Page 27 of The Spite Date (Small Town Sisterhood #1)

He looks at me. “Yes, Bea?”

“My ex-boyfriend came to my apartment this morning to ask me to take him back.”

What is it about a thick five-o’clock shadow over a tic in a man’s square jaw that has my lady bits fanning themselves?

Possibly it’s that he’s somehow smiling while his jaw ticks.

Or possibly it’s that I’m letting my imagination run wild with the idea that the mention of Jake is spurring primitive instincts inside of him, and he’s picturing himself punching Jake, and while I’m not really a fight for me type of woman, I can’t deny there’d be some satisfaction involved in seeing someone punch Jake.

Especially someone rich and famous who’d actually get away with it.

“Is that so?” he says.

Tread lightly, Bea. Tread lightly . “He thought our date last night was my play to get him back.”

“And did you disabuse him of that notion?”

Simon’s British accent? Hot.

Simon’s British accent with a hint of possessiveness? Lava.

I swallow. “I did. I don’t want him back. He’s a manipulative ass—jerk.”

“We say arse and ass all the time at home,” Eddie says.

“But only at Dad’s house. And only so we learn to do it properly. We’re to mind our manners at Mum’s house, even if Dad thinks words shouldn’t be stalagnatized,” Charlie adds.

“Stigmatized,” Eddie corrects.

“Whatever.”

“Cussing is so much cooler than smoking weed,” I say to them.

“Not really,” Eddie says.

“Our dad got famous because of weed,” Charlie adds.

Simon winces. “And we really must be going, or we’ll miss all of the games.”

He climbs to his feet and offers me a hand, and I’m back in the bathroom last night with him lifting me off the toilet seat and cradling me in his arms like I’m the most precious package in the world.

Our fingers touch, and my hand is suddenly hot and cold at the same time. Tingling as if it’s coming back to life after I slept on it wrong.

I don’t need to tighten my grip on him to get to my feet, but I do anyway.

And when I’m on my feet, I realize we’re very, very close.

The heat radiating off his body permeates my space bubble. His breath fans over my face. I swear I can almost feel his heart beating, and mine starts racing.

This is I want to kiss you close.

I’m hyperaware of the flick of his eyes behind his sunglasses, the blunt tips of individual hairs in his scruff, the way his lips tip up more on the left side than the right when he smiles.

“Do let me know if he attempts to win you back again,” Simon murmurs.

The right answer is what the hell is this? You told me you didn’t like me for using you against him .

But the right answer doesn’t come out of my mouth.

Instead, some guttural version of okay is my body’s instinctive response.

“I only want to do the games where we can win food,” Charlie says.

“Duh,” Eddie answers.

Simon shifts away, and an electric current snaps hard between us, shocking me back to reality, where everyone around us is staring and my breath is coming too fast and my knees are just this side of wobbly.

“Are you two ever not hungry?” he asks his sons.

“Once, I wasn’t hungry, I was just tired, and then Mom said I grew two inches overnight,” Eddie replies.

“I’m just always hungry, but you knew that,” Charlie says. “Maybe someday I’ll sleep and then grow a few inches too.”

“Bea?” Simon glances at me again, but with his eyes shielded from the sunglasses and the distance between us now, I can’t tell if he’s looking at me or avoiding looking at me.

I’d like to avoid looking at him.

If I don’t, he might see how much I’m starting to like him.

“Yes?” Shit .

I’m still breathless.

“Do you know the best games for boys who are perpetually hungry to win food that is not cake?”

“I—”

“Mum!” Charlie suddenly shrieks in joy. “It’s Mum! She’s here!”

“Mom’s here? Mom’s here! ” Eddie whoops too.

I turn and spot a short, slender woman approaching from the opposite direction of the burger bus.

Both boys charge her.

Simon watches them, that perpetual smile settling deeper on his face, like he’s even happier for seeing his boys’ mom and how happy they are to see her.

And I suddenly feel like the most awkward person in the world.

I’m not his date. I’m definitely not his girlfriend. I’m—I don’t actually know what I am, but I know Lana Kent is more intimidating to me than Simon could ever be.

She’s put together in a cute summer dress with perfect blond hair and a light coating of makeup, and she’s easily hugging both boys back at once, despite both of them being taller than she is by at least six inches.

