Now she looks downright disturbed.

“Shite McCockslap,” I mutter. “It was a joke. One of my girlfriends is getting married, and we had one of those bachelorette sex toy parties, but the host brought all this stuff. Crazy, right? I’ll just put it all away for you.” I put my hand on her shoulder and turn her away from the sex prop trainwreck. “You can start in the kitchen.”

She nods mutely, lids fluttering as she fans her face with her feather duster. I snap a photo of the living room before I put everything away. Darren has more than one special trunk in his walk-in closet, complete with padlocks, where we store all the toys for exactly this reason.

Gertrude is in the kitchen with her cell phone plastered to her ear, speaking in German, since that happens to be her mother tongue. I lean casually against the doorjamb, don an icy smile, and clear my throat. She startles, again, and drops her phone on the floor.

“Oh! Miss Hoar! I did not realize you were still here.” She bends to pick up the phone, says something into the receiver, and ends the call.

“I’m on my way out now.” I tip my head to the side, exactly the way Darren does when he’s measuring his words. “I think now might be a good time to remind you of the NDA you’ve signed and how it pertains to all facets of Darren’s life within these walls.”

Her eyes flare until I fear she’ll be unable to blink ever again. “Of course, Miss Hoar. I will not breathe a word of your sex party to anyone.”

“Bachelorette party. Have a lovely day, Trudes.”

I spin on my heel and sashay to the garage, where my car is parked. I waffle for a moment over what I should do about the Trudes situation.

I don’t typically text Darren directly after a sleepover. I don’t ever want to appear clingy, so I try to wait until he messages me, but it isn’t easy. By the twenty-four-hour mark, my anxiety gets pretty bad, and no amount of marble rolling seems to calm it down.

I decide it’s in my best interest to let Darren know what Trudes saw this morning. I send him the picture of the living room pre-cleanup, along with a message to check his voicemail. Then I leave him a voicemail and fill him in on Gertrude, suggesting he call and remind her of the NDA himself, because he’s a fuckton scarier than I am.

I stop on the way over to Violet’s, pick up coffees for us, and order myself a breakfast sandwich, which I scarf down in less than a minute. I’m always super hungry after a night with Darren. It’s better than a boot camp workout, that’s for sure.

I pull into Violet’s driveway and take a deep breath, aware that I’m walking into a conversation that’s going to be awkward, especially with Violet.

The door opens before I can even knock. “Took you long enough. Did you have to free yourself from Darren’s elaborate restraint system to get here?”

I pass her the dairy-free latte. “Haha. There was a line at Starfucks.”

She checks the label before she takes a sip, since there have been occasions when they’ve gotten the order wrong and Violet has paid the price for consuming dairy. She arches a brow at me over the lip of her cup, moaning her latte love.

“Thanks for this. Now get in here and give me some details.”

I follow her down the hall to the kitchen, where a pile of takeout bags sit unopened on the counter. Violet doesn’t cook, which is a good thing because she’s horrible at it. She and Alex would starve to death if she were in charge of meals.

She plunks down on a chair and slaps the counter. “Well?”

“Well what?” I’m not going to make this easy for her.

Darren suggested I tell the girls whatever I damn well please, but I don’t know how much I want to share. I’ve enjoyed how private our relationship has been up until now. Darren definitely has a commanding presence, so it’s not hard to imagine that extending beyond his performance on the ice.

“Alex said there was a ball gag, and some weird latex stuff, and a fucked-up giant dildo, or butt plug—he wasn’t sure. I hope you’re happy with yourself because thanks to you, Alex spent an hour on some online sex toy shop and asked me fifty times if I wanted an anal training set.” She taps the counter with her manicured nails.

“You’re going to need a hell of a lot more than an anal training set to get that dick in your ass,” I scoff.

I’ve accidentally seen Alex’s hard-on—through the barrier of boxer shorts, but still. It was enough to know Violet isn’t exaggerating his size. Darren is well-endowed, above the national average for sure, but Alex’s dick is terrifying. I have no idea how Violet walks without crying most days.

