Title: Affection Multiplier App: The Boyfriend
By: BreaktheBar
Chapter 325
“Fuck me,” I grunted, pulling my socks and shoes on after drying off my feet.
“Gladly,” Cattie said. “Drop your pants, Tiger.”
I snorted and shook my head, standing back up straight. “If only.”
“Alright,” Becca said. “Robbie and Cattie, you guys go that way along the waterline, Terra and JC go straight out, and we’ll go this way to split the difference. We know they left in this general direction. Ten minutes out, then turn around and come back. We don’t want any of us getting lost either, and they could come back while we’re out looking.”
I had argued that Becca should stay with the boats, but she’d overruled me and I understood why. She was teamed up with Wanda, who along with Terra and JC were the most athletic of the group. The other ladies would hold down the fort and try calling us if Heather and Sherry did show up.
There wasn’t much more to say, so we all checked our phones to note the time and set out. Cattie and I were following the path we’d seen Heather and Sherry first leave, but we didn’t know when they might have cut inland looking for a place to shoot so we tried to stay fairly close to the waterline. About a minute into the hike, Cattie grunted.
“Scale of one to ten,” I said. “How angry are you?”
“Eight,” she said after a moment of thought. “Maybe eight point five. I mean, they are both adults. Unless one of them got bitten by something poisonous or they’ve been kidnapped by cannibal mutants that live out in the rocks, I can’t think of what stupid thing would be keeping them.”
“OK,” I said, taking her hand since we were crossing a fairly flat area. I gave it a squeeze. “And on a scale of one to ten, how worried are you?”
“Twelve,” Cattie muttered. “I’m still so fucking pissed and disgusted with her, but Sherry is still my little sister. I can’t turn off the worry even if I’m trying to accept I can’t protect her from her own shitty decisions. Heather can fucking die and get eaten by vultures, though.”
I coughed to try and cover my chuckle. “That’s fair,” I said. “I don’t think I could ever stop worrying about my sister.”
“Tell me about her,” Cattie said. “I knew you had one, and Cassidy thinks she’s great, but I don’t know anything.”
“Well, she’s younger than me by three years,” I said. “She’s finishing her last year of a Communications degree and wants to get into guerrilla journalism, which scares the shit out of me of where she might end up going. But she has a dream. She’s also a lesbian and has a new girlfriend that she gushes about whenever we talk.”
“That’s nice,” Cattie said with a smile. “Is she butch or femme?”
“Femme,” I said. “Very femme. And apparently so is her girlfriend—like femme punk tomboy, I think my sister said.”
“What will she think of us?” Cattie asked.
“I think she’ll love you,” I told her, needing to let go of her hand as we got to a rocky area and we needed to check our balance. “Hell, I think she’ll love each of you individually. I also think she’ll think Cassidy and I are crazy, and then she’ll give me a bunch of shit about being a cult leader or something. She’ll accept it when she sees us all together though and meets at least a few of you.”
“Same thing, or different for your parents?” Cattie asked. I could tell she was trying to keep herself distracted.
“I don’t know for sure,” I said. “If it was just you? I think my parents would be a little worried at the strangeness of it but would accept it. All of you ladies though? I really don’t know. Supportive eventually, I hope. Are you worried about your parents?”
“My Mom is going to be thrilled I broke up with Heather,” Cattie sighed. “And worried about the fact that I jumped right into something new. But she’s had her own relationship issues and isn’t in any place to judge. I don’t really care what my father would think.”
“You know,” I said, coming up behind her as she stopped just ahead of me, standing on a big rock and looking out for any sign of the two missing models. “I think I might be in love with you, Catherine.”
She turned, taking my hand as she looked into my eyes. She’d scrubbed her delicate, Disney-fied makeup off and was bare-faced, still looking gorgeous to me. “I think I might be in love with you too. Master.” The last bit was said with a teasing smirk.
I kissed her lightly, then checked my phone. “Another few minutes,” I said.
We walked and chatted a little bit more about the people in our lives. I only had a few coworkers I would really care about knowing since they were friends, and the rest I’d rather not know just for the sake of being out of the rumour mill. Cattie had some old friends from high school she was still in contact with who would need to be updated at some point—she was definitely the wild child in the group though, so her coming out as being in a poly harem relationship would just be another blip in a long line of blips on their friendship radar.
It was about one minute off from the ten-minute turn-around that Cattie stopped again, frowning as she cocked her head to the side. “Does that look like what I think it does?” she asked me, pointing up ahead.
We moved closer and found the colourful piece of clothing was a bikini top, hanging from a scraggly bush right near the water.
“That’s definitely Sherry’s,” Cattie groaned, pursing her lips and shaking her head. She picked it up and bundled it into her fits. “My sister is walking around topless in the desert with my Ex. Not the worst thing she’s done, but definitely up there on the stupid scale.”
“The big question is why leave it there?” I asked. “Do you think it was a breadcrumb or something?”
“I hope not,” Cattie said, then sighed. “Jesus, these two. This is obviously evidence they came this way—can you call back to the boats and tell them we found a clue and are going to set out from here a bit more?”
“Sure,” I said, pulling my phone. Thankful we still had service next to the water. I quickly dialled up Cassidy. “Any idea which way they went?” I asked as it connected and started to ring.
Cattie sighed and shook her head again. It was tough to say.
* * *