Page 21 of The Spite Date (Small Town Sisterhood #1)

Her lips sealing around the thick tip is giving every part of my body ideas about what else she might put in her mouth.

Specifically, yes, my cock.

Her gaze freezes on me with that corn dog in her mouth, those lovely red lips wrapped around it, and I wonder if my evening might not have a happy ending after all.

I do like happy endings.

Though I like happy endings more when my head isn’t sloshy and when I have more certainty that I’ll have memories of the happy endings.

Bea finishes biting the end off and chews slowly.

She’s growing rather fond of you , the champagne tells me.

I giggle.

I do believe it’s correct, and isn’t that just hilarious?

Even if I cannot remember why?

I start to bite into my corn dog again, then wonder how this must look to her.

And I decide I don’t give a rat’s arse.

Prudish, I am not.

Bea clears her throat. “So Daphne was disinherited, and she?—”

“What did she do? Hic! Was it scandalous?”

“That’s her story to tell. All I’ll say is that she had to leave school and needed a place to stay.”

“So it was scandalous.”

“There aren’t any sex tapes, and she’s never been arrested for murder, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Bah. Hic! I prefer the scandals where she’s sleeping with her brother’s fiancée.”

“She only has one sister, and she is not sleeping with her sister’s fiancé. Ex . Ex-fiancé.”

“Unfortunate. That’s a brilliant scandal.”

“Simon Luckwood, are you a gossip?”

“Of course,” the bubbly replies for me. “Where do you think I get my best ideas from? Do keep up, darling.”

She laughs again. “It is absolutely impossible to read you.”

“Excellent. Hic! What role do you play in New York high society that you were able to gain an introduction to the heiress of the largest hotel chain in the known universe?”

Would you look at that?

I’m able to speak long sentences.

And I do believe I’m tracking this conversation.

That deserves a pat on the back.

Bea’s eyes go comical as she watches me pat myself on the back with what’s left of my willy dog.

“Daph and I met at the local college here. I was taking a couple classes since Hudson was my only brother left at home and I had a little more bandwidth for trying to work toward my degree again, and she’d transferred here and was in both of them.”

“Do children of the rich and famous often come to university here?” I inquire.

I believe that’s what I ask, at any rate. It seems a logical question. And when Bea answers, I applaud myself once again for managing to keep up the appearance of a man who knows what she’s saying.

“It’s a pretty exclusive school, so rich and famous students aren’t uncommon.

I didn’t know she fit that category—she was just someone who seemed a little older than most of our classmates, like I was too.

I don’t remember why we started sitting next to each other in both classes, but we did, and then one day, she caught me in my car before class having a complete meltdown over my refrigerator breaking two days after the washing machine bit the dust.”

“Arsehole washing machine.”

Bea laughs. “Exactly.”

I bite into my corn dog again and sigh in satisfaction. “Carry on. Your voice is lovely, and I am quite— hic! —tipsy, and it’s an excellent combination.”

She squints at me, but then her lips are moving again, and I could watch her lips for hours.

Days, even.

Months.

Years.

With the dimple.

The dimples.

All of them.

“I told Daphne I was dealing with homeowner crap, she offered to buy me new appliances, and I thought she was kidding. I asked her if she could buy me three extra days every week instead to get all of my shit done. I’d bitten off more than I could chew with two classes, my job, and Hudson.

Daph insisted on taking me out for tea, and then she really did buy me new appliances. ”

I lift my willy dog’s stick in salute. “Jolly well done. My parents once nearly divorced over a household appliance.”

“That doesn’t sound like a healthy relationship.”

“Who needs healthy when you thrive on dysfunction?”

“Are you talking about them or yourself?”

“Excuse me, darling, but I am the one running this inquisition. Please remember your place. Carry on. Tell me about the appliances.”

She murmurs something that sounds like worse than my brothers .

“Of course I am,” I reply. “I have many more— hic! —years of experience.”

She laughs again, and I drown in her dimples again.

It would be so warm and cozy to live inside her dimples. To escape the rest of the world, right there in her face. To be in her cheeks. So close to her mouth.

Good god, have I ever been this drunk? “Ms. Best.”

“Yes?”

“Can one truly fall in love over household appliances?”

She shrugs, which somehow makes the entire bus tilt sideways.

“Who wouldn’t have fallen in love with someone who managed everything from picking them out to overseeing same-day delivery?

It wasn’t the money—I offered to pay her back.

It was the time and mental energy. I was so grateful that it was something I didn’t have to handle solo that I cried all over her and then made her my dad’s butternut squash risotto and barbecue chicken with his secret sauce to thank her. ”

“I was unaware that was an option for dinner this evening.”

“It wasn’t an option for dinner tonight.”

“Tomorrow night, then.”

“Simon. We are not having a tomorrow night. ”

Is it getting woozier in here, or is it my bubbly? “Why not?”

“Are you the same person who just said you don’t like me?”

“That’s no reason to never see each other again.”

“Maybe not for you. But I like hanging out with people who like me and who I like back.”

“Do you not like me?”

Of course she likes me.

I’m incredibly likable. And charming.

And stinking drunk.

“It’s irrelevant if I like you,” she tells me.

I blink slowly at her, and it takes her entirely too long to come into focus when I open my eyes again. “Why?”

“I’m getting over a breakup. I don’t want to date a single dad because I already raised three kids and I’m done. I need to put my energy into growing my business. I like my life the way it is. You’re famous, and I don’t want that level of scrutiny on me or my brothers. Should I go on?”

I roll my eyes heavenward, which makes my entire body feel spinny and swoony. “Ms. Best.”

“Yes, Simon?”

“Could you please write down the rest of your answers to the rest of the questions I ask you while I fall asleep? I— hic! —don’t want to miss a thing, but I…”

But I.

Yes.

But I.

And that’s the last thing I remember before the world goes a cozy shade of dark.