Al busied himself with getting Tabitha's energy out with a wand toy while Mom poured coffee for Uncle Richard and Aunt Linda. The cat jumped and swung her paws at the feathers at the end of the wand, sometimes catching them and bending the wand towards her as she bit at the feathers. She was strong. Mom was going to have to watch herself around Tabitha when the cat got the zoomies, so she didn't trip over her. Samson was thankfully past that stage; the surgery had mellowed him out, so he was a lap cat for the most part. Rachel and Emma were overjoyed to have him home, and Samson seemed content exploring the nooks and crannies of the new house, going up and down the stairs; he needed the exercise, because Mom had overfed him, but Al couldn't be mad at her for that, because Samson could be very persuasive when he wanted food or treats.
Tabitha soon got bored of the game and walked away with tail high in disdain. Al switched on the TV and found the news. To his surprise, he saw Joanie in her uniform, giving a statement about something he missed happening in Langley.
"Mom, Joanie's on TV again," he called.
"Oh!" Mom looked at her two guests. "She's an RCMP sergeant in Langley, you know. Sometimes I have her over for coffee. She was so good to me while Al was in his coma. She drove me to and from the hospital many times."
"Always good to have a cop looking after you," Richard said.
"They don't like that word, you know," Mom said. "They prefer police. Joanie told me. She's the media relations officer for her detachment, you know. When Agnes' ex-husband was killed by the Mercers' hired men, she went on TV and called them out. She was formidable. I would have been afraid of her if I were those men. But then they tried to kill her too, and Al's friend Lauren and that retired detective stopped them."
"We heard about the detective," Richard said. "We didn't hear anything about your friend, though, Al."
"We're all fortunate that she wasn't mentioned," Al said. "Media exposure isn't something private investigators want; it makes their job harder when they're recognized."
"Agnes is your friend who was with you at the event, is that right, Al?" Aunt Linda asked him.
"That's right. She gave testimony that led to the Mercers' arrest. Her ex was most likely guilty of the murder of J.J., the Mercers' first born son, and they had him killed to avenge J.J."
"Agnes is more than Al's friend," Mom clarified. "They used to be together. Al probably would have married her if she hadn't moved away."
"Is that right?" Richard said, eyebrows raised. "You didn't mention that when you introduced her to us at the event."
"Hard to mention a thing like that with my wife standing right beside me," Al said, chuckling.
"Rachel, right?" Linda said. "She's beautiful, Al. Don't let her get away."
"I'll do my best." It still amazed him, though, that she stayed with him. She could have her pick of men even in her late forties, and Al felt himself to be, at best, in the middle of the bell curve of attractiveness, attributes and prosperity. When he watched Joe entering her with his monster of a cock last night, saw her eyes nearly roll back in her head as she felt every inch of it, it hit home that, if Joe suddenly decided he no longer wanted to stay married to Lauren and wanted Rachel to run away with him, there wasn't anything Al could offer her to make her stay, not when he'd cheated on her with Lauren himself. And what about Sunny? Rachel hadn't given him many details of her time with Sunny, but Al knew he wasn't as handsome as Sunny was, nor did he have the man's bountiful hair.
Maybe there was something intangible Rachel got from him that the others didn't give her, as satisfying as her experiences with them might have been. That was the only way he could explain it. They had their marriage, two adopted teenagers, and a cat, and Rachel seemed content with that, so why rock the boat? She could give her body to them from time to time, but as long as he had her heart...
"Al?"
He snapped out his reverie and turned to them. All three were looking at him expectantly.
"Sorry?" he asked.
"We just asked how you were doing now," Richard said. "Any lasting issues from what happened to you in Kelowna?"
"Luckily, no," he said. "I'm fully healed aside from a small scar on my back. I still have enough liver to do the job."
"I warned him to be careful over there," Mom said, "but I never thought something would physically happen to him."
"Why would he need to be careful?" Linda asked, venturing as close to the edge of the cliff as she wanted to go. Al suspected she knew the truth now, but nobody wanted to acknowledge it.
Mom took too long to think of an answer, so Al said, "She just wanted me to make a good impression on the cousins I hadn't met yet, although I guess I failed at that too. Poor Rick's event went sideways after that."
"Oh, but Rick likes you, Al," Linda said. "We all do. You were very brave and selfless for protecting your friend and your daughter at the cost of what could have been your life. You couldn't have made a better impression."
Al felt himself blushing. "Thank you, but it really was just instinct. I had no time at all to think about what I was doing."
"I don't know what's going to happen with the engagement now," Richard said. "Maybe Jared will be able to look past the fact that his fiancee's family is responsible for at least one murder and one attempted murder, but I don't know if I can."
