Intemperance Epilogue Volume I
Copyright© 2026 by Al Steiner
Chapter 9: Always a Woman
Fiction Sex Story: Chapter 9: Always a Woman - Intemperance isn’t over yet—we still have lots of loose ends to tie up. Volume I picks up after Book X as Jake, Laura, Celia, Caydee, and the rest of the Kingsley orbit discover that life goes on, whether you’re ready or not. Expect music, love, grief, family, crows, weed, questionable decisions, and all the usual Kingsley antics along with the antics of the surrounding Kingsley orbit.
Caution: This Fiction Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Fa/Fa Lesbian BiSexual Heterosexual Fiction Polygamy/Polyamory
Orange County, California
April 8, 2005
The Avanti descended out of a beautiful spring sky and touched down on Runway 20R of John Wayne Airport at exactly 11:30 a.m. The beautiful but noisy aircraft settled onto the concrete with the gentle chirp of tires, the twin turboprops spooling down into a smooth idle as he taxied clear of the active runway.
Aboard were Jake, Laura, and Celia—all three of them well rested for the first time in what felt like weeks. The long, quiet nights at Kingsley Manor had done their work. Sleep, good food, the sound of the ocean, and the simple presence of the kids had bled some of the raw edges off the grief. Not gone. But manageable. They were ready, at least for today, to rejoin life as they knew it.
Jake guided the sleek white-and-red aircraft to the transient GA parking area, set the parking brake, and ran through the shutdown checklist with the calm precision of long habit. The propellers ticked to a stop. The cockpit went quiet except for the faint ticking of cooling metal.
The three of them stepped out onto the warm tarmac, stretching after the short flight. Laura slipped on a pair of sunglasses. Celia shook out her hair and rolled her shoulders. Jake locked the cabin door and gave the Avanti a light pat on the fuselage, the way he always did.
Pauline was waiting just inside the general aviation terminal, sitting in a waiting room chair in a crisp black pantsuit, her brown hair—a little longer than her brother’s but the same exact shade—pulled back in a simple ponytail. She looked tired but steady—the same competent, no-bullshit Pauline who had been holding KVA together since the moment Matt collapsed.
The greetings were warm. Real. Laura reached her first and pulled her into a tight hug. Celia followed, then Jake. Pauline returned each one with the kind of squeeze that said more than words could right now.
“It’ll be nice to deliver some good news for once,” Pauline said.
They walked together to the short-term lot where Pauline’s car waited. It was a 2004 Mercedes-Benz S600—the top-of-the-line V12 sedan in brilliant black, every inch of it gleaming under the California sun. Leather, wood, and German engineering that cost more than some people’s houses. Ever since KVA really took off over the past three years, Pauline had left her frugal ways behind and gone to the other end of the spectrum. She had bought the house in Pacific Palisades and paid cash for a six-figure vehicle that she planned to sell when the free maintenance period came to an end.
The fifteen-minute drive to Costa Mesa passed easily. Traffic was light. They pulled into the parking lot of the OC Steakhouse a few minutes before noon. The place was exactly what its name promised: unpretentious, masculine, the kind of steakhouse where the booths were deep, the portions were ridiculous, and nobody gave a damn if you wore shorts and flip-flops as long as you could afford thirty dollar entrees.
Inside, Kim Kowalski and Jim Ramos were already waiting at a large corner booth. Kim was quite casual—white shorts that showed off her still-impressive legs and a sleeveless yellow blouse that set off her blonde hair. Jim wore faded jeans and an oversized black button-up shirt, the color and length chosen specifically to hide the spare tire he’d been carrying around since entering the employ of one Matthew Norman Tisdale.
Jim stood first. He hugged both of Jake’s wives—warm, brotherly squeezes—then pulled Jake into a solid bro hug, the kind that involved back-slapping. Everyone hugged Kim next.
They slid into the booth. A waitress appeared almost immediately, notepad ready. Jim and Kim were already working on beers—something local and cold in frosted mugs.
Celia glanced at the menu for half a second and said, “I’ll have what they’re having.”
Laura nodded. “Same for me.”
It was a beer kind of establishment. Wine would be pretentious.
“And you, Mr. Kingsley?” the waitress asked. She had not been told his name but Jake was very much in the news these days and he didn’t need to tell her. Especially not when he was here with Celia Valdez.
“I’ll have a Sprite,” Jake said sourly.
“A Sprite?” she asked, surprised.
