Intemperance X - the Life We Choose
Copyright© 2026 by Al Steiner
Chapter 23: You Can’t Hide Your Lyin’ Eyes
Fiction Sex Story: Chapter 23: You Can’t Hide Your Lyin’ Eyes - INTEMPERANCE X is the tenth and final novel in the main Intemperance series. As the band headlines its biggest moment yet, decades of music, loyalty, and hard-earned love converge on one unforgettable night—where everything they’ve built is tested in front of the world.
Caution: This Fiction Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Fa/Fa Consensual BiSexual Fiction
San Francisco, California
March 5, 2005
Jen Collins sat alone in her office, the door shut against the noise of a newsroom running on panic and pagination. The article on her monitor was finished—nearly forty hours of work distilled into three thousand words. Every line had been vetted, every quote checked twice, every timestamp verified. All that remained was a few paragraphs at the end: Stanley Veneer, editor-in-chief of the American Watcher, had this to say...
Assuming he had anything to say at all. She didn’t know that yet. But it would be soon.
Outside, the Saturday clamor rose and fell—phones, printers, voices barking from the bullpen. Inside, the hum of the fluorescent lights pressed on her nerves. The interns were still out there somewhere double-checking the transcript, but this part she had to do herself.
She reached for the desk phone, pressed the outside line, and dialed a number from a contacts list on her computer. It wasn’t a public number; it reached the Watcher’s night and weekend desk, the one used when editors didn’t want to be bothered but still needed to pretend they were reachable.
Three rings.
“American Watcher,” said a woman’s voice. “After hours desk.”
“This is Jen Collins with the San Francisco Chronicle,” Jen said evenly. “I need to speak with Stanley Veneer regarding a story that will appear in tomorrow’s Sunday edition.”
“Mr. Veneer doesn’t take calls on weekends, ma’am. I can connect you to the weekend reporter.”
“Go ahead,” Jen said.
A short burst of hold music filled the line—thin, sax-heavy, the kind that played in particularly sadistic dental offices. Then another voice came on, lighter and less sure of itself.
“This is Dana on the weekend desk,” the woman said. “How can I help you?”
“Hi, Dana. Jen Collins, San Francisco Chronicle,” Jen said. “I’m trying to reach Stanley Veneer.”
“Mr. Veneer isn’t available today,” Dana said carefully. “If this is about a news item, I can take a message, or—”
“It’s not a message,” Jen said, cutting her off but keeping her tone polite. “It’s about an incident Mr. Veneer has denied under oath. An incident that did, in fact, occur despite his denial. I have audio recordings that prove it—specifically, that Anthony Delaine and two associates attempted to bribe and threaten Drew Conners. We’re publishing the story in tomorrow’s paper.”
The line went quiet for a beat.
“I’m sorry—did you say recordings?” Dana asked.
“I did,” Jen said. “And I’m calling to give Mr. Veneer the courtesy of response before it goes to print. I’ll only speak with him. No one else.”
“Mr. Veneer doesn’t usually—”
Jen’s voice sharpened just enough to sound like authority without hostility. “Then he can break tradition. Tell him Jen Collins has the Delaine tape, and she’s giving him one chance to comment before it runs. If he wants to respond, he can reach me at this number.”
She gave the line clearly, one digit at a time.
Dana hesitated. “I’ll ... pass it along.”
“Good,” Jen said. “He’ll want to call soon.”
She hung up, resting her hand on the receiver for a moment before letting it go. The office felt too quiet again. Out in the bullpen, someone shouted for a proof on page A-one. The presses would roll in less than twelve hours.
Now it was Veneer’s move—and time was running out.
Jen hung up with the weekend desk and immediately switched lines, stabbing the button for the legal department. The call picked up on the third ring.
“Keene,” said a voice sharp enough to slice paper.
“It’s me,” Jen said. “Just checking in before the fireworks start.”
“I know,” Lisa Keene said dryly. “I’m sitting in the office I swore I’d never enter on a Saturday again, drinking Diet Coke out of a paper cup because of you.”
“Occupational hazard,” Jen said. “Tell me we’re still covered.”
“You’re covered,” Lisa said. “The Chronicle didn’t make the recording, didn’t solicit it, and didn’t pay for it. The case law’s on our side—Bartnicki v. Vopper, Peavy, all of it. They can scream about privacy, but they can’t stop the presses. Especially not today.”
