Cope nodded, throwing himself into the seat next to Jude. He pulled on his seat belt and tried to catch his breath. “Wagons, roll!”
“You okay?” Jude asked. He studied his husband, who was dressed in an aqua polo shirt with grey shorts. His eyes were tired, and he was still breathing heavily. Cope looked like he’d been ridden hard and put away wet.
Cope nodded. “This week has been crazy. Several of my hardest clients came in for readings that didn’t go the way they planned them. I had to finish Wolf’s school supply shopping and thenhad to get him new sneakers because he’d outgrown the one we bought him a month ago. I don’t even know how that’s possible.”
Jude pressed a kiss to Cope’s cheek. “I’m sorry I wasn’t around as much as I would have been to help you.” Jude had taken turns with Ronan and Fitz sitting with Corny Craig as he was still recovering from his kidney transplant surgery. They’d just wrapped up the Sebastian Stark case and had some free time on their hands. Carson and Cole had been able to get back to work while the detectives stayed with thehopefullyrehabbed former con man.
“I get it. Corny wasn’t the easiest patient to deal with.”
Jude snickered. “Oh, he was plenty easy when he was sleeping or I was picking up food from Lobster Charlie’s for him and Destiny.” He had to admit he liked Corny’s pregnant wife. Once she’d realized what was at stake with Corny’s health, her bitchy attitude toward him and the other detectives had changed. Fitzgibbon helping to ease Corny’s legal troubles had also gone a long way to calm the once frantic couple.
“Dad!” Everly called from the back of the van. “We need snacks!”
“Who’s we? Do you have a mouse in your pocket?” Ronan chuckled.
“All of us.” Everly circled her fingers around all the kids.
Ronan reached across the aisle to the cooler. Popping the lid, he grabbed juice pouches, which he passed back to Jude, who passed them back to Everly. Next came little bags of fish-shaped crackers.
“Everly, can you help Lizbet with her snacks?” Jude asked.
“Yup!” Everly agreed. “Here you go, Lizzy B.”
“Shishy!” Lizbet crowed.
“Explain this again, Jude,” Fitzgibbon said from the driver’s seat. “How did you find out about this hotel?”
“I got an email from them,” Jude said. “You know how it goes—you put your name on a mailing list for an innocent male enhancement product, and the next thing you know, every Tom,Dick,and Harry has your email address.”
“Male enhancement product?” Ronan asked, turning around in his seat.
Jude shrugged. “Yeah, you know, the kind of thing that makes you bigger.”
Ronan opened his mouth looking like he had a snappy comeback but, after a whispered word from Ten, shut his lips and turned around.
“Oh, you’re a customer of Long Dongs too?” Jude crowed. He’d known all along that the pills were pure bullshit, but he had to give them a try in case they did work. It wasn’t that Jude had a small dick—he definitely didnot—but that he was in mourning for his refractory period, which had always been in the twenty- to thirty-minute range. Once he hit forty, it had grown, andnotin a good way, to over an hour.
“Long Dongs?” Jace asked, bursting out laughing.
“I didn’t need the long part,” Jude muttered.
“What part did you need?” Fitz asked, wearing a curious look.
“The regenerative part.” Jude sighed. This wasn’t exactly how he planned on his vacation going, with him as the dong of everyone’s dick jokes.
“Did it work?” Fitz asked. “Asking for a friend. The friend is me.”
“Not really. I’ve been struggling with, um—” Jude paused, not really sure he wanted to lay himself bare like this with his best friends, but if not with them, then with who?
“Round two?” Ronan suggested.
“Yeah, that,” Jude admitted, not particularly proud of himself.
“Same here,” Fitz said. “Ever since I hit forty, it’s taken longer and longer.”
Ronan raised his hand in the air. “Me too. Forty was a fucking cruel slap in the face in a lot of ways. My dick being only one of them.”
“What else is there?” Jude asked.
