Page 7 of The Spite Date (Small Town Sisterhood #1)

“We would’ve told you about the party, but you were too busy with meetings and dinners and phone calls, and then you wouldn’t listen to us when we tried to tell you on Saturday,” Eddie adds. “You just said stop arguing and go on with your mother now .”

So I’m to be thrown under the bus.

Specifically, this burger bus. “I was not— ahem. Please apologize to Ms. Best. You had ample opportunity to ensure her visit could’ve gone off without a hitch, and she was rather inconvenienced by your actions. Or your inactions, as it were.”

“Her socials thanked the community for their overwhelming support.” Eddie flashes his phone at me, showing me a picture of the burger bus on an app I’m unfamiliar with, where the post has garnered two likes and apparently a single comment, which seems to have come from one of her brothers.

Charlie nods on my other side, which I can feel because my hand is still on his head. “That’s code for we got a lot of tips and made more money than we would’ve if I hadn’t been thrown in jail .”

“When did you get social media? Your mother doesn’t want you on social media. It’ll rot your brains.”

“We have to do something to stay informed,” Charlie says.

“Where do you think we found out about your favorite new fish and chips joint anyway?” Eddie adds.

“Was I like this when I was their age?” someone asks from inside the bus.

Ah, one of Bea’s brothers is working with her today.

The younger one.

Hudson, I believe she called him. The one with the same eyes as Bea and darker curls that he’s let grow wild on his head. His apron is covering a matching tie-dyed T-shirt.

“You would’ve been if there’d been two of you,” Bea replies.

She’s smirking, but it’s not an arrogant smirk.

More of an amused-with-an-edge smirk.

Her bright emerald eyes meet mine. “First time raising teenage boys?”

“First and only.”

She chuckles. “Relatable. How’s Lana’s mother?”

“Dad. Dad. There’s an ice cream truck over there. Can we get ice cream instead of burgers? We can have Butch’s burgers for dessert when we get home. His burgers really are the best.”

“A little worse than expected,” I tell Bea. “Apologies for my demon spawn. They’re generally far better behaved.”

She leans her forearms on the ledge and looks at each of my boys in turn. “Are you close with your grandma?”

They freeze as one, and my heart squeezes in sympathetic misery.

Lana’s mother is my third-biggest critic—right behind my own two parents—though I fully understand and appreciate her being hesitant with praise for the man who knocked her daughter up and then couldn’t provide as well as I should have over the years.

However, she’s always been there for the boys.

And I am more grateful for that than I suspect she would ever believe.

Charlie lifts a shoulder. “I guess.”

“Sometimes,” Eddie agrees.

Bea gives them a soft smile. “It’s hard watching someone you love slip away.”

Both of them eye her warily.

I clear my throat. “Yes, well, the boys wanted to?—”

“It’s not fair,” Eddie says. “She’s not even seventy yet. She promised us she’d live to a hundred and four so that she could see our kids get married too.”

Charlie’s hands are balled into fists. “I don’t want to have kids, but if she lived to a hundred and four, she could see me win a Nobel Prize for solving dementia. And now she won’t.”

“You like science and math?” Bea asks him.

“I will for her.”

“He’s trying his best,” Eddie chimes in. “That’s all Gramma ever said we had to do. Just do our best, and nothing would hold us back.”

“She used to visit us in the city all the time, but she hasn’t been in two years. She missed seeing my art project win first prize at school.”

“Your art project took first prize?” I ask. Where was I? Was this when I was back in England for filming? “Your mother didn’t mention?—”

“And she missed my orchestra performance too,” Eddie says. “She’s never missed it before. It was like, why am I even playing?”

I peer at him. “You’re in the orchestra? And your grandmother has been to see you and I haven’t?”

“What do you play?” Bea asks him.

He pauses.

Both of the boys lean around me to share a look.

“What do you play?” I echo.

My god.

My children are musical and artistic geniuses and I had no idea.

I’m as terrible as my own parents.

I am.

Worse, in all actuality.

Who doesn’t know their children are musical and artistic?

Especially when I’ve lived near enough that I should’ve been attending their performances and displays.

Mostly.

I did travel a bit for projects the first half of the year.

“Violin? Clarinet?” Bea prompts.

“The soundboard,” Eddie says. “I played the soundboard.”

A relieved sigh slips from my lips while Charlie covers a snort of laughter.

I was well aware Eddie’s taken an interest in technical, behind-the-scenes production, and that he wished for me to not be there to cause a scene.