Jen leaned back in her chair. “The fact that it’s Saturday is working for us then?”
“More than you know,” Lisa said. “He’d need to find a Superior Court judge willing to issue a prior restraint against a major newspaper on zero notice, and even if he found one—which he won’t—the Sunday run starts at midnight. He’s out of time before he starts. You can’t un-print a story once it’s out in the world.”
Jen smiled faintly. “Good. I just wanted to make sure there wasn’t some obscure clause that lets him parachute in and pull the plug.”
“Not unless he’s got God’s phone number,” Lisa said. “You’re untouchable until Monday. And by then it’s ancient history.”
Before Jen could answer, her other line began to ring—short, distinct, the private one.
She glanced at the display: BLOCKED NUMBER. Of course.
“That’ll be him,” she said.
“Showtime,” Lisa said.
“Stay on the line,” Jen said. “I want you to hear this with lawyer ears.”
She pressed a few buttons on the console, linking the calls. The bridge clicked softly, and the hum in her headset changed pitch.
She lifted the receiver again. “Jen Collins.”
The answering voice came through tight and cold, each syllable edged with control that was already slipping.
“Ms. Collins,” Veneer said, his voice clipped and faintly nasal. “I understand you’re preparing to run something you might regret.”
“This conversation is on the record,” Jen said evenly. “And it’s being recorded. Please confirm that I’m speaking with Stanley Veneer, editor-in-chief of The American Watcher.”
A pause. The sound of a breath drawn too quickly.
“You’re speaking to him,” Veneer said. “Editor-in-chief, The American Watcher. Now what is this about?”
The impatience was deliberate, the irritation real—but underneath it, Jen could hear something else. Not annoyance. Not offense. Fear. He already knew what this was about.
She could imagine the quick exchange that had happened minutes earlier—his weekend reporter whispering words that would make any editor’s stomach drop: Delaine incident. Sworn testimony. Recording.
“It’s come to my attention,” Jen began, her tone steady and conversational, “that Jake Kingsley is alleging you or persons under your direction sent Anthony Delaine, of your Investigations Department, to the residence of Drew Conners for the purpose of bribery and intimidation.”
“That never happened,” Veneer snapped. “And how the hell do you even know about that? That was from a private deposition.”
“Mr. Kingsley’s legal team informed me,” Jen said. “There is no gag order in place, and they are perfectly within their rights to do so.”
He was silent for a beat—too long. Jen could almost hear his mind recalculating.
She continued before he could recover. “Furthermore, that confrontation was recorded—unintentionally—by the phone system that routed the call to the KVA receptionist’s desk.”
That did it. Veneer’s composure cracked. “You do realize California is a two-party consent state?” he said sharply. “Publishing that recording is a felony.”
Jen allowed herself a small smile. “That statute governs admissibility in court, Mr. Veneer, not publication. We’re not introducing it as evidence; we’re reporting the facts. There’s a difference.”
“You can’t—”
“We can,” Jen interrupted smoothly. “And we are. What I’m doing now is professional courtesy—part of journalistic ethics. They taught you about journalistic ethics back in journalism school, didn’t they, Mr. Veneer?”
For a moment, there was only the faint sound of breathing on the other end, uneven and furious.
Lisa’s muted voice came faintly over the monitor line in Jen’s ear: “Nicely done.”
Jen waited. “Would you like to make a statement for publication?”
Veneer’s breath hissed faintly through the line. “If you’re going to claim you have a recording,” he said, “then I expect you to provide me with a copy before publication.”
“That won’t be happening,” Jen said.
“Then how am I supposed to comment on something if I can’t hear it for myself?”
“I’ll summarize it accurately for you,” Jen said, her tone flat. “Anthony Delaine is heard introducing himself to Drew Conners after effecting illegal entry into Mr. Conners’ apartment. He states that he is there as a representative of The American Watcher. He then offers Mr. Conners one million dollars—deposited into a Swiss account—in exchange for falsifying his testimony. When Mr. Conners refuses, Delaine and two associates issue explicit verbal threats to his safety and well-being.”
Silence.
Then Veneer snapped, “None of that is true. Anthony Delaine hasn’t been employed by this organization for more than a year.”
Jen made a small note on her pad. “Is that a quote?”
“Yes, it’s a quote!” he barked. “But you’d better not run this story!”
Jen’s voice didn’t change. “Or what?”
