was glaring at Ryan. The only other people around were a couple of Ryan’s friends out in the yard, who were staring up at the deck, watching. And Ryan was getting pretty loud in terms of, like, “I didn’t mean it like that! It was just a joke.”
    Dave held his other hand up. “It’s okay. It’s fine.” He saw me in the doorway and gave me a sheepish smile. He turned to Gould and jostled him. “You, my friend, have had enough to drink.”
    “What’s going on?” I asked.
    Ryan’s face was all red. “I made a joke—”
    Gould stumbled dangerously close to the stairs, jabbing a finger at Ryan. “It’s bad taste. Bad taste , man.”
    Since Gould didn’t usually say much of anything, let alone get openly pissed, I figured whatever’d set him off had to do with Hal.