Al shrugged. "The sins of the father shouldn't have to be visited on the daughter, to mangle a maxim. She seemed like a nice young woman; maybe she had no idea what they'd done."
"Poor Rachel must have been beside herself with worry," Linda said. "How come she didn't come today?"
"She and Emma are seeing her own mother. They don't often see each other, their relationship is... complicated."
"Oh, don't worry, I know about complicated," Linda said, nodding. "I've become familiar with it quite recently."
Mom and Richard shared a glance, but otherwise said nothing to that.
When Al returned home, he was surprised to see Agnes' car parked next to the townhouse. At first he thought maybe she was inside, and that must have meant Rachel and Emma were already home (Joe was giving Logan a driving lesson; Al had come to accept that the boy preferred Joe for initiation into the adult world,) but when he was almost at the house after having brought his Modo car back to its spot, Agnes stepped out of her car and said, "Hey!"
"Hey! Is everything all right?"
"Yeah. I was just waiting outside because no one was home."
Al looked at his front door, then back at her. "Where are Patrick and Melissa?"
"At my parents' house. I wanted to talk to you alone."
"You could have saved yourself the trouble and called. How long were you waiting out here?"
"Not long. It gave me time to think."
Al looked at his front door again. "What if Rachel had been here?"
"I would have made up an excuse for visiting and we would have had a nice adult conversation."
Al smirked. "She could be back soon, her and Emma. They were visiting her mother. I was visiting mine. Uncle Richard and Aunt Linda were there too, and I got to see Mom's new cat, Tabitha."
Agnes smiled. "You're a good son. I'm learning to be a good daughter again. That's why I brought the kids over to my parents'."
"That, and you wanted to be alone with me."
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and looked away. "The way you say it, it sounds sordid."
"Sorry, I didn't mean it that way. Do you want to go for a drive?"
She blinked in surprise. "A drive?"
"Yeah, like old times. And we can have privacy. If we stay here, Rachel and Emma could interrupt us."
She smiled. "Okay."
They took off. It wasn't in the same car Agnes drove when they were in college together, that had been a small hatchback for a student on a limited budget, but with Agnes in the driver's seat and Al in the passenger seat, just the two of them, it felt like fourteen years hadn't passed them by.
"You know," he said, "We're heading in the direction of the hotel we went to for our first time; I think it's still there."
Agnes gasped and turned to him. "Don't joke about things like that."
He chuckled and said, "Sorry. It's just, when you said you wanted to talk to me alone..."
She was silent for a moment, eyes on the road. Then she said, "Okay, to be honest, what you said shocked me because you hit the nail on the head right away."
He blinked in surprise. "What?"
She barked a mirthless laugh and flapped one hand in surrender. "If I'm honest, Al, I'm happy I got the full-time position at the Champlain Heights branch, and not just because it's the closest branch to where I'm living now."
"Congratulations on that, by the way. That's a great branch."
"Thanks. The other reason is that it's about the farthest branch from Central without being in the next city over."
Al nodded and said, "I understand. It's as far away from me as you can get."
"It's not that I don't want to be around you. It's that I want to be around you too much, and when we were both at Central, going to lunch together, I could almost pretend we were together again."
He sighed and said, "Yeah. Me too."
"And then, when the illusion ends, it hurts too much." She wiped a tear that was sliding down her cheek.
"I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault. It's mine. If I'd been a little braver when I was seeing you, if I could have told my parents we were dating and weathered their disapproval, I might have stayed, and you and I might be together now, maybe with our own kids."
"Yes." Why deny it? It had been on his mind ever since she came back into his life. "But that would mean Patrick and Melissa would never have existed. Would you really want that?"
"No, of course not." The immediacy of her answer meant she was a good person. She'd always been so good and decent, maybe too good, suffering through her husband's affair until an old man and his son turned up on her doorstep and made it clear that it wasn't in her best interest to suffer through it anymore.
"Then again..." Al said, and stopped before he said any more.
She turned to him. "What?"
"Well, say we stayed together, here. Say the reunion with Rachel and the other friends still happened. Who's to say I wouldn't have felt pulled to her the way I did in my unattached state? Maybe I might have been as bad as Patrick, and I'd never want to be that guy, not with you, you don't deserve that."
She frowned. "You're saying you might have cheated on me with Rachel, because she's your first love, as you've said before?"
He shrugged. "Who knows?"
She shook her head. "That doesn't totally compute. You've cheated on Rachel with Lauren."
Al opened and closed his mouth a couple of times before saying, "It's a little more complicated than that."
"So, you're saying it was for the best that we didn't stay together, because you'd have wanted to be completely monogamous with me, but you would have felt tempted to cheat with Rachel, and heck, with Lauren too. You're saying Rachel doesn't deserve monogamy? Or Lauren?"
