Page 59 of The Spite Date (Small Town Sisterhood #1)

IS THAT A DEAD BODY IN YOUR DINING ROOM, OR ARE YOU JUST HAPPY TO SEE ME?

Simon

This murder mystery dinner is going swimmingly well.

We’ve moved past canapes in the sunken living room and are now dining on a feast of lobster rolls and a fresh garden salad. The serving staff are keeping wine glasses full, and dessert of lemon drizzle cake is awaiting us.

Two dozen guests are situated at the long table in the formal dining room, all of them laughing and dining and drinking and speculating on who will die and who will figure it out, with the occasional question about when or if I intend to redecorate.

All of the furniture stayed in the house, and as my boys would say, the vibes in this room are vibing for a murder mystery tonight.

Add in the thunderstorm that has rolled in since the evening begun, with lightning illuminating the windows along the wall overlooking the overgrown gardens that have not yet been tackled, and they are quite correct.

There are old plastic flower arrangements for centerpieces—no candles, of course, in deference to Bea and her siblings—and Pinky found the most ancient lace tablecloth that perfectly fits the monstrosity of a dining room table.

Truly, the table seats all twenty-four of us. This room is large enough to justify coats of armor and national flags, as if it were a king’s summer palace dining room.

I hate it normally—the physical space reminds me too much of the emotional space in my childhood dining room—but it suits my purposes this evening.

Bea’s brothers have been entertaining Lana with stories of things they did in their youth so that she might be more prepared for things that our boys might do.

It’s lovely to see her getting a break, as she looks quite on the verge of a breakdown if she didn’t have a night off from caring for her mother.

The parents of several teenagers are talking amongst themselves, sometimes pulling Lana or me into their conversation.

Daphne is flitting about, being every bit the agent of chaos that I expected her to be, which was what made rewriting her part into a ghost remarkably easy.

Quincy Thomas is sneaking photographs of everything while his partner, Wendell, chides him.

The doors to both the bedroom hallways and the bedrooms themselves are locked, as is my office door, as I was quite aware of the risk I was taking in inviting the man Bea tells me is the town gossip.

The potential rewards outweighed the risks though. No doubt the entire town will be aware of this event before morning, which is half the point.

I’ve once again put myself fully in the willful position of irritating Bea’s ex and his whole obnoxious family, who have continued to interfere with her desire to simply serve burgers out of a converted bus alongside the other food vans in town on the days when I’m not assisting her.

And then there’s the best part of this evening.

Bea herself.

She’s glowing. Her makeup is not nearly as pronounced as it was on our first date, and her hair is down instead of up, and she is absolutely radiant. She has allowed me to fully monopolize her attention, making me regret inviting anyone else this evening.

It’s difficult to keep my hands to myself as she and I trade parenting horror stories and while I pretend I’m not plotting every way that I might steal her away to mess her lipstick and peel that red shimmery fabric off her to discover if she’s worn the undergarment I gifted her yesterday.

Being near her makes me so very happy, and when she smiles back at me—how have I never known before how wonderful the world could be?

“Wait until your boys hit the quacking stage,” she’s saying as the temporary staff I’ve hired for the evening begin to remove the dinner plates.

I pull myself back to the present. “I beg your pardon?”

“The quacking stage,” she repeats. “There was a week one summer where Hudson and Griff refused to say anything to me unless it was the word quack . And it wasn’t as many summers ago as you’d think it would’ve been.”

“That’s…” I trail off, oddly at a loss for words, and only partially because my mind was occupied with fantasies of stripping her naked.

“Weird,” she supplies, her eyes beginning to twinkle as though she is aware of my thoughts. “It was very weird.”

“Wherever do they get the ideas for their madness?” I ask her.

“I think there’s a secret handbook for teenage boys.”

“Terrifying.”

She hums softly in agreement as she sips her wine.

Her eyes meet mine again, hot and hinting at her own desire to leave the guests behind and slip away for our own private dinner, and I once again kick myself for making this a public spectacle.

Lana rises from her seat, and the lights in the dining room flicker off.

Lightning makes a dramatic entrance from the side windows in a gift from the heavens that I could not have timed better had I scripted it in, and then all is dark again.

A woman screams.

Gasps follow, which are quickly drowned out by the thunder crashing upon the house.

Bea grabs my thigh.

My cock springs to attention so quickly that I get a pain in my gut.

Naturally.