“On the rocks,” he confirmed.
They exchanged preliminaries while they waited for the drinks—how the flight down had been, how the kids were doing back at the manor, how strange it still felt to be sitting in a restaurant like normal people again. Nothing deep. Just the gentle verbal padding that let everyone ease into the conversation that would follow.
The waitress returned a couple of minutes later with the beers for Laura and Celia—tall, frosted mugs already sweating in the warm air—and set Jake’s Sprite down in front of him. He leaned over, took a long appreciative sniff of Laura’s beer, then took a sip of his own drink. The olfactory beer was much more satisfying than the actual Sprite.
Jim took a pull from his own mug and set it down. “Kim and I have been packing up Matt’s stuff. Jesus Christ, there’s so much of it. You wouldn’t believe how much that man collected once he finally paid off the IRS after the Never Say Never tour.”
Kim nodded, her expression somewhere between fondness and exhaustion. “Guitars mostly. Nearly three hundred thousand dollars’ worth of collectible guitars. He had instruments that once belonged to Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, even Jimi Hendrix. Most of them he never even strummed a single note on—just had them mounted and lit like museum pieces.”
“And the booze,” Jim added with a low chuckle. “Expensive shit he never intended to drink. There’s a bottle of rum they recovered from a Caribbean shipwreck that sank back when South America was still ruled by Spain. A bottle of whiskey from some ancient distillery in England that got bombed flat during the Battle of Britain. First-edition Scotch from Scotland, Irish whiskey from Ireland, vodka straight from Mother Russia herself. Easily more than a quarter of a million worth of fancy-ass booze just sitting there collecting dust.”
“That’s a lot of fuckin’ high-end hooch,” Jake said a little enviously. He was a fan of high-end hooch, though not necessarily just to collect it. He was nearly drooling at the thought of sipping on a glass of South American rum recovered from a 17th century shipwreck.
They opened the menus and perused them in silence for a moment, the heavy laminated pages rustling softly.
Jake chose the fourteen-ounce ribeye and a loaded baked potato.
Nothing like a light lunch.
Once the waitress disappeared toward the kitchen with their orders, Pauline set her hands lightly on the table and looked between Jim and Kim.
“Alright,” she said. “I told you this meeting was about Matt’s will ... and what he left to the two of you.”
Jim shifted slightly in the booth, one hand still wrapped around his beer.
“I wouldn’t have thought Matt left me anything,” he said. “I was just his paramedic.”
Kim looked at him immediately, a small shake of her head.
“You were a lot more than his paramedic, Jimbo,” she said. “You were his safety net. His anti-anxiety pill.” She paused, her voice softening just a fraction. “And his friend. He had the utmost respect for you, Jim. You know that.”
Jim gave a quiet snort and took a drink. “He never took a single word of my advice in the entire time I knew him.”
“That’s true,” Kim said. “But you cared enough to give him advice he didn’t follow.” She held his eyes for a second. “That mattered to him.”
Jim looked down at the table for a moment, then back up.
“He talks to me sometimes,” he said. “In my head.”
Jake nodded. “Yeah. He does that to me too.”
Kim glanced between them, then said it like it had just occurred to her. “Didn’t you say that Matt told you to fuck me the other night?”
Jim let out a short chuckle, shaking his head. “Fuckin’ A,” he said. “He said, ‘The bitch has grieved long enough and it’s high time she got a fuckin’ hose-down. Let her ass know that life goes the fuck on—and so does fucking.’”
Jake smiled faintly. “That sure as hell sounds like Matt.”
Laura leaned in slightly. “He told me something yesterday morning,” she shared. “After Jake got out of the shower.”
Celia looked over. “Oh yeah?”
Laura nodded, completely straight-faced. “He said Jake needed a fuckin’ blowjob and I oughtta get my little redheaded ass in there and ‘slurp some fuckin’ schlong for him.’”
Pauline blinked once and looked at her. “And ... did you?”
“Of course,” Laura said. “When a dead guy tells you to suck off your husband, you do it.” She paused, then gave a small shrug. “Besides ... I kind of wanted to.”
Jake leaned back slightly, a faint grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I didn’t realize I needed a blowjob at that particular moment in time,” he said. “But ... turns out Matt was right.”
“Wow,” Pauline whispered. She too had experienced the ghost of Matt in her head giving advice. She would never share what he told her in a million years though.
But she had done it and it had been a correct thing to do.
