Page 1 of The Spite Date (Small Town Sisterhood #1)

BAD LUCK AND THE BURGER BUS

Beatrice Best, aka a lady who’s just over it

The first time I sat inside a jail cell was a few months after my parents died. A lot of that initial time after the fire was a blur, but I distinctly remember Mrs. Camille being there, which meant that Hudson, my youngest brother, had to still be in fourth grade.

The spring of his Mrs. Camille year.

Every kid in Athena’s Rest remembers their Mrs. Camille year. A kid who has her as his teacher when he’s suddenly a homeless orphan remembers it even more.

Some of us even do stupid things like decide to date one of her sons years later and subject ourselves to her all over again.

But I digress.

Jail cell.

Mrs. Camille.

Hudson.

I was locked up behind bars because Mrs. Camille had looked down her nose at me during the fourth grade field trip to the police station—she loved giving the children a glimpse of their future if they didn’t behave—and she said something like that one looks like she belongs in jail .

Hudson had laughed like it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard—his big sister was nothing if not the last person on earth who would ever break any laws—and since laughter was sparse in our family in those months after the funeral, I sucked up my fear of confined spaces and let Mrs. Camille and the officer lock me inside a jail cell.

I handed my phone over to my baby brother, and pictures of me as a jailbird were the prominent feature of the Christmas cards I designed but forgot to send that year.

It was a private memento of what I assumed would be my last foray into the bowels of the Athena’s Rest temporary holding facility.

I was mistaken.

And now, at the end of a very bad week, here I am again.

In a small jail cell.

With one fluorescent light flickering overhead, the smell of sweat and urine and hangover lingering in the air, and smears of I-don’t-want-to-know-what on the concrete floor.

Also?

I’m trying not to hyperventilate over being stuck in the old, tiny cell with cinder block walls on three-and-a-half sides, no window, and only a door-width of metal bars facing a cinder block wall across the tight hallway.

Oh, and I need to pee.

“C’mon, Logan,” I call to the officer at the end of the short hallway, trying to keep the panic out of my voice. “You know you don’t have reason to hold me, which means I have reason to tell the entire town you arrested me so you could try to jump your little brother’s leftovers in prison.”

Logan Camille.

Yeah.

That Mrs. Camille’s oldest son is now a police officer, and he’s just like her.

Which is to say that while half the community thinks he’s the best police officer to ever walk the beat here in Athena’s Rest, New York, in my experience, he’s a power-hungry nightmare who loves scaring children, the elderly, and the weak of heart.

As is Jake, his brother, who’s also directly to blame for my shitty week and now indirectly to blame for me being behind bars.

It’s an indirect blame that takes two or three squirrely twists and one minor logic leap to get to, but you still arrive here.

Though it’s fairer to say that Jake’s favorite actor on the entire planet is directly responsible, and yes, that’s the complete, honest truth, which prompts the question—how, exactly, is this my life?

And why am I on the bad side of it?

Logan ignores me.

I shift to the right angle to see him sitting at a metal desk at the other end of the hallway, his feet propped up as he bites into a jelly donut.

Need to pee so bad . And also find fresh air, and lots of it. “The only reason Daphne never told the captain about your little indiscretion at the lake was because I was dating your brother. No reason for her to not spill the beans now.”

He snorts as a glop of red jelly squeezes out of his donut on his second bite and drops onto his navy-blue uniform shirt, along with a spray of powdered sugar knocked off the donut by his snort. “No one believes anything Daphne says.”

“Your mother does.”

Ironic, but true.

The take-no-bullshit, should-see-a-proctologist-about-how-far-that-stick-is-wedged-up-her-ass Mrs. Camille loves my best friend and roommate and fawns over her every time they cross paths.

Maybe it’s because she doesn’t know Daphne’s been disinherited from her hotel-chain family and Mrs. Camille is hoping to get a slice of the family pie, which honestly seems unlikely because Daph hardly keeps that information private.

Maybe it’s because Mrs. Camille secretly wants to get tattoos and mermaid-inspired dye jobs.

I think it’s most likely that Mrs. Camille wants Daphne to costar in one of the local theater productions so that her name brings in a bigger audience, but my brothers and Daph all laugh whenever I say it.

But also, see again, half the community thinks the Camilles are wonderful, and I think a good part of the rest don’t have an opinion.

