Page 1 of The Best Trick

ONE

The four of us were sitting on the very fabulous and plush outdoor furniture on the grand patio of our Northern California woodland Airbnb hideaway when the call came in.

Or maybe I should say that Thor and Odin were sitting; I was lying between the two of them with my head on Odin’s lap and my feet on Thor’s lap, a favorite configuration of mine.

Thor was massaging my feet.

Odin was feeding me the occasional champagne grape, my favorite kind of grape, what with that bright burst of flavor.

And Zeus was sprawled in the big patio chair, which we’d taken to calling his daddy throne, watching with lazy satisfaction, because he loved when things were right with us almost as much as he loved making things right.

Everything stopped when Zeus’s phone did its chirpy little tone.

We all came to attention; I even partly sat up. It really was weird when a call came in, being that we cycled through new burner phones every month.

Who would call us?

Zeus grabbed the phone off the rough-hewn outdoor coffee table and answered it. He listened to whatever the caller was saying with a thoughtful expression, then, “That is a really tempting offer, yes…yes…no, we have a shindig in L.A. we’re committed to.” The person on the other end talked some more and Zeus nodded and mumbled more thanks.

Of course we weren’t committed to any shindig in L.A., and we never would be. A major part of the job description for “internationally wanted fugitives” was tonotlet people know where you'd be ahead of time. We would never commit to anything or RSVP to anything, and we hardly even ever attended parties, unless you considered traveling the world, robbing banks, having group sex, and staying in posh hotels while solving the occasional mystery to be a party.

Which, if I'm going to be honest, could very much be a party at times.

“What was that all about?” Odin asked when Zeus ended the call.

“The owners had the next week suddenly come available and were asking if we wanted to stay on.”

“And you said no?” Odin asked, sounding a bit outraged.

“Of course, I said no,” Zeus said.

“We love this place,” Odin said.

Zeus gave him a hard look. “Yet we've been here ten days already.”

The four of us had solemnly agreed never to stay more than ten days at a place.

To be fair, at the time we agreed on that rule, we'd just narrowly escaped grisly deaths at the hands of Denko, our mortal enemy. There’s nothing like narrowly escaping a grisly death to make you get serious about safety measures.

“Maybe so, but this is one of the safest places we've ever been,” Odin said. “And one of the best. A few more days. We could at least discuss it.”

I waited to see what Zeus would say, because I, too, loved this place.

A lot.

It was rare that we felt truly safe for long stretches of time, but this place was out in the middle of nowhere surrounded by trees as tall as skyscrapers, making for a “highly defensive layout,” as Zeus called it. Even the birds helped in our defense, being that they started chittering when there was any kind of weirdness out there—an amazing alarm system, even better than Odin, who was always so wildly hyperaware of our surroundings.

The nature was spectacular—we saw moose and deer and even a few bears. There were definitely lots of woodland animals around, not the least of which were Thor, Zeus, and Odin, when we got to re-enacting my very favorite cartoon porn fantasies. I'm happy to report that playing out a torrid capture fantasy never got old, even though it always ended in the same way.

Moreover, it was one of the poshest places ever—surprising, I know, considering we stayed at the finest hotels in the world, and also surprising considering the fact that there was not even a hot tub on the premises. But it was like a beautifully furnished Cabela’s, and that suited us at the moment.

The guys and I had gotten into mountain biking around the mountainside. After a number of races and challenges, Thor was the champ in the category of long-distance mountain biking, meaning that he had the best endurance; however, Zeus held the award of fastest mountain biker—he had the most explosive athletic power, what with his tree-trunk legs and incredible muscles. And if there had been an award for the most creative mountain biker, Odin and I would’ve shared that, considering how often we snuck out of the races to hang out and enjoy the scenery or take a naked dip in one of the pristine mountain streams.

The four of us would spend our nights grilling elaborate feasts, which we’d devour on the porch that overlooked rugged mountains. Then we’d go on to devour each other, and I don't mean that in a praying mantis way.

“Why not cancel the next place and pay the penalty?” Odin asked.

“We'd be breaking our ten-day rule,” Zeus said.

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