I thought I’d missed that he’d taken up the tuba, for which I would’ve snuck into the theater to watch.

“It’s not funny, Charlie,” Eddie says. “If it weren’t for the crew, there wouldn’t be performances at all.”

“That’s quite right,” I agree. “The tech crew is invaluable in any production. Could we please get on with apologizing to Ms. Best? And then ordering burgers for all of us, which we will enjoy because they’re delicious?”

“We’re sorry we missed you on Saturday,” Charlie says.

“It sounds like it would’ve been a great party,” Eddie agrees.

Bea purses her wide pink lips together, clearly suppressing a smile.

“They’re very sorry,” I tell her. “Genuinely sorry. We’re still working on expressing our regrets.”

“So you’re in charge while Lana’s getting her mom settled?”

“Yes. And I’m only in meetings or working three or four hours a day.”

“It feels like thirty or forty,” Charlie says.

“Every day,” Eddie agrees. “He works so long that he adds hours to the day, which is astrologically impossible.”

“Astronomically,” Charlie corrects.

“ Astrologically . It means big, you dumb butt.”

“Astrology is that baloney about Capricorns and horoscopes. Astronomy is about the stars. Astronomically means humongomously .”

“Humongomously isn’t a word.”

“You’re not a word.”

“You’re here for burgers?” Bea interrupts as they attempt to shove each other around me.

“I want Butch’s burgers,” Charlie says. “His are better than yours. You do false advertising.”

I stifle a rare sigh. “We don’t know that until we try them.” I hear the phrase hang you out the window by your toenails flit through my head, and I wince once again.

So now I’m becoming my worst nanny too.

“When’s the last time you ate?” Bea asks.

“Three days ago,” Eddie says at the same time Charlie replies, “We’ve been punished with lack of food.”

My god, they’re about to get me arrested. “They had nine eggs and four pieces of ham and seven tomatoes and at least a full can of beans between the two of them for breakfast.”

“How many hours ago?” she asks me.

“Three. Four. And they ate four large pizzas and a gallon of ice cream last night when my meeting ran—it was the first meeting that ran long in weeks. I worked five hours yesterday. We played Frisbee golf. And they bested me in cricket too.”

Hudson appears behind Bea, and she turns and takes two cardboard trays from him, then hands one to each of my boys.

Hamburgers.

Chips—pardon, fries .

A pickle spear and lettuce and tomato and onion slices.

My boys both grab a handful of fries from their burger baskets and shove them into their mouths in sync.

They’re fraternal, not identical, but their mannerisms are often indistinguishable.

“That’ll be seventy-five dollars,” Bea says to me.

Hudson leans out of the bus and taps a QR code displayed prominently beside the window. “And don’t forget to tip your servers.”

Butch growls softly.

Tank folds his arms over his chest.

Bea rolls her eyes. “Oh, don’t act like it’s highway robbery. I’ll get you all burgers too. No extra charge beyond the seventy-five. Ask Pinky. They’re worth it.”

Remarkable.

My emotions feel as though someone’s playing ping-pong with them, but Bea Best tries to rob me, and I’m suddenly smiling again.

Her fried fish bewitched me.

And I don’t mind.

“There’s no way this will be as good as Butch’s burgers,” Charlie says around me to Eddie.

Eddie nods and talks with his mouth full of fries. “But it’s food.”

“I’m starving. There’s nothing to eat at home.”

“I wasn’t like that, was I?” Hudson says to Bea.

“You once made yourself an omelet with a dozen eggs, a half-pound of cheese, and six slices of bacon, then went to a friend’s house for a birthday party and cleaned out the pizza and the cake.

I sent the parents apology money since they had to order three extra pizzas so everyone else could eat something. ”

“No, that had to be Griff.”

“ He got a job stocking the cheese shop before school because I told him if he was going to eat that much steak, he had to pay for it himself.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“He told me he got steak because you liked him better and his nutrition was more important.”

“You believed that?”

“No, I thought you were compensating because you liked me better and didn’t want him to feel insecure.”

She smiles at him, and my brain once again betrays me by wondering how it would feel to have Bea Best smile at me like that.

She undoubtedly has no idea she has this effect on me, but there was something about watching her interact with her customers the other day and the way she ran the small staff that has stuck with me.

“Go make more burgers so we can solve the hangry security people problem too,” Bea says to Hudson.

“Can I do it after I call Griff and tell him I’m your favorite and that I was Mom and Dad’s favorite too?”

“ No .”

He grins. “Too soon?”

“You’ll be in your fifties before it’s not too soon.”

