Free The Dirty Secret by Kira A. Gold

Deb asked. “It’s not sit-down stuff, is it?”
    “No. Canap é s and one-bite fare. Rabbit Moon Vineyard is on board and they work with some elite caterers. Their target customer is the same age and income bracket as our intended client. The NPR station is coming out to do a live broadcast, and I’m working with a few other vendors who want to put different product samples in each house, all high-end and locally crafted.”
    “That’s really cool,” Bengt said, meaning it.
    Killian carefully clicked her martini glass with his beer mug. She smiled, a real grin of satisfaction, like Vessa had when he’d told her he liked the work she’d done.
    “Order some food for me,” Bengt said. “I gotta see a man about a horse.”
    “What does that even mean?” Starla asked, taking his menu as he left.
    “He’s going to go shake hands with his best friend,” Seth said.
    “I thought Killian was his best friend,” she said.
    “Er. We’re not that close,” Killian said. “He’s drawing the yellow line.”
    “He’s gotta take a piss, Star,” Deb said, shaking her head. “Has anybody ordered another pitcher yet?”
    “Oh. Well, he isn’t,” Starla said. “He’s talking to that girl. And now I need to go. Why aren’t there good euphemisms for girls peeing?”
    “Don’t you powder your nose or something?” Seth asked.
    Starla shuddered. “My mother says that.” She left the table, elbowing her way through the crowd.
    “We’re gonna have to find a new place,” Seth said. “It’s getting too packed in here.”
    “The sink job at your house checked out fine,” Deb told Killian. “Any reason why you didn’t call me?”
    “Just a miscommunication.” He finished his glass. “Decorator is used to handling stuff on her own.”
    “She’s pretty good. Girly as shit, but they’re really well done.”
    “ They are?”
    “Yeah, both rooms. The lav and the library.”
    “Library?”
    “You haven’t seen it?” Deb smirked.
    He shook his head.
    “Looks like an opium den,” she said.
    The waitress set Killian’s nachos down in front of him and took away the empty pitcher. The chips tasted like paper and graphite shavings, and sat in his belly like lead.
    “Was she there?” he asked Deb.
    “Who?”
    “The decorator.”
    She shook her head, eyeing Killian as he shoveled his food in his mouth. “In a hurry?”
    He pushed the nachos away. “You want any of these?” he asked Seth.
    “Are you okay?” Starla asked, sliding into her seat.
    “I’ve got to call it an early night,” he said. He threw a twenty on the table. “Can someone give Thor a ride home?”
    Starla pouted. “I wanted a dance.”
    “Next week, okay?”
    “Are you good to drive?” Seth asked.
    “Yeah, I’ve only had two, on top of the food. I’m legal.”
    His driving speed was less than law-abiding, and the yellow lights he ran were closer to orange. The house was unlit, and Vessa’s boring car wasn’t in front. When he called “Hello?” into the foyer—just in case—no one answered. He walked through the hallway and flipped on the light.
    “Fuuck,” he said into the empty room.
    She’d done the ceiling and walls red and hung silk Chinese lanterns painted with dragons. Over the window was a screen parchment covered with kanji characters and drawings of the moon phases, full to new and back again. Tall lawyer’s office bookcases lined the walls, their dark wood shelves empty and waiting. One held three teapots. But the focus of the room, what swallowed it whole—and Killian’s guts, too—was the bed.
    Against the wall opposite the doorway lay a sleigh-bed carved of walnut wood, with ends that curled away, mounded with pillows. The whole thing was draped with a canopy of blue fabric printed with goldfish, reminding him of the jellyfish tank at Donna Edith’s. Vessa had wanted a bed made for drinking tea and reading romances, she’d said, but this was a bed for getting high and fucking.
    He was hard, staring