Page 52 of The Spite Date (Small Town Sisterhood #1)

THERE’S NO ESCAPE FROM THIS ESCAPE

Simon

I’m unable to find alone time for friends-with-benefitting with Bea for another five days.

And today won’t be my day either.

Not with what my children have requested and which I’ve agreed to because I do enjoy spending time with them, and I’m well aware that they could tire of me at any minute.

They are teenagers.

Though at least Bea is joining us, at the insistence of my children, who have seen her enough now between meals with her family and meals at her burger bus that I believe they’re picking up on the subtle clues that I like her.

“So we’ll give you up to three hints, and that’s it,” a lovely person with spiky black hair and a nose ring is telling my boys. “You have to be smarter than the escape room if you want to beat it.”

“I’m smarter,” Charlie says.

“ I’m smarter,” Eddie says.

“You thought serial killers attacked breakfast food,” Charlie fires back.

Bea grins.

It’s an utterly delighted grin that turns into a small giggle, which has both of my boys looking at her and this attraction that I cannot deny for her growing stronger and stronger.

Usually, my involvement with women is physical only.

With Bea—well, with Bea, I’ve spent more time helping in her burger bus and having dinners with her family and helping her avenge herself against an ex-boyfriend while daydreaming about the next opportunity I’ll have to see her smile.

I’m quite far gone.

Quite far.

Would I like to have an entire week with her, just the two of us, with nothing to do beyond each other?

Too bloody right.

I should probably spend some time talking myself out of these expectations.

But I’m too ecstatic beyond belief that she’s here, with us today, where I can squeeze her hand and sneak kisses and just be near her to care about anything beyond getting to enjoy an hour’s activity with her and my boys.

“Hudson and Griff had this same argument about serial killers right after our parents’ funeral,” she says to them. “You’re going to have to try harder if you want to be original.”

They share a look.

“Did you truly have to tempt them to argue more?” I murmur to Bea.

She giggles again.

And it’s such a lovely sound, I can’t even be annoyed with her.

“You ready?” our escape room guide asks.

I look at Bea. “This isn’t too tight?”

“It’s bigger than my dorm room was. I can make it an hour.”

“We’re ready,” Charlie says.

Yes, he’s still wearing that hoodie, and oddly, for once I don’t blame him.

It is slightly chilly in this room.

Likely ambiance. We’ve chosen the room where we get to pretend to be bank robbers.

Quite fun to rob a bank, actually. I did it once for a television show.

And my character was killed in the robbery, so I didn’t have to memorize very many lines.

Simply play dead.

“Lock us in,” Eddie says to the guide. “We’ll see you in five minutes.”

“The confidence of youth is so inspiring,” Bea murmurs. She’s still grinning widely.

“How long would you estimate?” I ask her.

“Hudson’s best time in any of these rooms is seventeen minutes.”

“Good luck beating that in the bank,” our guide says. “Your first clue—you only have so much time before the police notice what you’re up to.”

They leave a card with the clue on a faux marble worktop beside the door, meant to simulate where people would once stand inside a bank and sign their checks, I gather, and then they depart, leaving us locked into this room decorated to look like a bank.

My boys grab the clue and rush to the cuckoo-style clock hanging behind the teller stand. “So easy,” Eddie scoffs.

“Such an easy first clue,” Charlie agrees.

“Do you need assistance?” I ask them.

Identical eye rolls answer me. “Watch for the cops. We’ve got this.”

Bea grins at me, and I take another arrow to the heart. I do love her smiles.

“You’ve done this before?” I ask her.

“Yep.”

“This room specifically?”

“No. This one’s new since the last time I was here.” Her smile grows as she watches the boys. Charlie’s climbed onto a chair to inspect the clockface. “But I’ve had a clock clue before…”

“Are they warm?”

“Depends on if the staff changed up how the clue works. They do sometimes. But I think they’re right to be looking at the clock in general.”

“We should help them.”

“We don’t need help, Dad,” Charlie says. “Look. The time’s wrong.”

He moves the clock hands until they’re opposite of what the time actually is.

Nothing happens.

“That’s backwards,” Eddie says. “You have to put the long arm on the minute and the short arm on the hour.”

He starts moving the clock hands differently.

“No, this is what time it is, dummy,” Charlie says. “It’s after four. I got it right.”

I start to move in, but Bea holds an arm out, blocking me.

And a moment later, despite my children fighting over the clock’s hands, moving them this way and that way, a panel beneath the clock opens, revealing a dangling clue.

The boys grab it, each getting a hand on it, and pull it to them, their heads together, both of their mouths moving yet not saying a word out loud.