For a moment, nothing came back—just the faint sound of his breathing, heavier now, as though he realized too late that every word he’d said was already ammunition.
Veneer’s voice thickened, a forced calm snapping into something sharper, angrier. “You don’t understand what you’re doing, Ms. Collins. The Watcher—I—will take this all the way. We will—” He inhaled, searching for theatre. “—we will pursue every legal remedy. We will sue you, your rag, your advertisers, anyone who touches this. We will make you pay. We will follow this into the dirt if we have to. We will expose your sources. We will drain you. We will—”
It was all bluster, carefully chosen, full of menace but precise—no stray confession, no hissed promise that could be transcribed into evidence. It was the sound of a man beating a war drum because he could not find a sword.
Jen listened without interruption. Lisa’s quiet, muted breathing in her ear was the only sound besides Veneer’s rant. When he ran out of puff, Jen folded the threat into the flat place it belonged.
“We’ll be sure to prepare ourselves for that legal onslaught of yours,” she said. “In the meantime, the story still runs. E-edition goes up at three a.m. Print edition hits newsstands two hours after that. It’ll be on front porches an hour later. I’m offering you the chance to respond as the subject of the article. You already told me Mr. Delaine hasn’t worked for you in a year. Anything else you’d care to add for publication?”
“No,” Veneer snapped, voice low and brittle. “And if you publish this, you’ll regret it.”
“Life is full of regrets,” Jen said, voice very calm. “Sad, but true.”
She tapped the disconnect key. The line went dead. The small green display blinked CALL ENDED as if nothing at all had happened.
Jen stared at the blinking phone display for a moment. “Lisa, you still there?”
“I’m here,” the lawyer said.
Jen exhaled once through her nose. “Well, that was fun.”
“He did exactly what I expected,” Lisa said. “Empty legal thunder. He’s scared.”
“Sounded that way,” Jen said. “Threats of lawsuits, advertisers, the usual song.”
“None of it means anything,” Lisa said. “Everything he said was bluster. No actionable threats, no specific claim of damages, no notice of intent. Just noise for the record.”
“I figured as much,” Jen said. “Anything in there we need to worry about?”
“Not a word,” Lisa said. “He didn’t accuse you of criminal conduct, didn’t make a defamatory statement about the Chronicle, didn’t even imply a quid pro quo. All he did was confirm Delaine hasn’t worked there in a year. You’ve got your quote, clean and legal.”
Jen tapped her pen against the pad. “His lawyer will call you on Monday.”
“I look forward to it,” Lisa said. “They’ll start with ‘cease and desist,’ then file a motion they know won’t fly. By the time it’s heard, half the country will have read your piece. It’s the standard dance.”
“Good to know the choreography hasn’t changed.”
“It never does,” Lisa said. “Nice work keeping him on the line long enough to hang himself. You sounded calm.”
“I was,” Jen said. “He’s not half as dangerous when he’s talking.”
“That’s true for most bullies,” Lisa said. “I’ll stay reachable tonight just in case his lawyers try something stupid, but I doubt it.”
“Appreciated,” Jen said. “Get some sleep.”
“You first,” Lisa replied, and hung up.
Jen set the receiver back in its cradle and let her eyes drift toward the couch in the corner of her office. There’d been plenty of jokes about that couch—there always were. The high-profile reporter with her own office, her own key to the executive break room, and the reputation of being a predatory lesbian—of course she had a couch in her office. Of course she used that couch to seduce every naïve young intern who had a set of tits on her.
And the truth, as with most good rumors, wasn’t entirely false. Jen was not, by any means, predatory. And she had never seduced an intern in twenty-five years of employment here. She and Kenzie had used the couch one single time, about three years before, for the purpose being suggested. Mostly just to say they did it. And it had been kind of hot. Dresses and garter belts had been involved. The next morning Kenzie had texted her “Now it’s officially our couch,” and that had been that.
In reality, though, the thing was less an accessory to sin than an occupational necessity. She’d bought it for naps during long weekends like this one—when deadlines stacked on top of caffeine and adrenaline until the line between day and night blurred. It had more bylines than lovers.
Jen kicked off her motorcycle boots, dropped them beside the desk, and lay down. The cushions sighed around her like an old co-conspirator. Within five minutes, she was asleep.
While Jen Collins was drifting off into Stage 4 sleep on her office couch, a hundred and eighty miles to the south, on the grounds of The Campus, Jake Kingsley, Laura Kingsley, and Owen Olson—better known in certain circles as the Gash Master, or GM—were all geared up for a ride.
