“Which is what?” I ask.

“Charlene’s mother leaving is the reason the quality suffered. I think she may very well have been the pioneer of the ultimate in edible candies.”

Forty-five minutes later, Robbie is pretty much convinced this is the case. And based on his ridiculous smile, and the coveted bowl of chips he keeps stuffing in his face, I’m thinking Charlene has developed quite the tolerance for those.

He says he has to do a few more tests to make sure he’s correct, and he’d like to bring the candies back to the lab in Canada so he can compare them, but it appears as though Frank has been funding the co-op through illegal marijuana manufacturing.DARREN

All it took was one anonymous tip—I placed the call because Charlene couldn’t bring herself to do it—and Frank’s entire operation fell apart. The media were all over THC like rabid dogs. Charlene couldn’t handle watching any of it. Part of it had to do with the memories, but she worried a lot about the girls she’d grown up with, and how they would handle suddenly being thrust into a world that had changed so radically while theirs had remained narrow and isolated.

I learned a lot about how Charlene dealt with their escape, and how the internet and her mom’s job formed the basis of her sex education, which explains pretty much everything about her bedroom antics.

I couldn’t stand to see Charlene upset, so I pulled some strings and set up an anonymous fund to help the khaki ladies reintegrate into society. We were able to secure housing where they could all remain together, if that was what they wanted. Unsurprisingly, most of them opted to work at a local greenhouse facility.

Charlene’s mom decided not to participate in the Momma Domme reality show, thank fuck, and instead she took an external consulting role with Robbie’s Lab, which pays well enough that she decided she would retire from being a career Dominatrix, except for a couple of her favorite clients, anyway.

But the best news came at the end of June—well, it was the best news for me, but not for King, our goalie, who ended up traded in the expansion draft. This means I have two years left with Chicago, and then we’ll see what happens after that. I won’t take Charlene away from Chicago or the people she loves, so if they don’t renew my contract, I’ll retire. Alex knows that, my agent knows that, and most importantly, Charlene knows that.

I climb the steps to my front door and key in the code, having just finished a morning workout with Alex. We’ll be getting together again later in the afternoon for a barbeque at his place.

“Charlene? I’m home!” I smile a little. The new-car smell hasn’t worn off on saying that in the month since she moved in.

I wait for her reply, but all I get is silence. Her car is in the garage—her new car, the one I bought for her as a move-in gift—so she has to be around here somewhere. Excessive? Maybe, but it’s a nice car, and she deserves nice things for putting up with my shit on a daily basis.

I drop my hockey bag by the laundry room door and head for the living room. Sometimes she listens to music while she reads or works in her chair, but she’s not there. I find her in the kitchen—she is wearing ear buds—concentrating on something.

I pull one of the buds free and she startles, nearly falling off her stool.

“You know we have a whole house sound system. You could save your hearing and some heart palpitations if you used that to rock out to…” I lift the bud to my ear to catch the tune. “Madonna?”

She snatches the ear bud from me. “It’s retro.”

I smile at her pink cheeks and survey the counter. “What’s all this?” The surface is covered in various candies and boxes of Fruit Roll-Ups. Maybe she’s been into her candy stash and has the munchies or something.

Charlene claps her hands together excitedly. “I thought we could try something new!”

I raise a brow. Since moving in, Charlene has started pulling out the I thought I might like it but I changed my mind toy box. Fifty percent of the time she decides she still hasn’t changed her mind, but the other half . . . well, let’s just say it’s been a stimulating transition.

I motion to the array of candies. “You want a sugar high before we have sex?”

She purses her lips, then licks them as her eyes dart around. She squares her shoulders, apparently finding her resolve. This should be interesting.

“No. I thought maybe we could play dress up.”

I look at her and then the counter, trying to figure out what the fuck she’s talking about. “I don’t get it. What are we dressing up?”