Page 227 of You've Got Hate Mail
If you’d toldme two months ago that I’d be hanging out in the sitting room of a gorgeous, if run-down, Victorian house in Sonoma Valley with people who’ve become more family to me than any family I’ve ever had, madly in love with a single dad, laughing over hate mail that’s flooded my inbox while my boyfriend’s parents egg us on, I wouldn’t have believed it.
But that’s exactly what’s happening two days after Lav’s birthday party.
Heath’s mother-in-law has had the fear of, well,meput in her, apparently.
Supposedly she’s left the state for good, but the sheriff has extra patrols going by Lav’s school for a while, and the principal knows the situation too.
Lav’s as safe as she can be without hiding her away from the world, which wouldn’t be good for her either.
So since she’s at school today, we’re all taking a much-needed decompression minute.
As a family.
We should be rushing around with wedding plans—it’s coming fast—but we’ve all needed this adult time together.
“Oh, look, more-muscles-than-brains with his clearly AI-enhanced photo says that Cricket should go lick her own pussy since no one else is ever going to do it for her, and he hopes she has a venerable disease on her tongue when she does, because he doesn’t know how to spellvenereal,” Dori says.
She’s currently holding my phone and picking which email to share with the group.
Thor shakes his head. “To think people have brains and this is what they choose to use them for.”
“In all my years on the job, I never met a single woman who could’ve licked her own pussy.” Vivian taps her chin thoughtfully. “I’d come out of retirement to write a paper on that.”
“He clearly thinks it’s possible,” I say. “Maybe he’s the one-in-a-million with the right flexibility to suck his own dick. Except if that were the case, don’t you think he would’ve recorded himself doing it to show off?”
“And put it up on GrippaPeen,” Olivia says dryly, referencing GrippaBeav’s sister—brother?—site.
“Is this really healthy?” Heath asks.
“Yes,” Thor and Vivian and Dori and Ginny and Olivia and Samantha all say.
“Is who really wealthy?” Pip asks. “We need someone wealthy.”
“Healthy, Pip,” Ginny says.
“Can I join?” Mabel asks from the doorway. She’s the only one who’s been missing.
“How’s your sense of humor?” Vivian asks back.
“At least as good as Cricket’s when she caught me stuck in a beaver costume,” Mabel replies.
“Fuck, seriously?” Heath asks me.
“Oh my gosh, like a month ago,” I reply. “The weekend Ginny’s family was visiting. Did I forget to tell you that?”
“You did.”
I grin. “It was hilarious. See? I’m fully recovered from my trauma.”
I’m not fully recovered, but I’m getting closer by the day.
We started our reading of my new hate mail with me deleting all of the text messages that rolled in from my parents and sisters since the internet’s screaming about me again, this time in horror that Ava Benton’s widower would date the Cheeky Beaver.
Mabel plops a bottle of Makepeace wine on the table.
“We should quit drinking that and sell it instead,” I murmur.
“Only live once,” Mabel replies. “Go viral twice, you drink the wine.”