Pauline let the moment sit for just a beat longer, then cleared her throat softly. “Matt’s disembodied voice aside—”
“Does he ever talk to you?” Jake cut in, looking at her. “You know? After he died?”
Pauline met his eyes. “No,” she said simply.
It was true. Technically.
Whatever voice had surfaced in her head since Matt’s death—sharp, profane, unmistakably him—wasn’t actually Matt speaking. It was memory. Neural pathways. A well-worn personality imprint hijacking a portion of her brain at inconvenient times.
At least, that was the working theory and she hoped it was the truth. She didn’t know the first thing about arranging for an exorcism.
“Anyway,” Pauline continued, turning back to Jim, “he left you his house in Cabo.”
Jim blinked. “What?”
Kim didn’t look surprised. She just smiled, small and knowing.
Jake noticed that. It appeared she already knew. Or at least suspected. And she clearly had no problem with it.
“The house,” Pauline repeated. “Cabo San Lucas. It’s yours.”
Jim leaned back slightly in the booth, one hand coming off his beer like he’d forgotten it was there.
“You’re fucking with me?”
“I’m not.”
Pauline reached into her folder, though she didn’t actually need to. She had already read the relevant section enough times to quote it in her sleep.
“He also left you one million dollars,” she said. “That’s the net after estate taxes are paid.”
Jim let out a breath that almost turned into a laugh. “Jesus Christ.”
Pauline glanced down briefly, then back up. “His wording,” she said, “was as follows.” She didn’t soften it. She didn’t paraphrase. “‘Jimbo always loved getting Mexican gash down there and I want him to be able to live the rest of his fuckin’ life there scoring hairy pussy and be able to live good and shit.’”
Jim stared at her for a second, then shook his head, a grin breaking through.
“That’s ... incredible.”
“Mm,” Pauline said.
She turned a page that didn’t really need turning.
“He further designated,” she went on, “that ‘he can’t sell the motherfucker until he’s done with his fuck-years and doesn’t need a gash magnet anymore.’”
Jim let out a breath and leaned back, still shaking his head.
“I really do love that house,” he said. “That place is ... something else.”
Jake glanced at him. “And scoring Mexican gash?”
Jim gave him a look, then smiled a little. “That’s part of it,” he admitted. “Mexican gash is up there on the international rankings. Not as good as Ukrainian, and I’ve never tried any Icelandic gash, but definitely top five.”
“Matt would be proud of you,” Celia said with a little roll of the eyes.
“I’m sure he would,” Jim said with a nod. “But mostly? Cabo is just one of the coolest fuckin’ places I’ve ever been. Never had a bad time there.”
Pauline nodded slightly. “Matt set you up pretty well.”
“No shit,” Jim said quietly.
“He actually put some thought into this,” Pauline said. “You could drop that million bucks into a five percent CD and live quite well in Mexico off the interest alone. Fifty grand a year, free and clear. No housing expenses except a couple thousand in property taxes. Ten-to-one exchange rate. You could live the rest of your life down there without ever touching the principal. And if you actually establish residency and stay there full time, you can set it up so you don’t get hammered with taxes on that interest.”
Jim gave a cautious look. “So this is the same kind of deal as Matt got fucked by? Still gotta pay American taxes on that?”
“Unless you want to renounce your American citizenship and all financial ties to the US,” Pauline told him. “And then you’d still have to pay Mexican taxes on that interest.”
“What a rip,” Jim said.
“As I tell my children constantly,” Jake said, “life is often a rip.”
“You got that shit right,” Pauline said.
“I don’t think I really want to cut ties with the US,” Jim said. “In any case, this ... it’s a lot to think about.”
“There’s no rush,” Pauline said. “None of this is happening tomorrow. It all has to go through probate first.”
Kim looked over. “How long is that going to take?”
“We’ll get into that in a few minutes,” Pauline said. Then she shifted her attention slightly. “First, let’s go over some of the other major items before we get to you, Kim.”
Kim nodded once.
Pauline gestured lightly toward Jake. “You already know about the Strat,” she said. “Bequeathed to Jake, with the instruction to”—she didn’t bother looking down—”’do the right thing with the motherfucker and don’t just sell my shit to some asshole.’”
Jake gave a small nod. “I’m working on that right now.”
“I’ve got a preliminary briefing on that as well,” Pauline added.
Kim looked to Jake. “Have you decided what you’re going to do with it?”
Jake nodded slightly. “Kelvin had an idea,” he said. “There’s a new exhibit opening at the Smithsonian—history of American popular music. He suggested donating it.”
