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“Uh, the last time…was around Christmas. Mom took Athena to the cemetery for a walk, and I was nine months pregnant with James.” She sighed. “You know how I get when I’m pregnant.”
Bethany scoffed. “I know how you are all the time.”
“Well, I’m sorry. It’s worse when I’m pregnant.”
“Mmm…you’re not pleading a very good case for holding off on our third.” Waylon smiled over the rim of his own beer.
“My body’s pleading that case just fine. I told you, I need a year off. Besides, if you insist I marry you, it won’t be happening in a maternity gown.”
“For someone who didn’t want kids…” I shook my head.
“I know. But I love my bastard children,” Soula said, sipping her bitter IPA.
I looked at Bethany, perched between George’s legs on a barstool. She shrugged. “I mean, it’s right upstairs from our office. When Sofia’s at school and we have no clients…. Hey, there was a particular fantasy that needed to be dealt with. I didn’t know itwould start a whole thing. And it’s a good bed. Firm.” She pinched her lips between her teeth.
“Maybe we should have a sign-in sheet,” George teased.
“A sock on the door.” Waylon laughed.
“Maybe we should get a rug or something. Make it homier,” I said. “Not that I intend to make it a habit.” Gus’s eyes flashed to mine. I would swear I could see his pupils dilate even in the darkness of the bar. “I’m not crazy about the idea of siblings sharing a sex room in their parents’ house.”
“If it makes you feel better,” Bethany said. “technically,Iown the house. “This is all just hypothetical, anyway, but why has that room never been finished?” Bethany asked.
“We never needed it until a few years ago. When you came,” Soula said.
“And ruined everything,” George said softly into her ear.
“What are we talking about?” Tiff asked as she came up to our table. She was the morgue tech under Soula. Her husband, Javi, was right behind her. Waylon shifted to his side, immediately breaking into hockey talk—something about how Javi needed to move right whenever Cameron had the puck.
Ewen Cameron, the district attorney who played on their team, was there, too. He’d shown up suspiciously soon after Quinn, the fellow in the morgue.
She was leaving in a few months, but she’d been a welcome addition to our ghoul gang of deathcare workers.
“How horny the Smythe siblings are,” Bethany deadpanned.
“I don’t like that word,” Soula said.
“It’s true though, Doc,” Tiff confirmed. “Nothing deters you. I’m pretty sure you’d have sex in the decomp room of the county morgue if it wasn’t a breach of ethics.”
“Iwouldn’t.“ Waylon’s face looked green as he stared into his beer.
“So, Greece, huh?” Cameron asked me. As our resident resigned bachelor, he’d just started to hang out with us regularly. He was going into a cold sweat in the company of all these couples. “That’s some vacation.”
Quinn blushed when he glanced across the crowd at her.
Maybe he wasn’t so resigned to bachelorhood after all. The two of them seemed to lock eyes every few minutes. Then she’d blush and look down, her pale skin giving away all her secrets. It looked like they could use an interlude in the Smythe Mortuary sex room, if they hadn’t already interluded elsewhere. Maybe we should start charging.
Gus and I hadn’t taken a honeymoon, or any vacation together, yet. We’d been too busy pining for each other like idiots to tell each other the truth about how we felt after we’d gotten married. And a honeymoon felt too celebratory, too happy, too much opportunity for sex.
Two weeks in Greece was exactly what we needed now. Gus was going collarless—incognito. We’d attend church services while we were there, mainly because I was interested in how the style in the mother country differed from the US, but he wouldn’t be celebrating the Liturgy as a clergy member.
He’d successfully completed his first Greek Easter, which wasn’t just a day or three, but an entire forty-eight-day season of strict fasting, constant prayer, multiple-services-per-day, plus meetings and classes. It was an ultra-marathon for priests.
On top of that, Father Vasili would be fully retired in a few months. He agreed to stay on through Pentecost, so we could have this time together. I was pretty sure I’d be touring a lot of the archeological museums alone, while Gus caught up on sleep, andthat was fine with me. I still had a friend in Crete who worked at Knossos. She’d get me into all the places regular tourists couldn’t go.
I couldn’t wait for tomorrow. Two weeks of eating delicious food and lying on Agiofaraggo beach until the sun-scorched sand had baked all its reflected warmth into our skin, compelling us to dive into the clear Libyan Sea to cool our blistering skin.
Plus, there was Malia and the Matala caves, and the Acropolis on the mainland, and… Oh, I couldn’t believe I was selling out my goth soul for the beach, but here we were.