"Again, it's more complicated than that. Rachel and Lauren were lovers before they invited me in. I was the one being cheated on first, if you want to get technical."
"So, Rachel was your first love, but you weren't hers."
Al considered that for a moment and said, "When you're twelve or thirteen, it's kind of hazy."
"Still, this legendary love isn't as pure as you make it out to be, not when you're all sleeping around on each other."
Al sighed in resignation. "No. I suppose it isn't. I was just thinking about that earlier, actually; why does Rachel stay with me when she could have any man she wants? I'll confess something to you, but don't hold it against her: she's slept with Joe, more than once, and it wasn't just in retaliation for when I was with Lauren."
"So, really, monogamy doesn't mean anything to any of you."
"It does when it comes to property and children." Although that wasn't entirely true, either. Joe was acting like Logan's father far more than Al was. At least he had Emma; hearing her call him Dad felt even better than hearing Rachel, or Lauren for that matter, call him lover. He clarified, "We don't feel the need to split up and make claims on each other's resources."
She turned to him and said, "So, you don't feel tempted to cheat on Rachel with me?"
"On the contrary, I'm doing everything I can to not picture us in that hotel room right now. When I saw you in that dress in Kelowna, I was hoping Rachel would suggest we had a threesome."
She barked a laugh. "Yeah, you wish."
"But, look, even if I did cheat with you, all I could give you is sex. It wouldn't be fair to you. You deserve to be with someone who will live with you and help you with the kids. This... whatever it is I have with Rachel and the others... only seems to work because we're all married and have no plans on leaving our marriages. None of us are unhappy with our spouses." Although Joe and Lauren had had that close call; they'd gone as far as seeing a marriage counsellor, although that had ended too, apparently, though they'd never said why.
Agnes stared straight ahead and took a deep breath. "What if that's all I want right now?" she asked, voice tight with the breath still in her lungs.
Al swallowed hard and said, "Agnes..."
She let out her breath, and the words gushed out. "Look, I'm not interested in getting back into the dating scene, and I'm not interested in whatever good Chinese Christian man my mom and dad know from church, and I don't need any help with my kids, I have after school care arranged for them, and I have my parents, and I couldn't imagine introducing a new man into their lives, not while they're still grieving their father; even Patrick hadn't gotten around to introducing them to Joanie by the time he died, not formally, anyway."
He understood what she was saying, but he still had to try to dissuade her. "Agnes, look, I love you, I don't think I ever stopped, but do you really think you would be satisfied with only a fraction of what we used to have?"
She closed her eyes and sighed. "Al, I'm in my forties, now. I have no illusions about love. I'm not the inexperienced thirty-something who had to wait for you to be my first time because I was so afraid of my parents' disapproval. I've dealt with adultery just as you have, and survived. I've come to the realization that sex and love aren't the same thing, that someone can have sex just because they want to and it doesn't have to come with any other expectations."
"That might be true," he said, "but sex does have emotion attached, if nothing else. Rachel and I do hurt each other whenever we're with Joe and Lauren." And Sunny, he didn't say. "The pleasure we get from them might not entirely make up for the hurt we cause each other. It might eventually end us, I don't know for sure."
"I don't think it will," Agnes said, and he was surprised by her certainty. "I've observed you two since I met Rachel for the first time. You have a connection that withstands any assault. She was there that whole night while you were in the hospital."
"So were you."
"Because we both love you. I couldn't imagine feeling for any other man what I feel for you. Even Patrick..." She shook her head and chuckled. "If I have to be honest, Patrick was a stand-in for you, a consolation prize when I was grieving the end of our relationship. I married him and had children with him because I never thought I would see you again."
"Oh, honey," he breathed, placing a hand on her thigh. Here he went again, letting the muscle memory take over. "You were never a stand-in for Rachel, if that means anything. I grieved for you too, and the only thing that saved my sanity was Samson, at least until Rachel came back into my life. There was never anyone else after you until her."
She didn't move his hand, but neither did she comment on what he said, saying instead, "In fact, I've observed all of you, all your friends; you have a bond that's rare; maybe it's because you all reunited after years of being apart, and you've been using your thirteen-year-old mindset, when relationships burned bright hot, ever since. Or maybe it's the camaraderie you've developed by being in dangerous situations together since you all reunited, but it's intense, and it's addictive, and since you've all welcomed me into your fold, I want to be part of it.