Kim smiled. “That’s a great idea,” she said brightly. “I think Matt would agree that’s the ‘right thing to do with the motherfucker.’”
“I agree,” Pauline said. “We’ll talk about where that project is going in a bit.”
She then turned her attention to Kim. “Did Matt ever tell you what was in his will before he died?” she asked.
Kim shook her head slightly. “A few things,” she said. “I knew Jake was getting the Strat. I knew Jim was getting the Cabo house.” She glanced over at Jim, then back. “And I knew GM was getting a cool million after taxes.”
Pauline nodded once.
“As for me...” Kim went on, her voice softening a little, “he just said, ‘your ass will be taken care of.’” She let out a quiet breath. “When I think about it now ... he knew,” she said. “He knew he was going to die before me. He never even talked like there was another option.”
Jake nodded slightly. “That sounds like Matt,” he said. “Somewhere in there, underneath all the bullshit, there was a little bit of realism. He knew what he was doing to himself. He just didn’t care.”
Celia leaned back a fraction. “He lived exactly how he wanted to,” she said. “Burn fast and die young.”
Pauline watched Kim for a moment, then spoke. “He wasn’t kidding,” she said. “When he told you you’d be taken care of.”
Kim looked at her.
Pauline continued, her tone steady, controlled. “There are a number of specific bequests and directives,” she said. “Funeral instructions. The monument—angels playing Strats, the Iceland map that looks like an aroused vagina—”
Kim gave a faint, automatic nod. “Yeah. That sounds like a Mattie idea all right.”
“But after all of that is satisfied,” Pauline went on, “after the debts are paid, taxes are handled, and the specific items are distributed...”
She held Kim’s eyes.
“ ... the residue of the estate goes to you, Kimberly Louise Kowalski.”
Kim blinked. “The entire residue?” she asked.
Pauline nodded. “Yes. The house in San Juan Capistrano. The guitars. The booze collection. The Maserati. All remaining personal property. And the income streams—royalties from National Records and KVA—going forward.”
Kim stared at her, the weight of it not quite settling yet. “Jesus Christ,” she whispered.
Jim sat back a little, still trying to wrap his head around what he’d just heard. “What about Matt’s sisters?” he asked.
Pauline didn’t hesitate. “His sisters, though direct heirs at law, were not mentioned in the will,” she said. “So if probate upholds it, they get nothing.”
Kim nodded. “Mattie always said his family wasn’t getting shit,” she said. “He said they never did a goddamn thing for him. Treated him like the fuckin’ birth control accident he was—mom and dad already pushing middle age, sisters practically teenagers by then. They shoved him in the guest house on the property and gave him money and let him do whatever the hell he wanted until he moved out on his own. He told me once that his older sister said the only reason mommy dear didn’t get an abortion was because it wasn’t legal then.”
She shook her head slightly.
“That was his upbringing. Unwanted rich kid. No family love. None.”
Laura’s expression softened. “That’s really sad,” she said quietly. She had never been told this story about Matt before. “It actually explains a lot about why Matt was Matt.”
Kim shrugged. “I think he turned out all right,” she said.
Laura nodded. “He did,” she agreed. “But it’s still sad.”
Pauline let that sit for a moment, then continued. “Probate hasn’t been filed yet, so, at this moment in time, they don’t know that they’re getting doodley-fuckin’-squat. But they do know they’re the heirs. They’ve already hired a lawyer, and he’s been in touch with Shaq.”
Jake looked up. “They asking to see the will?”
“They are.”
“And?”
“He told them no.”
Jake gave a small nod. “Good.”
“It won’t matter in a few days,” Pauline said. “Once the will is filed, it becomes public record.”
“And they’ve already got a lawyer,” Jake said, leaning back slightly. “I see where this is heading. How much shit can they throw into our fan?”
Pauline didn’t smile. “Quite a bit, if they want to,” she said. “But there’s really only one angle they can take.”
Jim looked over. “Which is?”
“Undue influence,” Pauline said. “They argue that someone close to Matt—likely Kim, possibly all of us—manipulated him into cutting out his family and structuring the will the way he did.”
Kim frowned slightly. “That’s bullshit.”
“It is,” Pauline said calmly. “But that doesn’t stop them from arguing it.”
Laura tilted her head. “And if they go that route?”
