Alien in the House

wanted me to like Brewer, though I’d resisted all the “couples date” ideas Jeff had forwarded. They did the manly handshake-hug-backslap thing and Jeff’s smile looked genuine.
    Jeff had also tried to get me to hang out with Nathalie, but while she was, after Armstrong and Elaine, the least objectionable member of the Cabal to me, I couldn’t get past the adultery thing. I didn’t want to talk about her sleeping with Eugene, I didn’t want pretend I didn’t remember that she was sleeping with Eugene, I didn’t want to hear about why she was sleeping with Eugene, and I saw no way to avoid any of this if she and I went to lunch or tea or whatever. So whenever Nathalie tried to set something up, I had Pierre explain how busy, busy, busy I was.
    “You’re a vision, Ambassador Martini,” Brewer said to me after he and my husband had finished being all Washington Gangsta.
    “So are you,” Nathalie purred at Jeff.
    My mind chose this moment to note that Lydia, like Nathalie, was giving my husband goo-goo eyes. Brewer was giving me an appraising up and down glance. Eugene looked bitterly at Jeff and Brewer, then shot me a Sad Panda look.
    My mind chose this moment to query as to whether I thought Lydia was hitting on my husband, suggesting a foursome, or, just for grins and giggles, if perhaps she knew about Eugene’s affair and wanted to go for a Tri-Couple Tournament. My mind also wanted to know if the Brewers might be thinking the same thing. Sometimes I hated my mind.
    Before I’d met the Cabal of Evil I’d never entertained thoughts like this. Sadly, so many of them had suggested so many different “fun” ideas during Operation Assassination that I now associated them equally with World Domination Dreams and Triple-X Porn.
    While I wondered if brain bleach really existed, Eugene moped at me and Lydia and Nathalie continued to check Jeff out. Brewer continued to do the same with me while talking to Jeff about wine and how Christmas differed in D.C. from California—not as much snow in Brewer’s part of California was the shocking reveal. Jeff shared the equally shocking news that it was the same in our parts of Arizona and New Mexico. Wondered if they had some Bro-Coded Message thing going, or if they were both somehow enjoying this conversation.
    Right before I was ready to call the Poofs and ask them to eat everyone, the evening got just that much better. Guy Gadoire and his husband, Vance Beaumont, moved into the salon and shoved Eugene aside.
    Gadoire was a lobbyist for the tobacco industry. Vance spent his time lounging around in fashion-forward outfits ripped right out of the pages of
GQ
. Unlike Reader, he didn’t carry them off perfectly, but he made do. To say they weren’t my favorite couple was, potentially, the understatement of the year.
    “My darling Missus Martini,” Gadoire said as he grabbed the hand I wasn’t offering and did his customary slobber-fest that passed for kissing in his world. Gadoire spoke in a French accent all of us were sure was faked—he sounded far more like Pepé Le Pew than Maurice Chevalier. He didn’t possess an iota of the charm either one of those famous French actors had, either. That Nathalie hadn’t called him on his faking being from her native country was either a testament to her kindness or lack of interest.
    “All Over the World” by ELO ended and “Sexy and I Know It” from good old LMFAO came on. I knew I hadn’t put it onto the mix, so I assumed Kyle had told Walter to play it in honor of “Monsieur Love” as I called Gadoire in private. Made a mental note to hurt Kyle later while I did my best to control the Inner Hyena.
    Somehow during Operation Destruction Gadoire and Vance had convinced Senator Armstrong and themselves that they were my besties. They still seemed to believe it, all evidence of my dislike to the contrary.
    Vance broke protocol, pulled me away from Guy, and gave me a big hug. “Kitty, you look gorgeous.”
    Before I could escape or reply, Vance bent down and whispered in my ear. “Something’s going on, something bad, and I think we’re all in danger.”



CHAPTER 13
    T HE LAST TIME Vance had shared a dramatic “we’re all gonna die” message with me had been during Operation Assassination. He’d actually been right, even though it had been a ploy to get me to “share a bed of love” with him and Gadoire.
    I didn’t get a chance to ask Vance any questions, though, because Senator Zachary Kramer and