This was a milestone ride. After five complete lessons for Laura and six for Owen, they finally had the basics down. They knew how to gear up and gear down, how to ease into a turn, how to brake without eating dirt, how to count their gears so they always knew where they were, how to find neutral without kicking the bike in frustration—and, most importantly, how not to fall over doing any of it.
Now it was time to stretch their fledgling wings a little.
The three stood beside their Hondas in the wide gravel turnout near the old barrel sheds. The morning sun was warm but not hot, the air still smelling faintly of wet grass from the night’s dew. Jake rested one boot on his CRF250X, helmet tucked under his arm, scanning the two of them with that calm, instructor’s look of his.
“All right,” he said. “Big day. We’re going off-campus this time.”
Laura grinned. “Finally.”
Owen adjusted his gloves, glancing toward the perimeter gate like it might change its mind about letting them through. “Off campus,” he repeated. “That means real dirt, right? Not the practice lot?”
“Real dirt,” Jake confirmed. “We’ll head up that service trail past the west vineyard, see where it goes. Should take us into the low hills. Nothing too wild—just new ground.”
He moved down the line, checking small things the way he always did. “Everybody got a phone?”
Laura tapped her jacket pocket. Owen patted his chest.
“Water bottles and snacks?”
Both nodded.
“Good.” Jake pointed to the small mirror he had mounted on his left handlebar. “I’ll be up front. I can see you in this, so if you start dropping back, I’ll slow down. Don’t try to keep up if it feels too fast. Ride your own pace. This isn’t a race.”
“Got it,” Laura said.
“Yeah,” Owen added, half-grinning. “I’ll try not to die or anything.”
Jake smirked. “That’s the spirit.”
Laura swung a leg over her CRF150F and settled into the seat with practiced ease. She’d fallen in love with riding from the first lesson—the rumble under her, the way the machine moved like an extension of her own balance. She still couldn’t figure out why she’d waited half her life to try it.
Owen, on the other hand, still felt that flutter of nerves that came with doing something just a little dangerous. He could hear his mother’s voice in his ear: You are to NEVER get on a motorcycle, Owen! They’re deathtraps! The Campus practice loop had been safe—fences, flat ground, Jake close enough to shout advice—but the open hills were another world. Still, he was a breaker. He didn’t back down.
Jake pulled his helmet on, gave them each a nod, and swung onto his bike. The engines started one by one—smooth, even thumps of four-stroke power.
Jake looked back over his shoulder. “Follow my line. If I stop, stop. If you get nervous, slow down. Simple as that.”
Jake put his Honda into first and eased out across the empty parking lot, Laura and Owen falling in behind him. The day still had that early-spring crispness, the kind that promised warmth later but carried just enough chill to feel clean in the lungs. Their engines hummed three steady notes that echoed off the walls of the studio complex.
At the end of the lot the access road ran straight toward the main gate. The guards there had long since stopped treating these rides as anything unusual. When Jake checked in that morning and told them he was taking his students out for a lesson, they’d nodded, noted the time, and gone back to their coffee. Now, seeing the trio approach, they hit the switch that swung the steel gate open without even waiting for Jake to slow.
He gave them a raised glove in thanks and rolled on through. Laura and Owen followed, their shadows stretching long behind them in the low morning sun.
The access road dipped gently before climbing toward the highway, but Jake turned off before they reached it. Just short of the 101, a dirt trail broke away to the west—nothing official, just a track cut years ago for maintenance trucks and vineyard workers. Jake downshifted to second to make the turn, the rear tire bumping over a rut, then slipped into third and held there at a steady twenty-five.
The others fell in behind him, wheels throwing light dust into the cool air. The sun was at their backs, the hills ahead glowing a dozen shades of green. The trail twisted and climbed, threatening to disappear in the grass before curling north again past the west vineyard, still on Campus property.
The dirt smoothed out there, and Jake opened the throttle. Fourth gear. Fifth. The little Hondas sang. He glanced in the mirror: Laura was right where she should be, pumping her left fist a few times—her signal that she was having the time of her life. Owen looked tighter, focused, white-knuckled on the grips, but he was keeping up just fine.