“It’s all or nothing,” Pauline said. “Either they convince a court the will is invalid and get everything as the direct heirs under intestate law, or they get nothing. There’s no middle ground in that argument.”
Jake nodded slowly. “So they’re swinging for the whole thing.”
“The strategy would imply that, if that’s what they do.”
“What are their chances?” Jim asked.
“Bad,” Pauline said. “Very bad. I’d put it at a hundred to one in our favor, conservatively. The will was drafted properly, is being executed properly, and Matt was very clearly Matt when he gave his instructions.”
She let that sit for half a beat.
“But,” she added, “they don’t have to win to cause problems.”
Jake exhaled. “Explain.”
“If they file a contest,” Pauline continued, “it slows everything down. Significantly. Distributions get delayed. Assets get tied up. It can take a year or more to resolve.”
Jim blinked. “A year?”
“Or longer,” Pauline said.
Celia frowned slightly. “So nothing moves until then?”
“Very little,” Pauline said. “No Strat going to the Smithsonian. No Cabo house transfer. No residual distributions to Kim. Everything sits until it’s resolved or settled.”
Jake shook his head once. “That’s fucked up.”
“It’s leverage,” Pauline said. “That’s the point.”
Jake looked at her. “Do they actually think they can win?”
“Unlikely,” Pauline said. “They think they can get paid.”
Kim leaned forward slightly. “So their lawyer just ... ties it up and waits for us to make it go away?”
“That’s the strategy,” Pauline said. “The will is solid. If it goes all the way to court, they lose. But in the meantime, they create delay, expense, and inconvenience.”
Jim nodded slowly. “So they’ll be hoping you just cut them a check.”
“Exactly.”
Kim looked at Pauline. “Should we?”
Pauline didn’t answer immediately.
“No,” she said finally. “Not yet.”
They all looked at her.
“We don’t start reacting to things that haven’t happened yet,” Pauline said. “Let them make their move. Then we decide how we want to respond.”
Laura Kingsley’s fortieth birthday was April 11, 2005.
But since that day fell on a Monday—and since most of the people she loved had actual lives and responsibilities that didn’t pause for milestone aging—they held her official party on April 10, the Sunday before.
Jake flew down to Los Angeles that morning and picked up Pauline, Obie, and Tabby. Grace and Gina tagged along for the ride. They never passed up an opportunity to show up at Kingsley Manor for food, alcohol, and whatever brand of insanity happened to be on the schedule. And they were most definitely part of the inner circle.
By early afternoon, the house was full. The Nerdlys came down from their compound in the hills. Tif and Owen made the short trip from the former Nerdly house in San Luis Obispo. Mama and Papa Valdez arrived from Avila Beach, bringing with them the quiet authority of elders who knew exactly how things should be done and the willingness to let the younger generation screw it up anyway. Meghan and Massa came in from their place in SLO. The Ramirez family made the drive up from their little rental house on the east side of Oceano.
It had become Kingsley tradition—firmly established and not subject to debate—that fortieth birthdays were to be treated as funerals. Everyone wore black. The balloons were black. The wrapping paper was black. The cake was shaped like a tombstone, complete with Laura’s birth date and her official “date of death,” now declared to be April 11, 2005. The gifts were universally terrible—gag items, all of them: reading glasses, joint supplements, adult diapers, heating pads, and other reminders that the body was now on a slow but irreversible march toward betrayal followed by eventual catastrophic breakdown and death.
Some might have suggested the theme was a little tasteless, given that Matt had died only two weeks earlier. The Kingsleys did not care. Taste, in their world, was an internal standard, not a public one, and they found the party theme hilarious, even while in mourning.
Laura had asked Mama Valdez to handle dinner, and Mama had accepted without hesitation. Now the house was filled with the deep, rich smell of asado negro simmering slowly, thick and dark and complex, the kind of meal that took time and attention and a willingness to do things the right way instead of the fast way.
They ate, drank, and made merry. Laughter came easily—easier than anyone might have expected a week ago. It wasn’t that Matt was forgotten. It was that he would have approved.
Jake, meanwhile, nursed a tall glass of iced green tea with a splash of Westin’s freshly squeezed lemonade in it. He had a return flight to make later that night, and he was not about to screw around with that. Eight hours bottle to throttle was a rule, not a suggestion—even on birthdays, even birthdays disguised as funerals, even when the house was full of people he loved and the bar was fully stocked. So he sat back, tea in hand, and watched it all unfold.
