Page 43 of The Spite Date (Small Town Sisterhood #1)

“I never had run-ins with authorities when I was young. I suppose that’s one thing my parents did well enough for me. Put the fear of consequences into my bones.”

“But at what price?”

I take another drink.

That’s the killer question.

“To them, or to me?” I inquire back.

“Either.”

I lift my head to study the stars again. “I never wanted to be a father.”

It’s something I’ve said to myself, but never aloud to anyone aside from Lana, and to her, it was more of a so you’re getting rid of it , which, again—not my finest moment.

Yet here, in the dark, with Bea, I feel as though I must confess it.

For me.

“Do you still wish you weren’t?”

“No.” I shake my head. “My boys—even when they make me angry, when I have to fight how I was taught to parent in my own childhood—they are the best part of me. They’re my chance to do better in the world than I had done to me.

And I find I’m not doing better. I’m simply doing different, and now they’re criminals. ”

“They’re not criminals.”

“They’re well on their way.”

“They’re pushing to see how far they can go.”

“Lana would have seen through why they weren’t eating and realized they were plotting something before she’d finished a full bite of chicken herself.

But they’re stuck with me as their primary parent this summer, and I’m oblivious to what they’re up to despite the hours we spend together, have spent together their entire lives, because I’m so afraid of being my parents that I’m inept in the exact opposite way. ”

“They’re good kids at heart, Simon. Eddie looked way more guilty than my brothers ever did when Daph and I found him with the dog. They’ve had a lot of change this summer, but I think they’ll be okay.”

“It’s kind of you to lie to me on their behalf.”

“I’m not lying. He did look guilty.” She kisses my shoulder. “You know the hallmark of a good parent?”

“Successful adult children?”

“Self-doubt. If you care enough to think you’re doing it completely wrong, you’re probably doing a lot right.”

“Why am I confessing all of this to you?”

“Because you want in my pants.”

God, she’s funny.

And correct, though I’m some way off from being able to get out of my own head and simply enjoy having an attractive woman share a nightcap with me.

“Even before the show became ridiculously successful, I would not’ve confessed to anyone that I never wanted to have children. Or that I told Lana the same when she informed me she was pregnant.”

“Ever get a woman thrown in jail before me?”

Heaven help me, she’s actually made me laugh. “No.”

“That must be the difference. You put me at my lowest, so now you’re compensating by showing me yourself at your lowest. And Simon?

You’re a good dad. However you got here—it doesn’t matter nearly as much as what you’re doing every day.

Your boys know they can count on you. They know you love them. Give yourself credit for that.”

I swallow hard and don’t reply.

My voice can’t support it without betraying how much her belief means to me.

She shifts beside me, and the bag rustles again.

A moment later, there’s another item being set on my leg.

“Eat your strawberry shortcake,” she tells me. “And then let’s see what else you want to confess.”

I swallow again. “Did you make this yourself?”

“Nope. Hudson did it while I was in the shower. With orders to use coconut milk and clarified butter, and a threat of hiding his guitar from him and finding a kid with a cold to breathe on him if he didn’t.”

My heart softens as if it’s a mound of butter on a sunny rock.

Remembering once or twice that I don’t tolerate dairy well is one thing.

Consistently remembering—that’s more than even Lana manages.

And it’s making me feel more than a warm heart.

It’s making me suspect I should cut this evening short. I cannot afford to feel real affection for a woman who wants nothing more than a summer fling with a man who’s leaving in a few weeks’ time.

“Hiding your brother’s guitar and giving him a cold is a threat?”

“He wants to be a rock star when he graduates college. And he finally got a few gigs lined up in town for the rest of the summer.”

“You’re allowing that?”

“He’s a legal adult, and I convinced him to get a degree in education so he has a fallback career.

I’ve officially set all of my brothers up for some kind of successful adulthood, and now I get to be the cool sister who doesn’t nag them or give them life advice that they don’t want.

Also, I told him when he’s famous, he has to get me concert tickets for my favorite bands from my own teenage years that he thinks are cringe.

Just like Griff has to get me season tickets to any baseball team I want if I ever leave here and move to a city that has a baseball team. ”

“Would you be interested in raising two more young men? They’ve only six years left of their schooling before university, and I could pay in cash and orgasms.”

She laughs. “Not a chance. Especially since these orgasms are still mythical.”