“One phone call, and Daph will spill the beans,” I say.

Logan eyes me.

I stare back without blinking while trying to not let him see how fast I’m breathing.

He realizes I’m not blinking, and he straightens and stares back at me harder.

Dammmmmmit .

Now?

Seriously, a staring contest now ? With a guy who’s almost a decade older than I am?

When I have a hundred pounds of fish in danger of rotting outside in my food truck and I have to pee and I’m barely holding off a panic attack?

He rises and saunters down the hallway, eyes glued to mine.

Yep.

Apparently we’re doing this now.

“I could file a complaint against you for unnecessary force and harassment,” I threaten.

He keeps chewing on his donut and doesn’t answer.

“C’mon, Logan. I gave you all of the documentation. I was supposed to be there.”

“No, you weren’t.”

“I had every reason to believe I was.” Don’t let him see you squeeze your legs together, Bea. Do not let him see you squeeze your legs together .

He stops on the other side of the bars. “You know what I think? I think you set up the fake email account and booked the party yourself.”

If I weren’t staving off a panic attack, I’d roll my eyes at the idiotic suggestion that I booked a fake party so I could try to invade Athena’s Rest’s famous new resident’s estate.

And if I didn’t have to pee so badly that I was afraid my bladder was about to burst, I’d roll my eyes harder at the way Logan misuses the air quotes and puts them around yourself instead of around party .

“Why would I do that?” I ask him.

“Because you wanted to break into Simon Luckwood’s house and meet him like the stalker that you are.”

While my eyes are floating because of how badly I have to pee, his eyes are starting to water, and if I can see that from here, I’m about to win the staring contest.

Little victories.

I live for them.

They’re all I get ever since his brother stole my dreams and dumped me.

“I don’t have any interest in Simon Luckwood.”

He snorts. “ Liar .”

I’m never getting out of here. “Even if I did, do you honestly think I set up a fake credit card that paid me and a fake email account to book a party and a fake voice on the other end of the phone line that confirmed Simon Luckwood wanted my burger bus at his house?”

“Yes.”

After I get out of here and can breathe again, I sincerely hope he and I are put against each other in pickleball this summer because I will fucking destroy him.

Specifically his gonads.

With my pickleball.

How can one family in town be allowed to torment so many of us and never pay for it?

Oh, right.

Because they also volunteer for everything and smile just right for the cameras and have this perfect public image that you don’t realize is a facade until you make your way into their inner circle.

And really, most parents in Athena’s Rest don’t mind that Mrs. Camille is, as they put it, a commanding presence in the classroom .

Love requires good boundaries and all that.

“Do you know how much it’s cost me to replace everything your brother stole from me when we broke up?”

He smirks.

No, a pickleball to his gonads will be too good for him.

I need something else.

Daphne will have ideas.

I keep my eyes trained on him, still not blinking, barely managing to not cross my legs and make it obvious how much overall discomfort I’m in.

“And you’ll never make detective if you can’t piece together that, with my credit cards already stretched to the limit and nothing but a new business to show for it, there’s not a bank in the world that will authorize me for a random extra throwaway credit card with a limit high enough to book myself for a party at a place I don’t even want to go to. ”

He points at me with the donut. “And there’s your fatal mistake. Again. Everyone loves Simon, and everyone wants to see what he’s done with the old place. You’re lying, and you are busted .”

“Did you know that getting donut dust in your eyeballs can make you go blind? And that when you go blind, you can’t masturbate anymore?

Everyone knows masturbating too much makes you go blind, but no one ever talks about how the reverse is also true.

The ability to pop a woody is controlled by the same nerves that control your eyeballs. ”

He shifts a glance at his half-eaten donut, then squeezes his bloodshot eyes closed. “That’s not true.”

I blink too while he’s not watching. “I raised three boys, Logan. I had to know these things to keep them safe.”

“You’re threatening an officer of the law.”

“When your boss sees the shitty work you did to put me in a jail cell because of a stupid grudge, he’s going to put you on administrative leave. You might even lose your badge.”

He smirks again. “You know absolutely nothing about how the law works.”

“Considering I’m sitting in a jail cell for doing nothing wrong, it’s pretty clear you don’t either.”

“Big words from someone who couldn’t even make it through a full year of college.”