In the easy hour between dinner and the opening of the presents, the house settled into that comfortable post-meal hum. Cap had claimed his usual throne atop the entertainment center, legs dangling, surveying his kingdom with the serene authority of a tiny wise man atop the hill. Out back, Caydee, Tabby, Kira, and Kelvin had gone to visit Pa-Ho and Josie Cuervo, the four of them crouched by the sliding door with a bowl of popcorn, talking to the crows in low, serious voices as if discussing important corvid business.
Owen worked his way over to where Jake was playing bartender behind the big mahogany bar. He looked a little nervous, glancing around once to make sure Tif wasn’t in earshot.
She was planted on the couch, deep in conversation with Mama and Papa Valdez, proudly explaining how she had intuited, while under the influence of psychedelic mushrooms, that swallowing semen was nothing more than a “perceivo,” like Dumbo’s feather, and that she could still sing just as well without sucking Owen’s dick and swallowing his semen. Not that she had stopped doing it every Sunday—tradition mattered. It was simply “liver-ating” for her to know she didn’t have to. That if some catastrophic accident ever took out her Cutie Patootie’s semen production ability, she would still be able to carry on with her career without cheating on him once a week.
“Isn’t that bitchin’?” she asked Mama Valdez, who had never sucked a penis in her entire life and was visibly disturbed by the entire conversation.
“Indeed,” Mama said slowly, eyes wide.
“Si,” agreed Papa Valdez solemnly, though there was a distinct spark of envy in his voice. He had had his little amigo sucked a few times in his life, but that had been long before he met Mama and married her.
Jake looked up as Owen approached. “Another IPA?”
Owen shook his head, still glancing toward the couch. “Can I have some of that bourbon Mr. Obie is drinking?”
Jake raised an eyebrow. Owen wasn’t much of a hard-liquor guy. But like any good bartender, he gave the man what he wanted. He poured a nice knock of Jim Beam Black over a couple of ice cubes and slid the glass across the granite.
“Thanks,” Owen said, taking a small, cautious sip. He winced slightly, then lowered his voice. “Can I talk to you about something personal?”
Jake didn’t hesitate. “Of course you can,” he said, setting a glass down and leaning his forearms on the bar. “What’s on your mind?”
“I respect you a lot,” he said. “Not just because you’re cool and one of my bosses ... but because you know all about women.”
Jake barked a short laugh.
“Not even close,” he said. “Nobody with a set of huevos hanging low knows all about women. They are, by their very nature, unpredictable and unknowable.”
Owen frowned slightly. “But you’ve got two wives. You must’ve figured something out.”
Jake shook his head. “I haven’t figured out shit. I’m not entirely sure how I ended up with two of them. It just ... happened that way.”
Owen considered that.
“Okay,” he said. “Maybe you don’t know everything about women. But you know more than me.”
Jake tilted his head, conceding that one. “Alright. I’ll give you that. But you’ve nailed down Tif, who is quite possibly the hottest woman in the history of women and so far out of your league that you need the fuckin’ Hubble to even see her league from where you are.”
Owen gave a helpless little shrug. “I have no idea how that happened.”
Jake nodded. “Walk me through it.”
“One minute I’m peeking at a hot girl in shorts and no bra washing her car,” Owen said, “and the next she’s at my house sucking my dick to get her singing ointment. And then ... everything else just kind of happened without any effort from me.”
Jake stared at him for a moment, genuinely thinking that over. It actually challenged his agnostic beliefs in a way that little else in life could.
“Maybe there really is a God,” he was forced to conclude. “And you did something really fuckin’ cool in a past life. Maybe you were the guy who invented canned beer. Or pre-lubricated rubbers.”
Owen nodded slowly, considering the possibility.
“Maybe,” he said. “That would make sense.”
There was a small pause. The noise of the party filled the space between them—laughter, music, someone yelling from the kitchen, the faint caw of a crow outside.
Owen took another sip of the bourbon. Then he looked at Jake.
“I’m going to ask Tif to marry me.”
Jake didn’t respond right away. He studied Owen for a moment, the humor fading just enough to let something more serious come through. “That’s a big step,” he said.
Owen nodded. “Yeah. I know. But it’s the right step.”
Jake held his gaze another second, then gave a small nod of his own. “You two are ... weirdly compatible,” he said. “I’ll give you that. But the first rule of asking a woman to marry you is to be pretty fuckin’ sure she actually wants to marry you. Getting shot down on a proposal is something that tends to stick with you.”
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