Jake grinned behind his visor. There was nothing he loved more than discovering new ground—just going where the road, or trail, decided to lead. The irony wasn’t lost on him that this bit of “unknown territory” sat practically in his backyard. He spent forty hours a week making music less than two miles from here, yet somehow had never explored these hills. The thought made him smile inside the helmet. Once Laura and Owen graduated to the Harleys, he was going to spend some serious time back-roading across this whole region. Just find a two-lane road somewhere and see where it went. And then do the same for the next road.
The trail rose and then dropped again, emptying onto a fire road that cut northwest along the base of the taller ridges. It was wider and smoother, maintained often enough that the ruts were shallow and the weeds kept back. Jake knew they were well off Campus land now. Technically, he thought it was county property—maybe state—but he couldn’t swear to it.
He slowed long enough for the others to close in, then shrugged to himself and rolled on. Could you just ride on an official fire road? He didn’t know. But what was the worst that could happen? A ticket? A slap on the wrist for trespassing? He could pay any ticket with the cash in his pocket. And the publicity? Hardly scandalous. When the world already believed you kept a Venezuelan transgender sex slave in your attic, a citation from San Luis Obispo County hardly registered on the moral Richter scale.
He twisted the throttle again, feeling the power surge up through the frame. The road straightened, wide and inviting. For the first time that morning he clicked into sixth gear.
The engine note deepened, steady and strong, and all three bikes stretched their legs across the open fire road, the hills rolling beside them and the sky widening ahead. They wound through the bright March hills, green and wide and empty. Jake was just enjoying the rhythm of it when a larger hill came into view ahead—a long, rounded rise with a few slender communication towers gleaming on the summit.
He hadn’t known those were there. Curiosity tugged at him.
A side road branched off to the right, cutting toward the hill in a series of graded switchbacks. It was clearly a service road—truck-width, well maintained, no gate or sign. Jake slowed, eyed it for a moment, then turned in. An exploration too good to pass up. The others followed automatically.
The thought crossed his mind that this was probably more likely to be illegal than the rest of the morning. The Campus was miles behind them now, and this road obviously didn’t belong to KVA. But there was no chain-link, no warning, no Keep Out sign. That made it fair game, right? What isn’t forbidden is mandatory, as the old saying went.
He grinned at the thought and rolled on the throttle.
The climb was steady and forgiving, the dirt packed and dry, made for trucks to service the towers. He stayed in third on the straight grades, second on the turns and steeper pitches. The bikes hummed and clattered around the switchbacks, gaining altitude fast. It wasn’t dangerous if you paid attention, though a wrong move could still send a rider sliding down a long way before gravity stopped caring.
After five minutes, the hilltop opened up. A cluster of towers stood inside a chain-link enclosure capped with razor wire, DANGER – HIGH VOLTAGE signs hanging at angles in the breeze.
Jake coasted to a stop and shut the engine down. The wind filled the silence, tugging at his jacket.
Other visitors had clearly found the place before them. He saw empty beer bottles, the glint of broken glass, a few used condoms half-buried in the dust, and—most absurdly—a pair of yellow panties hanging from the branch of an oak tree.
Jake stared for a second, then snorted and broke into half a line of an old Tony Orlando song: “There’s a pair of yellow panties ... hanging from the old oak tree...”
It made him laugh out loud.
Laura and Owen pulled up beside him, engines shutting down one after the other—likely still in first gear, as they had been taught.
They pulled off their gloves and unbuckled their helmets, hair springing free into the wind.
Laura’s face was flushed, her copper hair plastered to her temples with sweat, but she was grinning from ear to ear. “God, that was fun,” she said. “Did you know about this place, sweetie?”
Jake shook his head. “Nope. Just went where the road took me. That’s the idea on a motorcycle.”
Owen took a long swallow from his water bottle and nodded. “That’s deep,” he said, completely sincere and with a hint of awe. Owen didn’t joke about deepness. Not one little bit.
Jake smiled. “Write it down, GM. Could be the title of your memoir.”
They walked to the edge of the clearing, bottles in hand, and looked out over the view. The inland Central Coast unfolded beneath them in perfect early-spring clarity—the long, green valley tapering south toward San Luis Obispo, the quilt of vineyards and ranchland below, the silver thread of Highway 101 slicing through it all. Tiny cars glinted as they moved, insect-slow from this height. The air smelled of grass, dust, and faint ozone from the towers.
Laura squinted into the distance. “How high are we?”
