Page 33 of A Very Happy Thanksgiving
“If you keep on with the rudeness, I won’t bring you any more pineapple.”
“My apologies—I’ll admit we could have been kidnapped by worse people. How long until the video gets uploaded?”
“Ten minutes? Twenty? They’re just finishing up the edits. This had better work.”
“I’m sure the good folks in the Indonesian government don’t want a diplomatic incident on their hands. Have you tried grilling the pineapple with a little sugar? It tastes much better that way.”
“I don’t think my dentist would agree with you.”
“This could be our last night on earth. Who’s worried about cavities?”
Katie rolled her eyes. “Fine, you’ll have to show me what to do. What do you want with the pineapple? We have nasi goreng or bubur ketan hitam.”
“The second one is that gloopy black porridge?” Serena asked.
“It actually tastes better than it looks.”
“No, it really doesn’t. Let’s go with the nasi goreng. I don’t like slimy stuff in my mouth.”
Phae would have made a joke about that, a joke that was probably inappropriate and definitely dirty. In Nebraska, the age of consent was sixteen, and they’d taken full advantage of it—her decision, not his. Marc would have waited. Back then, he would’ve worn a cock cage and given her the only key if she’d asked him to.
And now? Now, he saw what he hadn’t fully understood as a jumped-up twenty-three-year-old—that Phae was the kind of woman who came along once in a lifetime, the soulmate you did everything in your power to keep. He’d walk to the ends of the earth, fly to the moon, to Mars, to wake up next to her again.
But instead, Marc was sharing a mattress with Serena and dinner with a strange bunch of kidnappers. He just had to make the best of it.
CHAPTER 13
Phae
Marc’s and Serena’s lives were at stake, and this weapons-grade asshole had flown to Thailand to get laid.
We’d followed McDonald to the Bang Rak district, to the area informally known as Patpong Four, a street filled with gaudy bars and too many tourists, although it wasn’t as busy as its more established neighbours, Patpongs One, Two, and Three.
He wasn’t wearing a suit tonight. No, he looked as if he’d taken a wrong turn out of the country club in linen pants and a golf shirt. More interesting was his entourage, or rather, the lack of one. Tonight, a single bodyguard walked in his shadow.
“He’s up to something,” Emmy whispered as she righted a drunk woman who stumbled into her.
“Agreed.”
There was only one reason a man like Lonnie McDonald would leave most of his security back at the hotel. He didn’t want witnesses to whatever he was about to do. Music assaulted our ears, a cacophony of competing electro-pop as each bar tried to outdo the next. The flashing lights were a person with epilepsy’s worst nightmare.
“Why do I suddenly feel old?” Emmy asked.
“Because we both aged out of this shit a decade ago.” I glanced across at her. “Maybe two decades for you.”
“Fuck you too. I’m only six years older than you are.” Emmy grimaced as a trio of idiots in shorts and soccer shirts nearly mowed her down. “Six-ish.”
“Ish?”
“The age on my driving licence might not be my actual age.”
“So you’re seven years older? Eight?”
“Seriously?” She peered into the ornate mirror over the credenza. “I barely even have wrinkles.”
It was true; she didn’t. And she arguably looked younger than me, what with all the cosmetic surgery her billionaire husband had probably paid for, but I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of admitting that. When I opened my mouth, she held up a hand.
“Don’t. Just don’t.”
