“Mr. Tremont, I presume?”

“The Viking, I presume?”

The Viking smiled and Cyrus knew he’d seen this man somewhere before… It came to him—this was the guy arm-wrestling Kingsley Edge in the photograph on Edge’s mantel. Didn’t have the beard in the picture, though.

The blond held out his hand to shake. Cyrus took it, a little apprehensively, worried this was the sort of big guy who had to prove how tough he was by crushing fingers. But no. While firm and confident, the handshake didn’t hurt.

Cyrus stepped into the room. He figured the Viking explained Nora’s good mood. He saw an unmade bed in the other room, clothes on the floor, his and hers. Cyrus felt a pang of jealousy. Two more months, he told himself. He just had to make it two more months until the wedding.

“Is that Cyrus?” Nora’s voice came from behind a half-closed bathroom door.

“I assume so,” the Viking said, raising his voice so she could hear him through the door.

“Nora?” Cyrus called to her. “I just need to show you this thing really quick. Then I’ll leave you two alone.”

“Show the Viking. If he doesn’t know what it is, neither will I.”

Cyrus heard water sloshing in the bathtub. Reluctantly, he pulled the Nike duffel bag off his shoulder and unzipped the it.

“Well?” Nora called again from the bathroom. “What is it?”

“A male chastity device,” the Viking said loud enough for Nora to hear in the bathroom.

“There’s your answer, Cyrus. You’re welcome.”

Cyrus cleared his throat. “You can’t just tell me it’s a…that…and then expect me not to have follow-up questions.”

“What kind of chastity device is it?” Nora called out from the bathroom. “A PA-5000? A CB-6000? Custom?”

“That I don’t know,” the Viking said. “That’s your area of expertise, not mine. And I’d rather not touch it.”

“Can you bring it in here, Cyrus?” Nora asked.

“Are you dressed?”

“No, but it’s a bubble bath. You can’t see anything.”

Cyrus looked at the bathroom door and back at the Viking, at the door, at the Viking. The Viking only gestured with his coffee cup toward the door as if it were the most natural thing in the world for a man to let another man hang out in the bathroom with his girlfriend.

Cyrus generally tried to avoid making big sweeping generalizations about groups of people, but he was starting to get the feeling kinky people were a little on the eccentric side.

“So I should just go in?” Cyrus said to the Viking.

“You were invited,” the Viking said.

“All right. Going in. I’ll just take this bag of Satan’s toys with me.”

The Viking grinned behind his cup of coffee. Cyrus went to the bathroom door and leaned in a little while rapping one knuckle lightly on the frame.

“Nora?”

“Come on in. Show me what you’ve got.”

She hadn’t been kidding. The bathtub was full of bubbles that covered her all the way to her neck.