Eddie probably by nine or ten. He’s nearly as tall as Simon is.

“You came to see us win all the games!” Charlie says.

Eddie’s nodding along. “The burger bus has onion rings and you should get us some. Dad won’t let us have any more because he says we were rude.”

“He’s starving us.”

“It’s so unfair.”

“We’re still learning our boundaries.”

“How are we to know what’s inappropriate if he doesn’t teach us?”

“I learn better when I have more onion rings.”

I glance at Simon again, who’s now wearing an exasperated smile.

“They’re always like this, aren’t they?” I say.

“Even in their sleep.”

“That’s fabulous.”

“You’re far too gleeful about this.”

“Did my time. This is funny now.”

Lana disentangles herself and joins the little circle made mostly by the security agents standing behind us. “Starving them again, Simon?”

People are starting to pull out phones.

Probably expecting a fight.

“I don’t believe there is enough food in the world to keep them from starving,” Simon says to his ex.

Still pleasant.

More so, if anything.

Yep.

I definitely do not belong in this group.

I’m the not-even-new-girlfriend.

I’m the woman he was mad at last night for tricking him into a spite date. And I’m incredibly wary of how happy he’s been to see me.

“Your mother?” Simon asks Lana.

“She settled down. Two neighbors came over to sit with her when they heard you were here solo with the boys.”

“Very kind of them.”

“They’re the best.” She turns to me, still smiling, though not as big as Simon usually smiles. “Hi. I’m Lana. And you’re Bea Best. My mom used to send me articles about your family. Nice to finally meet you.”

I shake her hand, and the anxiety and weirdness immediately fade. “The good articles, or the bad articles?”

“The bad ones. Better for gossip, unfortunately. But I crashed my bike at your parents’ house once, when I was eight or nine, and your dad gave me a cupcake to make me feel better.

I always remembered him because of how nice it was to get a treat for crashing instead of being yelled at to get off his lawn. ”

That sounds like my dad. “If you’d been two houses over…”

“Don’t I know it.” She shudders. “The Stoffels were the worst.”

“Still are.”

“Only the good die young,” Simon murmurs.

Charlie flings an arm around Lana’s shoulder. “Mum. Mum . Mum, can we have cotton candy?”

Eddie crowds her other side. “You haven’t bought us cotton candy in forever.”

“Not since we were babies.”

“So long ago we can’t even remember.”

“I bought them six meals apiece,” Simon tells her.

Lana smiles again. “Clearly, you should’ve done seven.”

“And we want to do musical chairs,” Eddie says.

“But Bea can’t come,” Charlie adds. “She’s banned.”

“She’d be bad luck.”

Lana looks at me.

“She’s terrible luck,” Simon agrees. “The worst kind of awful.”

“The best kind of bad is what we call it in my house,” I tell them all. “You know. Because we’re the Best s.”

He suddenly looks at me. “Bestie.”

“Yes?”

“Did you tell me a story about your name being Bestie ?”

I blink.

Then blink again.

He definitely doesn’t remember last night. “I did.”

Lana purses her lips together, clearly trying to hide a smile. “I’m taking the boys to play a few games. Simon, don’t get into any more champagne. Bea, lovely to meet you. Don’t let this guy give you any trouble. He’s a marshmallow. A marshmallow with commitment issues, but a marshmallow.”

“Excuse me, but—” he starts, but the boys both dive on him and hug him tight.

“Bye, Dad!” Charlie says.

Eddie thumps him on the back. “It’s not that we’re abandoning you. It’s just that we want cake and we know you want to walk around with Bea, and she’s bad luck.”

“We’ll still acknowledge you if we see you when we’re all walking around. Unless it’s at musical chairs. Then you don’t exist.”

“Don’t sign too many autographs. Make the people work for it.”

And then they’re off, dragging Lana through the crowd and toward the games.

Simon looks at his security team, and even though he doesn’t say a word out loud, two of them immediately take off to follow his family.

“I was wrong,” I tell him.

“About what?”

“You definitely have it worse than me with raising teenage boys. Two at once, and they know you have deep pockets? You’re in so much trouble.”

“Your sympathy is touching.”

He smiles at me.

I smile back.

It’s involuntary.

I don’t want to smile at him.

Mostly because I don’t want to fall for him.

But I’m starting to think it might be too late.