I’ve been fantasizing nonstop about Bea touching me more, and now she’s grabbing my leg, quite high in fact, and I would like to pull her into a dark room and kiss her until we’re pawing each other’s clothing off and going at it like rabbits.

But her breathing is suddenly unsteady, and while I’m having fantasies of her naked and sweaty, she might be on the verge of a panic attack.

“It’s part of the event,” I murmur, leaning into her and inhaling her perfume as a thump sounds. “All is well.”

She blows out a slow breath. “Right. Right.”

She doesn’t move her hand from my thigh.

So I take advantage of the moment to cover her hand with mine while the thunder subsides and my guests murmur amongst themselves.

Such soft skin. Capable hands. I’d like to trace her fingers with my tongue.

Again.

And then I’d like to trace every other part of her with my tongue as well.

I’m cataloging those parts in my brain when thunder crashes outside again and the lights flicker back on.

Lana is gone.

Daphne is gone.

And I have a raging erection that is preventing me from rising and announcing the start of the murder mystery.

Everyone stares at me, and it’s as though I’m a fledgling thespian who has forgotten to memorize his lines.

And I realize there’s a problem bigger than my flagpole of a cock.

My dead body is missing.

It’s supposed to be draped across the center of the table.

“Ah,” I start, only to be interrupted.

“Woooo oooo ooo ooo ,” a creepy voice woo-woos from the hallway. “I am the ghost of Devyn Persimmon, the first person murdered in the Grand Persimmon Hotel, and I am here to tell you?—”

“Ahhh! She’s dead!” Quincy Thomas screams.

He flings his chair back, toppling it, and I forget all about the boner situation as I leap to my feet too.

Lana is supposed to be?—

“ Oh my god , don’t kill me for real,” Lana gasps.

She sits up behind Quincy, covered in fake blood with a prop knife sticking out of her chest, having barely missed being squished by his chair.

“Sorry,” Quincy says. “Sorry. Sorry.”

He straightens his chair.

Lana gives him a hard glare that I’ve been the recipient of more than several times. “Can I be dead again now?”

“You really should’ve fallen in the middle of the table. That would’ve been more dramatic.”

She was supposed to fall in the middle of the table.

Perhaps the lights came back on too quickly considering the costume change necessary. Or possibly she was afraid of the lightning showing her position too soon.

Or possibly she enjoys making me squirm when things don’t go as scripted, which is equally likely.

Lana glares at Quincy harder, and I feel a trickle of that glare bounce off his shirt buttons and deflect towards me as well.

“I really, really like her,” Bea murmurs to me.

“Yes, yes,” I say to Lana. “Do carry on being dead now.”

“Thank you.”

The mother of my children flops back onto the rug behind her chair, splaying herself dramatically in what I am quite positive is a mockery of the way that I tend to die while in various roles.

Legs askew, one arm over her head, hair splayed out, tongue hanging out, blank eyes staring at the ceiling.

People are gawking now.

“That’s creepy,” one of the parents of two boys hanging out with mine says.

“Is it just me, or is she laying exactly the same way that Simon died in that one episode of that cop show?”

Lana snickers. As much as she can while pretending to be dead.

Bea giggles.

“Wooooo oooooo ooooo oooo ,” Daphne says. “Death has come again. And if you don’t find the killer, this will not be the last death of the evening.”

“Bea did it,” Hudson announces.

Bea straightens and gapes at him. “ Excuse you?”

“Jealous lover. It’s always the jealous lover.”

Ryker shoves him. “Your knife’s missing, bro, and she’s all the way across the table on the other end from the body.”

Wendell Thomas rises on Quincy’s other side. “I’m a detective! I’ll get to the bottom of this.”

“You made Wendell the detective?” Bea whispers to me. “Quincy’s gonna hate that.”

I grin at her. “I thought it might add some tension to the evening.”

“Now it bothers me the way you smile when you’re diabolical.”

“Don’t touch the body!” a woman yells.

“Quincy! Don’t touch the body!” Wendell echoes.

“Wooo oooo , touching the dead body will put a currrrrssse on yooooouuuuuuoooooouuu,” Daphne moans.

Bea leans into me and squeezes my hand. “Thank you for making her a ghost. She’s in heaven right now.”

“Far be it from me to disappoint a lady.” I clear my throat and raise my voice. “If everyone could please stay calm, I will ring the authorities. Pinky. My phone, if you please.”

“Cell towers are down, sir,” Pinky says from the doorway.