"Look at what you've all done for me: Sunny arranged my divorce pro bono; you and Rachel gave me a place to stay when I needed to hide. Joe and Lauren supplied their own stuff for my comfort while I was staying there. Even Tej helped Patrick find the house that I'd eventually call home, a house I love now. You've all been so good to me, especially Rachel, who has every reason to be suspicious of me, and I find that I want to stay in your circle, even if it's to partake in whatever sexual escapades you have planned for the future."
Al stared at her for a long time, unable to believe what he was hearing. "Rachel might have something to say about that," he said.
She looked at him and said, "Rachel told me something when she escorted me to the taxi back in Kelowna."
Al blinked in surprise. "She did?"
Agnes nodded. "When she saw me kiss you, she had to lay down the law."
"Uh-oh."
"She said that she'd had more than her share of partners lately, and that, if you wanted to balance the scales, so to speak, she wouldn't stand in your way, as long as it's only occasionally, that you use condoms, and you don't leave her for me."
Shit. Rachel was still guilty about Sunny when she didn't have to be. "I have to talk to her about this," he said. "She didn't say anything about this to me."
"Of course she wouldn't."
Al sat back and made to remove his hand, but Agnes held it there with hers. He said, "Joe and Joanie had an arrangement like that. It didn't make things easy between Joe and Lauren, even though the alternative, full adultery, would have been worse. And Joanie ended it because she discovered Joe had been with Rachel. I don't know if they'll ever get back together, and I don't want that to happen to us, Agnes. I don't want to lose you again, and even if I'm only friends with you from now on, I'm happy with that. If I start coming around for... booty calls, for lack of a better phrase... and you start resenting that I've also been with Lauren recently, say, I don't want our relationship to crumble because of that. As much as I might want your body, I want your friendship and esteem more."
She was silent a moment before asking, "You use condoms with Lauren, right?"
He did now. He cleared his throat and said, "Yes," because that was the simplest answer.
She guided his hand between her legs and said, "Then why don't you let me deal with my feelings about who else you've been with; as I've said, I'm not that inexperienced girl anymore. I've been with another man myself, remember."
Al felt the warmth between her legs through the fabric of her trousers. "Jesus, Agnes," he breathed as he began to rub her. "You'd really be okay with this?"
She began to squirm in pleasure, her breathing becoming shaky. "I'd have you for the occasional scratched itch, and your friendship, and the friendship of the LSDC, for the times I need emotional support. I have a whole village of care, now, and that can make up for one regular partner, don't you think?"
He didn't know the answer to that, but his traitorous hand didn't care; when it felt the crotch of her trousers moistening, it moved with a mind of its own.
He didn't think he'd ever made a woman come while she was driving before, but Agnes made all the right noises, and when she finally pulled his hand away he thought he'd done the job. "That was a perfect start to what could be a beautiful... something," she said, signalling to turn the car around.
When they returned home, Rachel and Emma were just getting to the front door.
"Hey, Dad!" Emma called when she saw him. Again he felt a burst of joy hearing it. "Where'd you go with Agnes?"
Rachel gave him the eye, and he knew right away that she knew what they'd discussed. "Just a drive," he said. "We've been making plans for you to see Patrick and Melissa again."
Rachel raised her eyebrows, and Al felt like a heel for lying to his daughter, and resolved to make those plans as soon as possible.
"Are you coming in, Agnes?" Rachel asked.
Agnes was still behind the wheel. "Um, I don't know, I should probably pick up the kids from my parents'."
"Come in," Rachel said, and this time it wasn't a request. "I think we need to talk a little more about our 'plans.'" She said the last with air quotes.
Agnes swallowed hard and exited her car, and Al saw Rachel notice the way she adjusted her pants. "Are you sure?" she asked.
"Yeah, just a few minutes. We'll have some ice wine. Al's cousins brought it over the last time they visited. We didn't really have a chance to enjoy it back in Kelowna. We'll take our time and really savour it, now."
"But I have to drive."
"Ah, it's just a small glass. Ice wine has to be enjoyed in small amounts. Do you hear that, Al? The best things in life are only to be enjoyed in small amounts."
Emma looked confused, but she shrugged and went inside immediately after Rachel unlocked the door. Al swallowed hard and followed after Agnes and Rachel, because he understood Rachel's message, and wondered if he, if all of them, had created a monster.
Thanks for getting to the end! The LSDC may have survived another physical danger, but the friends never seem to learn from their mistakes, and the next one might end them before an enemy ever does. If you liked what you read, hit "Vote" to send this title up the ranks. Leave a comment and let me know what you think!
If you're craving more LSDC hijinks, fear not! There's a Book Six! If you thought this one was weird, wait until you see what happens in "So Sweet a Changeling." Four pictures in an old photo album set the friends on an adventure that spans over forty years, with the subject of those photos dogging them at every turn. And you won't believe who comes back, literally, from the dead!