That one lands, and I suck in a breath that I feel the exact wrong way in my bladder.

The tiny bit of control I’ve had over my breathing and my panic attack recedes, and my fingers and toes tingle in warning.

I’m going to wet myself and hyperventilate.

The fish I bought for the private party that Simon Luckwood booked my food truck for will go bad.

The last thing I saw before Logan slapped cuffs on me was a notification on my phone from my bank that the payment Simon Luckwood made for that party had been reported as fraud.

And every single day, someone else tells me that my ex is finally about to open the restaurant he more or less stole from me when we broke up.

“ Camille . Shut the fuck up.” The door slams, and a very large, very intimidating man strolls through the door as Logan jerks backward, hopefully hitting his head on the wall behind him.

“Ms. Best,” Chief says.

I breathe through my fury and panic and overfull bladder and somehow manage to pretend I’m fine as I finger-wave at him. “Chief.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Being harassed by my ex-boyfriend’s brother.”

Chief Sosa’s cheek twitches.

He and I could be on a first-name basis, but he hires officers like Logan, and my brothers weren’t exactly saints while I was finishing raising them, even if they never ended up in jail.

I’m still not convinced Hudson won’t do something to legitimately land himself exactly where I am before he’s out of college and fully off my responsibility list, so I keep the chief at arm’s length.

Even if I’ve wanted to hug him a million times since the fire.

His kindness and support, especially in the early days, helped me get through.

“She’s—” Logan starts, but I interrupt him.

“My burger bus and I were booked to do a secret menu party at Simon Luckwood’s place, but when I showed up, his security freaked out, said I wasn’t supposed to be there, and they had me arrested.

Look in my phone. I have email exchanges and records of a phone call to verify it was real, plus a receipt with Simon Luckwood’s name on the credit card that paid me.

It’s since been reported as fraud, and I have a really good guess as to what happened, but I didn’t break in.

I had the code. I had every reason to believe I was supposed to be there. ”

Believe me. Believe me and let me out to pee and breathe.

The chief looks between me and Logan. “Did you look at her phone?” he asks Logan.

Logan’s chair creaks as he straightens even more. “Chief, you know she’s a liar. Look at all the stuff she spewed about my brother when they broke up. Calling Jake a thief? Come on. We all know Jake’s not a thief.”

“But did you check her phone ?” the chief repeats.

“Chief, she can fake that stuff.”

“Do you know who else can fake that stuff?”

“Boys,” I answer for him.

As if I didn’t have enough reasons to dislike Simon Luckwood, the fact that I’m nearly positive his sons are why this all happened makes me dislike him even more.

You don’t leave thirteen-year-old boys to their own devices during their summer break.

I should know.

I went through two of my brothers’ thirteen-year-old stage as their primary parental figure.

Doesn’t matter how sweet and kind and good they might be most of the time, they still have thirteen-year-old-boy brains.

“Boys,” the chief agrees. “Mr. Luckwood has twin teenage boys. And what do teenage boys with too much free time and access to an unlimited credit card like to do?”

“I can answer the first part of that, but my brothers never had access to an unlimited credit card, so they never got a woman thrown in jail for planning a party they didn’t tell me about.” My voice is getting higher and tighter, and I can hear the panic in it.

But Logan is turning an uncomfortable shade of burgundy.

The chief growls at him. “Release her and be nice . We can’t afford a lawsuit.”

“Neither can she,” Logan points out.

“Do you know who she’s living with again?”

Logan snorts. “Daphne doesn’t have money either.”

“Daphne has connections and a problematically strong sense of justice. Let Ms. Best go and be nice ,” the chief repeats.

Relief .

The bathroom is in sight.

And so is fresh air.

“Can I have his last donut on my way out the door?” I ask the chief.

It’s habit to be cheeky, I swear. I’m still too close to a panic attack.

He stares back at me, and it’s not just his cheek twitching now.

But I tell myself the facial contortions are more because Logan is gasping in outrage that I want his second donut and have nothing to do with the cheekiness in my request.

“By all means.” The chief himself unlocks the jail cell door and slides it open. “Anything else?”

Freedom.

Freedom .

I’m nearly out of here. Almost to the bathroom. Almost to fresh air.

But I still manage to look him in the eye and ask for one last thing.