“Two thousand feet, give or take,” Jake said. “Most of these hills chart around that on the flight maps. I don’t think I’ve ever noticed the towers before, but I only fly this way when I’m heading east out of SLO. Usually on the Pocatello runs.”
“Funny,” Owen said. “You fly over it all the time, but you had to ride a dirt bike to really see it.”
Jake nodded, then spotted a few rough stumps near the fence line—old oaks cut down to make room for the equipment pad. “Let’s sit before we cook our legs off the bikes.”
They took seats on the stumps, the wood sun-bleached and warm under them.
“Coop would say sitting this close to a tower will make you sterile,” Jake said, cracking the seal on a bottle of water.
Owen grinned. “Guess maybe I should wear lead underwear, huh?”
Laura laughed, shaking her head. “Not a bad idea. Tif’s already making plans for your DNA.”
That made Owen chuckle. “Yeah, about Tif...” He hesitated, scratching the back of his neck. “Her birthday’s coming up, and I’ve got a problem.”
Jake capped his bottle and gave him a look. “That sounds ominous.”
“It kinda is,” Owen said. “She got me a threesome for mine—and now we’re basically living rent-free at the Nerdlys’ old house because of it. How the hell do I top that?”
Laura chuckled, tilting her head back toward the sun. “Oh, this should be good.”
Jake just smiled, patient and amused. “Well, you came to the right people for advice.”
Laura brushed wind-tossed hair from her face. “Okay, so the birthday dilemma of the century—what do you get the girl who already gave you a threesome?”
“Exactly.” Owen sat forward on his stump, elbows on his knees. “How do you even top that? Flowers? Dinner? None of that touches ‘hey, here’s an extra person for sex.’”
Jake thought about it for a second. “You could buy her a new tambourine. A really nice one. Gold flakes, leather case. Add it to the shrine.”
Laura shook her head. “Bad idea, sweetie. She already has, what, twelve?”
“Thirteen,” Owen said automatically. “She names them.”
“Of course she does,” Jake said. “That’s Tif. Sweetest person alive, two neurons and a heart the size of Montana.”
“Hey,” Owen said, kind of serious, “don’t talk about my girlfriend’s neurons.”
“I’d listen to him, sweetie,” Laura said mildly. “He’ll probably be a patched Rough Rider someday after he learns to ride a motorcycle.”
“No insult intended,” Jake said. “She’s an angel and a very important part of the Kingsley inner circle. She’s just not a NASA engineer.”
“I guess that’s fair,” Owen allowed.
Laura sipped her water. “Nobody’s asking her to do orbital calculations for us.” She turned back to Owen. “So what does the angel want for her birthday? Have you asked?”
“She said she didn’t want anything,” Owen said earnestly. “So I figured maybe I shouldn’t get her anything. You know, because that’s what she said.”
Jake and Laura looked at him for a beat, then both burst out laughing.
“What?” Owen said, frowning.
Laura gave him a look of pity. “Oh, bless your little heart, no. When a woman says she doesn’t want anything, what she means is she wants you to figure out what she wants. If you actually show up empty-handed, she’ll spend the rest of the night convincing herself you don’t love her anymore.”
Jake nodded solemnly. “And you won’t get any cherry pie that night. Never trust women when they say shit like that. It’s one of the eternal truths, GM. Along with gravity and taxes.”
Owen sighed. “That’s ... confusing.”
“Welcome to an actual relationship,” Laura said. “So—think. What would make her happy?”
“She said she didn’t want anything,” he repeated weakly.
Jake nodded. “And now you know that’s a trap.”
Laura smiled. “You could give her the same gift she gave you.”
Owen blinked. “A threesome?”
“Exactly,” she said, perfectly casual. “You find the girl this time. I’ll help, if you want a woman’s perspective.”
Owen rubbed the back of his neck. “You’d really do that?”
Laura smiled. “I already did it once. I’m an old hand at this.”
Jake leaned back on his elbows, watching the valley. “Symmetry’s important in a relationship. You give what you get.”
Owen stared at the dirt between his boots. “I guess that’s fair. I just ... I don’t even know where to start. I mean, Tif’s into women, but she’s picky. It’s gotta feel right. Not sleazy.”
Laura nodded. “Of course. This isn’t about sleazy. It’s about fun and trust. We’ll find someone she likes. Someone who won’t blow up your life afterward.”
Jake smirked. “So not a journalist.”
Laura threw a pebble at him. “Behave.”