I pushed myself up on the massage table, reaching down to make sure the towel stayed in place so as to not show Tanya what I was packing in case she decided I would be a good sperm donor. If only real life was more like porn and she’d been a hot dude who put his face in my ass after coating me with oil. One of the great travesties of life is finding out porn is unrealistic. “Massage over,” I announced, glaring at Tanya as I sat on the edge of the table.
Sven looked over at me gratefully. “Oh, darn. Are you sure? I mean, you look sure, so I should probably go. Thank you for coming to the Oasis in the Desert resort. Namaste.” He bowed.
And then practically ran from the room.
“I’ll miss you!” Nana yelled after him.
Tanya stared at me.
I glared back. “Please leave. My sugar momma and I need to discuss the depths of our love for each other.”
She turned and left.
“And murder is wrong!” I called after her as the door closed.
“What happened?” Nana asked as she turned her head to look at me. She was wearing one of Helena’s wigs, a bouffant most recently used for the glory that was Agnes Beaverton. It suited her, even if it was listing lazily on the side of her head. “I was just getting going.”
I sighed. “Murder-for-hire plot that came out of nowhere. You know. The usual. Heterosexuality is so exhausting. I don’t even know.”
She nodded. “Yeah, the straights tend to do that. I was involved in a murder-for-hire by no fault of my own in 1967. Three people died, and I can never go back to the state of Kentucky.” Her eyes shifted side to side. “I mean, I have no idea what I’m talking about. I’m old and feeble and senile.”
“Riiiiight.” I didn’t know how much of what Nana said was bullshit, but I didn’t think it was much. “Old and feeble and senile.”
She grinned at me. “Exactly. Sugar momma, huh?”
I shrugged. “You got it going on. I’d be so lucky.”
She sat up, the towel falling off her, leaving her everything just… out there for the world to see. “I do, don’t I? I’m a hot bitch. You should see all the men sniffing after me at bingo. I have to beat them off with a stick.”
I looked up at the ceiling and wondered how this had become my life. Definitely through no fault of my own.
LATER, AS we were wrapped in thick, fuzzy robes and getting pedicures, Nana asked a question I didn’t see coming. I should have known she had ulterior motives. She was a devious woman. “How’s your love life?”
I groaned, and not because the woman at my feet was a
master with a loofah. “I don’t believe I need to answer that question.”
She scoffed before sipping on her mimosa. “Of course you do. It’s the reason I brought you here.”
If looks could kill, she’d… well, she’d probably survive that too. Nana was going to outlive us all. Thankfully. “The truth has finally been revealed. You minx.”
She laughed. It was a thin, rusty sound that I adored. “You’re cute, Corey, but I don’t need to get a couple’s massage with you. I have plenty of gentlemen callers more than willing to rub me if I need it in the privacy of my daughter’s home.”
As if today could get any worse. “There are things we don’t need to say out loud. Less is more.”
She waved a hand at me derisively. “Honey, if we don’t say what’s on our minds, nothing will ever get done. Tell him, Larry.”
Larry Auster leaned forward from his chair on the other side of her. He was wearing a pink robe (by choice, god love him) and drinking a fruity cocktail with an umbrella in it. It was his third. His face was a little flushed. “She’s got a point.”
“Sometimes she has a point,” Matty Auster said from her chair next to me. Her robe had flowers on it, and she had white wine. Her eyes had cucumbers on them, which reminded me that I was hungry. “It just so happens that this happens to be one of those times.”
“Traitors,” I muttered. “You planned this, didn’t you? This is entrapment. I know my rights.”
“Of course not,” Matty said. “This was a gift for you for finishing your second-to-last year of school.”
“And also entrapment,” Nana said.
“You’re very good at this,” Larry told the woman who lifted his feet from the soaker. “I think I’d like another one of these whatever-they-are. Would that be possible?” He looked down at his glass. “I don’t know how I keep drinking them so fast.”