“No shit.” Violet wrinkles her nose. “Anyway, Alex’s Area 51 mission aside, I’m kind of pissed at you. I can’t believe you’ve kept this from me all this time.”

I sigh. This is what I was worried about. “There really isn’t anything to tell.”

“Uh, pretty sure that’s a lie with all the freaky deaky Alex saw. Clearly there’s a lot more to it than Darren jizzing on your chest and getting into your Access Denied hole.”

“I promised Darren I wouldn’t say anything.”

She frowns. “But I’m your best friend. Those promises don’t apply to me.”

I give her an apologetic smile. It’s not fair to use Darren as a copout. “Darren is private about this kind of thing, and so am I.”

“But we always talked about boyfriend stuff before Darren.”

“Before Darren it was different. I didn’t want to risk him getting asked questions by anyone, so . . .”

“I wouldn’t have said anything if you’d told me not to.”

I give her a look. “Not even Alex?”

She starts to speak but makes a face. “Okay, you have a point. I’d probably tell Alex because husbands fit under the same cone. Alex was pretty freaked out last night. I mean, those guys have been besties for as long as you and I have been besties, and he had no clue Darren was such a kinky fucker. We thought you might be a little off-side, but not all the way out in left field.”

“It looked a lot more extreme than it is,” I offer. “Most of it is the stuff my mom sends me from all her dominatrix conventions, and the majority of it I haven’t even considered trying out. I guess I went a little overboard yesterday.”

“Well, that’s going to take all the fun out of the kink inquisition.”

“Kink inquisition?”

“Yeah, the girls are freaking out over this. They started a group chat last night asking me all sorts of questions. I didn’t pull you in because I figured you didn’t want to be bombarded with text messages, and you were probably busy with Darren, doing whatever.” She crosses over to the fridge and produces a couple of bottles. She holds out the champagne. “Pre-inquisition mimosa?”

“That’s probably a good idea.”

“I figured.”

She hands me a glass and pours herself some sparkling grape juice since she and Alex are actively trying to get her knocked up, and she doesn’t want to drink until or unless she gets her period. Then the doorbell chimes. I exhale a nervous breath. This is probably going to be uncomfortable, but if I can deal with wearing a butt plug for several hours, I’m pretty sure I can handle a few questions and dispel some misconceptions.

Sunny, Lily, and Poppy appear in the kitchen a minute later. It’s awkward times a million. Especially since the first thing out of my mouth is, “Sorry all your significant others saw me naked yesterday.”

“Everyone except Lance has heard me come,” Violet says, because she’s my best friend and is happy to offset my humiliation with her own.

“Um, Lance has heard you come, Violet, and so have the rest of us,” Poppy, Lance’s fiancée, says quietly.

Her face turns the color of her name. She’s so stinking cute. It’s amazing that someone so sweet could end up with one of the most volatile players in the league, who was also dubbed a notorious womanizer—although the media likes to twist things around. And from what I know, Lance is actually a little broken, kind of like me and Darren both seem to be. His childhood wasn’t the best either.

Violet looks confused. “Since when?”

“When we went to the cottage over winter break and you and Alex had sex in the outdoor shower,” Lily replies when Poppy doesn’t respond right away.

“Ooooh, right. Lesson learned on that one, I guess.”

“And only Darren and Miller haven’t seen me naked, so don’t feel too bad.” Lily gives me a side hug.

“Wait, what?” Poppy suddenly looks like she’s ready to go a round. As sweet as she is, she’s a massage therapist, so she’s strong, and dating Lance means she has to have a backbone of steel. She also has a fiery personality to match her hair.

“It was an accident. Randy came home from an away series, and I answered the door wearing a bow like a necklace. I didn’t know Lance was with him until it was too late,” Lily explains.

“And Alex saw her naked when she was six, so that doesn’t really count,” Violet adds.