While I stand there smiling at this fascinating relationship of siblings who are also parent and child, both of my boys moan.

I sweep a gaze over both of them, ready to rush them to the nearest hospital if something’s been done to their burgers, but?—

It appears the only thing wrong with their burgers is that they’re delicious.

Burger juice drips down Charlie’s chin as he moans again and eats a full third of the burger in one more bite.

Eddie’s conquered half of his burger, and his eyes are rolling into the back of his head. “Dis ish ooo guh.”

“I nee anuvva,” Charlie says.

“Mo fies.”

“Awwa fies.”

“Do you speak teenage boy with their mouths full, or do I need to interpret that for you?” Bea asks me.

“Four more burgers to our order, please, with extra fries. And naturally, I’m happy to pay for it.”

The success of In the Weeds couldn’t have come at a better time.

Without it, I’d be going into debt helping pay for these two to eat.

“They’re getting ice cream after all of this too, aren’t they?” Hudson calls.

“Betting that depends on if they’re also lactose intolerant,” she calls back to him.

“I like her,” Charlie says before wolfing down the last of his burger.

“Is she the one you’re taking on a date this weekend? Is she just kissing up to us?” Eddie asks.

“It’s not a date,” Bea says. “It’s an apology dinner.”

“So you’re going to bang him?” Charlie asks.

“One, inappropriate, and two, I’d have to want to for that to happen, and I don’t.”

“Are you sure?” Eddie asks.

“Eat your fries,” I tell them, ignoring the sinking in my stomach.

She doesn’t want to sleep with me?

That’ll put a damper on my dreams.

My boys hold up matching empty trays.

Butch appears with two large ice creams in oversize waffle cones. One chocolate, one vanilla.

The boys pounce.

“Thank you,” I say to Butch.

He nods and grunts once.

Probably means we all benefit when their mouths are full .

“Go sit,” Pinky says to the three of us.

“We’ll get the rest,” Tank agrees.

“Take the boys. I’ll be along in a moment. I need a word with Bea.”

My children are thankfully distracted by the ice cream and allow themselves to be led toward an open picnic bench in a shadier area close to the trucks.

Bea leans her forearms on the windowsill again and looks at me expectantly. “You want to plan another party?”

Her dry sarcasm makes me smile broader. “Your friend Daphne isn’t here today?”

“She has a day job saving wildlife through a non-profit, so she only helps me on the weekends. Did you want to ask her out too?”

“No. Not at all. I simply wish to go into our evening together prepared. You’re using me for publicity for your burger bus. Is that correct?”

Her eyes go flat. “Are you always this blunt?”

“Naturally. I don’t object, by the way. Simply saying I wish to know the role I’m playing.”

“You don’t care if people use you for your fame?”

“I’m quite happy to let the right people use me as they’d like.”

Hudson’s head jerks toward us. “Did you just ask my sister to have sex with you?”

I clear my throat. “No. Not that I wouldn’t have sex with her—I’ve rather enjoyed the time I’ve spent with her so far—but I’d keep that proposition more private. I know how prudish you Americans can be.”

The two siblings share a look.

Bea’s is exasperated. Hudson’s holds a scowl.

She turns back to me. “That’s very kind of you to let me use you.”

My smile broadens. “Fantastic. So glad we aired that out. I’ll prepare to be as charming as ever, and I’ll leave the gossips and busybodies so convinced that you’re the catch of the century that your burger bus won’t be without customers for the rest of the summer.”

She gapes at me.

“That would achieve your goals, would it not?” I ask.

“Yes, but—you’re happy about being used. Who’s happy about being used?”

“The gods have blessed me with success, Ms. Best. It gives me pleasure to use it for good.”

“Are you for real?”

“I assume so. I’ve never contemplated the philosophy of realness, so I suppose it’s possible I’m not.”

“Why do you smile so much?”

“I quite enjoy it. Don’t you?”

“Not that much. And Peter Jones?—”

“Such a cunt, isn’t he? And not the good kind of cunt. Not like a mate-cunt. Like a twat-cunt.” Americans always need that explanation too.

She opens her mouth, then closes it again.

“Do you have the budget for a new dress? If you’re going to make a splash, let’s make a splash.”

“Am I being punked?”

“I only punk my children, but more often myself.”

It’s the entire truth.

But thankfully, in this case, I’m going in with my eyes wide open.

No punking here.

All will be well, and Bea and I will be cosmically even.

Her publicity, my inspiration, and my conscience will be at peace.