Page 118 of Priceless

(DEVIL’S BRUSHES)

MEANING: CONFUSION; WEALTH

EVERETT

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Iwatched my wife explore the penthouse of the hotel with an enthusiasm I’d never seen from her. She was giddy. Looking in the closets and drawers, exclaiming at all the things she’s found.

“There’s makeup in here,” she gasped from one of the bathrooms. “Like literal, actual makeup. It even looks like it might match my skin tone. It’s not pale. What fucking magic is this?”

The magic was that this was a five-star hotel. On the coast of the capital city of Grecia, Thenos, with a view of the ocean on one side and a city—complete with the mountaintop ruins in the center—on the other. Though we hadn’t been here in years, they knew who we were and did whatever they could to make our stay pleasant. Including getting makeup for our wife, her colors supplied by the makeup artist we’d used for the Extasis event.

A squeal of joy came from the direction of the pseudo-nest in the corner of the top floor suite. I locked eyes with Cameron, unable to contain my smile. Her joy was contagious, and I wanted more of it. All of it.

But Micah knelt in front of the trunk of sex toys Cameron had delivered, frowning. The wand that Micah and I had found broken beside the bed in Venisi was in his hand. “If you pushed that hard, I’m not surprised it broke.”

Cam shook his head. “That’s the thing. I wasn’t pushing that hard. The reason it pushed Ocean over the edge like that is because she was already so blissed out. I ate her out and used this one first.” He pointed to the small toy that curled in a swirling shape but used suction and vibration. “It was because her body was so overloaded. I didn’t even have it on the highest setting. I might have tried that if it hadn’t died.”

Now Micah was following his gaze, his expression changing to the one he wore when he dove into a design problem. “More than died. It looked like it had cracked.”

“Yeah.” Cam nodded, setting the toy on the bed. “The head was like… dangling.”

I crossed to him and picked the wand up. We’d seen all the toys before during development and when the designs were approved. This felt different. Lighter than I remembered.

“What the hell?” Cameron muttered, looking at his phone. “Something is wrong.”

“What?”

He shook his head, scrolling through something. “I decided to look, just to see. There’s already reviews coming in for the new line. It’s not just a fluke, the toys are breaking. So far, lots of anger and disappointment. Saying that things feel cheaper than they have in the past. I need to call Trish.” Our head of marketing.

“I just thought when I picked this up that it was lighter than I remembered.”

Micah took it from me, eyebrows rising. “Agreed. That feels way lighter.”

Ocean walked past from where she’d been, heading into the suite’s spacious kitchen, clearly on a mission.

If the launch was floundering it needed to be addressed, but this was also our honeymoon. Our wife wouldn’t mind if we had to take care of things. She understood. But I wasn’t going to let her joy suffer because of this.

“I’m going to take her to the ruins,” I said, nodding to Cameron. “Just the two of us. It’ll give you a chance to talk to Trish and get ahead of this in any way you can. And?—”

“And I’m going to figure out why the hell it feels like the whole body of this is made from heavy plastic and not metal,” Micah said.

While he didn’t directly design the machines, he was still in charge of their appearance. And he worked closely with the specialists and engineers to create the products. He would know what needed to be asked. Their expertise was more needed here than mine.

Plus, I was selfish.

I wanted to spend time with my wife. Bask in the glow that she gave off simply because she was happy. She was so excited to see the ruins, and though we couldn’t see them all today, it was a good start.

“That’s a good idea,” Cameron said. “I want to go with you, but…”

But a poor launch, especially because of product dissatisfaction, could do irreparable damage to the brand and spread like an infection. No one had to say it out loud. We prided ourselves on being luxury. Especially with Extasis. Yes, our products were expensive, but they were also the best. If people didn’t value that reputation? It would crumble into nothing.

Something tingled at the back of my mind, but it was fuzzy. Like a camera that was blurry. An image I was getting, but wasn’t quite seeing clearly.

“We’ll leave you to it.”

I found my wife out on the balcony facing the water that shared her name. The wind off the sea blew her hair back and she closed her eyes, letting the sun warm her skin.

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