Page 9 of The Spite Date (Small Town Sisterhood #1)

“Naturall—” I play the conversation back in my head. “Ah. Hmm. I suppose I suggested it. Though she didn’t contradict that she intends to use me.”

Lana smirks. “You are such a man sometimes, Simon.”

“What else could she want me to take her to dinner for?”

She starts toward the house. “What do you know about Bea?”

“That she was in her first year at university when her parents died in a house fire, and she moved home to raise her three brothers, and now she owns a burger bus. Oh, and she was wrongfully arrested last weekend—my fault—and her ex-boyfriend’s brother was the arresting officer.”

“Mm.”

“ Mm ? What does that mean? Have I got my facts wrong?”

“What do you know about her ex-boyfriend?”

“What do you know about her ex-boyfriend?”

“He was two years behind me in school, but he did band, and he used to poke me in the back with his clarinet, but someone else always got blamed for it because no one believed that Lucinda Camille’s son could possibly ever misbehave. Whatever Bea has planned for you on Saturday night, I approve.”

I slap my hand over the rear door to the house as Lana reaches for it. “Whatever she has planned for me?”

“You’re going to JC Fig’s grand opening?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Do you know who owns JC Fig?”

“Should I?”

“Her ex-boyfriend, Simon. Her ex-boyfriend is opening JC Fig.”

Bea’s ex-boyfriend.

Bea’s ex-boyfriend is opening the restaurant she wants to dine at for their grand opening on Saturday.

“Was it a cordial breakup?” I ask Lana.

“From what I hear, Jake and his family have all been quietly spreading borderline defamatory rumors about her and the reasons for the break-up. If Mr. Camille—Damon—wasn’t an attorney, they’d probably be all the way into slanderous territory.”

“Then why would she—oh. Oh .”

Her ex-boyfriend.

Jake.

The man who rushed me on Saturday.

The man she squirted with ketchup.

A tingle touches my fingertips as my shoulders tighten and my chest constricts.

“She intends to use me to make him look bad,” I breathe.

“It’s been a long time since I lived here.

I’d like to think people can change. But from everything I’ve heard, Jake’s an even bigger public charmer now than he was in high school, which probably means he’s still metaphorically stabbing other people in the back with his clarinet, but with more resources.

I just have this gut feeling about him. So if that’s her plan—to steal his thunder by making the entire night about you and whatever you do at the grand opening—then like I said, I approve. ”

My hand curls into a fist.

How lovely for Lana that it’s so easy for her to approve of me being used as a pawn in a lovers’ quarrel.

She sighs, then touches my elbow. “She’s not your parents, Simon.”

“Bloody well aware of that,” I grouse.

“So ask her. Ask her if she’s planning something bad for the restaurant’s grand opening.

I don’t know her—she was several years behind me in school, probably close to ten or eleven, actually—so we never really met.

The boys were three or four when her parents died.

I remember one of them shitting in a houseplant when I was on the phone with Mom while she was telling me about the fire. ”

“You didn’t know her, but you remember that?”

“Their house was three blocks from Mom’s, and it’s the biggest tragedy to ever happen in Athena’s Rest. Also, it’s the only time either of the boys ever shit in a houseplant. The memories are forever linked.”

“That’s…astonishing.”

She studies me. “You’re angry.”

“I dislike being used for revenge against current or former romantic partners.” And I dislike being angry.

I enjoy being happy.

I make a point of being happy.

“You did get her thrown in jail. And you are using her life as inspiration for your script.”

I suddenly don’t feel guilty about that anymore.

Not in the slightest.

How lovely.

“You’re not going to talk to her, are you?” Lana says.

“Thank you for the information. You should go and enjoy some time with the boys. They’re likely to be well-behaved now that you’ve offered them four chickens and a field’s worth of mashed potatoes.”

“Simon…”

“If you’ll excuse me, I need to prepare for a role.”

“If I needed you to show up in court just to intimidate opposing counsel who’d been a dickwad to me but thought you were the greatest actor on the planet, would you?”

“Did you date opposing counsel?”

“Pretend I did.”

“This is nothing like that?—”

“Isn’t it? It’s interesting that they broke up and now they’re both in the food industry, even though I know he’s still in real estate and I heard she was working as his admin assistant for most of their relationship. Makes you wonder if there’s more to the story, doesn’t it?”

“She’s deceived me, likely for her own benefit and for my downfall. Why are you taking her side?”

She grins. “Because she’s a woman, which is always enough for me. But if you need more, because I also know her ex, and I don’t care how many hours he puts in planting flowers and how much money he donates to local causes, I just have this feeling that he’s still a twatwaffle underneath it all.”

I continue frowning.

She ticks more reasons off on her fingers.

“And because I know you. And because you’d be a lot happier if you went to therapy to deal with what your parents did to you.

And because if you’re using a real person as inspiration for your next show without telling her, you’re going to be begging me for legal help sooner or later, and I want you to remember this moment—right now, when I tell you that you deserve to suffer before you ever do all of the things that I’m telling you that you both should and shouldn’t do. It’s like a pre- I told you so .”

“I’m hardly an amateur. I’ll change enough details.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

I stifle a sigh.

It’s frustrating being frustrated.

I prefer to be happy.

Even if only out of spite, which is why I originally set out to be happy many, many years ago. But being happy is habit now.

And speaking of spite—I suddenly have bigger plans for this date with Beatrice Best.