“But are they? I seem to recall an encounter in a bus this afternoon…”

“My greatest performance.”

“Oh, come now, Bea…”

“There’s something else I haven’t told you.”

“And what, pray tell, is that?”

“I actually come from a long line of talented actresses. My mom ran the community theater and acted in all of their shows when I was growing up. I get a lot of talent from her.”

“And she taught you to fake orgasms?”

I truly wish I could see her smile, though sensing it is almost as good. “Yep. Good thing I’m their only girl. Otherwise I would’ve had to teach my sister too, and that would’ve been awkward.”

Ten minutes ago, I would’ve thought it impossible, but I’m laughing at the image of Bea sitting down a fictional sister to explain the ins and outs of faking orgasms.

Laughing.

Feeling lighthearted.

As though the world will turn out all right in the end.

My children will learn and grow and become mostly functional adults.

I may or may not have any more professional success—the more time I spend with Bea, the more I find myself brainstorming ways to change this script before I have to turn it in to the studio to hide the true inspiration—but it will be okay.

I have time.

And I have time with Bea.

“You are good for my soul,” I say, and oddly enough, I don’t instantly regret it.

“Give me five minutes and I can fix that.” Her phone’s flashlight flickers on. “Better. I can drink in the dark. I can’t eat strawberry shortcake in the dark.”

She grins at me, and her dimples pop, and then she forks a bite of strawberry shortcake into her mouth, making strawberry juice dribble down her chin, and everything else that’s wrong in the world fades into the background.

I lean in to her and brush the strawberry juice from her chin, then suck the sweet taste off my thumb.

She watches me, close enough that I can see her clearly, her eyes wide, her lips parted, her breath coming quicker.

Her gaze dips to my lips. “You keep doing that.”

“Haven’t been disappointed yet.”

Her tongue darts out to sweep her lower lip.

I set aside my strawberry shortcake and my beer.

Then I take hers and set them aside as well.

“This wasn’t my goal,” she whispers as I thread my fingers through her hair and lower my mouth to hers.

“What was your goal?”

“Just to be a friend. I thought you might need one.”

“Do you object to me kissing you?”

“No.”

“Would you like me to kiss you?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Because I would very much like to kiss you too.”

She’s smiling.

Her eyelids are lowered, and she’s smiling, and her dimples have popped out, and I feel?—

Free.

Safe.

Home.

Accepted. Warts and all.

I brush her lips with mine. “Turn off the light, if you don’t mind.”

She fumbles with her phone, and then all is dark again, the night lit only by the stars.

No moon.

No exterior house lights.

No neighbors close enough for their lights to intrude on the evening.

It’s simply Bea and myself, her tongue making a slow inspection of my lower lip while she hooks one hand behind my neck.

Night sounds settle around us—crickets, frogs, a distant dog’s bark—but I’m far more interested in the sounds coming from Bea.

Small gasps as I nip back at her lips.

Little moans when I slide my hand up her leg and beneath her dress.

“Are we really doing this?” she asks against my mouth.

“I shall fire or have arrested anyone who interrupts us this time.”

That soft giggle.

That soft giggle will live on in my dreams for decades to come.

So will the feel of her fingers in my hair.

The way she tugs me to the ground beside her.

The feel of her leg around my hips, pulling me closer and making my cock swell eagerly as she nestles it between her thighs.

My eyes drift shut as she takes charge of this kiss, the slow, methodical glide of her tongue against mine building my anticipation with torturous leisure.

I can still taste the strawberry on her, and my tongue remembers the heady, delicious taste of her near-orgasm too.

By far the best torture I’ve had in ages.

Allowing me the time to learn her curves with my hands. To decipher her body’s cues about where she enjoys being stroked.

If she prefers whisper-soft touches or aggressive pawing.

Both, it seems.

There’s nowhere I touch her, no manner in which our bodies mesh together, that she doesn’t respond by deepening the kiss, becoming more frantic in her own exploration of my body until she’s clawing at the buttons on my shirt.

Her dress is up around her hips as I trace the skimpy undergarment covering her pussy.

Lacy.

Small.

Are they black? Red? Pink?

Any option makes my eyes cross.

I hook my thumb beneath the string waistband. “I’d like to bite these off you.”

“Have you been a good enough boy for that?”

“Was parading naked to sell burgers for you not good enough?”

She palms my hard-on through my trousers. “It wasn’t a private show.”