“Let’s sweeten the pot. First one to bite it, we’re gonna take it out on their ass.”

More drunken shouts of agreement, even though most of us had zero idea what we were agreeing to.

Steele raised his hand again. “Bite what—monogamy?”

We all stared at each other and roared with laughter. Was this guy for real?

“Yup,” Ziggy said.

“How will we determine if someone has bitten it? And who chooses the penalty?”

More eye-rolling and groans and snickering.

“Don’t know. We’ll decide when we need to.”

“But—” Steele still took issue with our lack of clear rules.

Kaden emptied the last of the pitcher into his glass and took a long swallow before answering, “Whatever. We don’t need rules. We’re having fun here.”

“Hear! Hear!” Axel raised his glass, and we did another toast. Steele didn’t ask any more dumb-assed questions, so I guess he was mollified.

We toasted one more time. I guzzled the last of my beer and looked to the future. Life was fucking good.

Chapter Three

A World Turned Upside Down

~~Caroline~~

The first week of October, Fran called me over to her house. The results had arrived.

When I got there, Fran was pacing back and forth in front of the desk in the den, and Howard was seated in front of the monitor. The screen was dark. He had the patience of a saint and was solid as a rock.

He winked at me and indicated one of the chairs placed in a semicircle in front of the monitor. “Are you ready for this?”

I nodded and slumped into my seat. Fran sat next to me, fidgeting. I clasped my hands in my lap so tightly my fingernails dug into my palms, but the pain didn’t distract me. I was edgy and nervous for reasons I couldn’t explain. I didn’t know Mark’s biological relatives, and there was nothing to worry about, but worrying was my middle name.

“Did you peek?” I asked them.

Howard gave me one of those looks that said, I can’t believe you’re asking me this. Fran shook her head.

“He wouldn’t let me,” Fran said.

“All right then.” Howard woke up the computer and navigated to the home page of the genealogy app. He logged in. “I took the liberty of reading through their instructions. Let’s jump right to the meat of the matter. We’ll review the closest DNA matches to see what we can find. Everyone ready?”

I chewed on my lower lip, and Fran gripped the arms of her chair. We both nodded.

Whatever was inside had the possibility of profoundly affecting my twins’ lives, and I hoped we were doing the right thing. As my grandmother used to say, sometimes it was best to let sleeping dogs lie. What if we awoke not just a dog but a monster? What if my twins’ grandfather was a criminal? Or even worse, a serial killer? My imagination took hold and threatened to run wild. I forcibly tamped it down.