Bea and I amble the short distance toward them.

“Are we not to enjoy the clue as well?” I ask.

“Shh,” Charlie says.

“This is for your own good,” Eddie adds.

“You can claim we held you hostage when the police get here.”

“And then run away with half the money that they don’t realize you’re holding.”

“It’s a good plan.”

“You should thank us for not involving you.”

“If you smile any broader, I fear your cheeks will fall off,” I murmur to Bea.

“Don’t worry,” she murmurs back. “They’ll need us for something other than being the scapegoats eventually.”

“The scapegoats ? But they’ve said they intend to leave us innocent.”

“In my experience, what they say and what they do doesn’t always line up.”

Charlie looks over at us. “Just because your brothers are terrible doesn’t mean Eddie and I are terrible. We mean it. We won’t utter your names to the police.”

“Charlie! Look. Look at the clue.” Eddie points to something on the index card. “It has a bone on it.”

“That’s not a bone. That’s a key.”

I frown. “Whoops.”

“Whoops?” Bea repeats.

“I believe I was supposed to take one of them to the optician for an eye test.”

“You’re not really a parent if you don’t forget to make at least one doctor’s appointment every once in a while.”

It’s odd to realize how much I enjoy her company without a single item of clothing coming off.

Make no mistake—I would enjoy the hell out of locking Bea inside my bedroom for days on end—but with the difficulties in scheduling bedroom time, I’m still happy to be in her company, day or night, in person or on the phone or over text message.

She simply makes me happier.

“It’s about the cash register,” Eddie says.

“Banks don’t have cash registers. They have cash drawers .”

“How do you know?”

“I helped Dad practice a script once for a bank robbery.”

Eddie’s eyes pinch together, and he stares at me as if he’s been slapped. “Why didn’t I get to help with that script?”

“I believe you were bedridden with some kind of flu,” I reply.

He scowls. “I miss all of the fun scripts.”

“You can help Dad when he has to memorize his lines for his new script,” Charlie says. “Right, Dad?”

“Indeed. You’re both welcome to assist.”

“Do I get to be the bad guy?” Eddie asks.

“If you wish.”

“Good. C’mon, Charlie. Let’s crack this case and steal this money.”

Bea wrinkles her nose at me.

“What? Have I leftover lunch on my face?” I ask.

“No, it’s just—I forgot for a minute what your day job actually is.”

And that as well—that has me smiling too. “Am I not handsome enough that you’d believe me a top-tier movie star even if we’d never met?”

“Gross,” Eddie mutters while he and Charlie fiddle with a panel beneath the customer service counter in this fake bank room.

Bea sputters out a laugh. “You know you look a lot like him?”

“But better for the parts of Mom that I have in me.”

“Also,” Bea continues, “that’s not the teller drawer. You’re on the wrong side of the counter.”

Both boys whip their heads up at her.

“Bloody hell,” Charlie whispers.

“Don’t say bloody hell in front of Dad’s girlfriend.”

I freeze.

Girlfriend ?

Bea is certainly not my?—

Oh, bloody hell indeed.

Bea is my girlfriend.

Not officially, of course.

But what else do you call a woman with whom you obsess over every waking moment when you’re not together, whose schedule you arrange your own around in the hopes of seeing her, and whom you occasionally enjoy in-person or phone sex with?

She’s smiling at the boys, though I’m incapable of that expression at the moment.

“You can say anything you want in front of me, provided you’re not using it to call me names,” she says to the boys.

“And really, a good bloody hell is way better than fuck this shit . It’s like proper cussing. I like it.”

They shoot her matching grins as they dash around the counter to the other side.

“She’s bloody right!” Charlie crows.

“Bloody nailed it,” Eddie agrees.

“Simon,” Bea says softly, intertwining her fingers with mine.

I realize I’m swaying on my feet, eyes wide, my normal smile unable to form on my lips.

I shake my head, but it doesn’t quite clear the stun I’m feeling at my boys calling Bea my girlfriend.

Will they become attached?

Will they expect that I marry her?

Why the bloody hell am I not having an instant panic attack at that thought?

“ Simon ,” Bea says again, this time in that tone that has my cock sitting up and taking notice. “They’re going to live here for the next five years?—”

“Six,” I correct absently. “We held them back a year before kindergarten.”

“—and I like their mother, and I know boundaries, and I can be one more safe adult in their life if they ever get in trouble, no matter what happens with you and me, because I have a fucking lot of practice with it, and I might as well embrace that.”

Thank heavens.

I’ve found the world’s most perfect woman.

I should say something pithy or something grateful, but all I can do is stare at her.