“A feature,” Bethany said. “Not a bug.”
Meara pointed at her. “Exactly.”
“Anyway.” I grabbed the chalk and went to work on our sidewalk sandwich board. “All I’m saying is that being the big, bossy bossman—”
“With the angel-tailored trousers,” Bethany added.
“—who shows up and creates chaos but then fixes it with a wave of his hand and an on-call maintenance service is not my favorite thing in the world,” I said.
Meara turned to face me, her head cocked to the side and her dark eyes narrowed. “Do you have history with him? Is there something about Beckett Loew you haven’t mentioned? Muff’s right, this isn’t like you at all.”
“Of course not!” I didn’t intend to yell but that was what happened. A smile tugged at the corner of Meara’s mouth and Bethany abandoned the fruits and vegetables to study me. “We do not havehistory. Not what either of you are thinking. He’s a friend of my brother’s. That’s all. They were close in high school—and he was a jackass back then too.”
Meara gave a thoughtful bob of her head as if this explained everything. “Ah. I see.”
“Nothing to see,” I said, returning to my sign.
After a moment of Meara and Bethany carrying on a silent conversation over my head, Bethany said, “Even if he’s a grumpy, growly one, I want to get to know those folks. They’re our neighbors. We’re practically family! Maybe I’ll grab a drink there after we close up tonight. I wonder if Mel usually works days or evenings. Who wants to come with me?”
“I’m not going anywhere near that shellfish haven,” Muffy called. “Not without five EpiPens and a team of paramedics.”
Muffy was uniquely suited to be a vegan chef as she was allergic to damn near everything. She held the record as the chef requiring the most calls to emergency services in her culinary school’s history. She’d worked in some of the top restaurants in New York City until she was passed over for a well-deserved and long-promised promotion. That was when the blowtorch entered the picture.
“The husbands have expressed some interest in testing out the oysters-as-aphrodisiac hypothesis.” Meara watched me for a moment. “But I can talk them out of it. I’m always on your side, you know.”
I erased a few lines with my thumb and set to correcting the shape of myNs inNow Open!Why was I the only one fuming about Beckett Loew and his high-handed antics? Didn’t everyone else see how much of a know-it-all ass he was? Asking to speak to the managerandwanting to know why my family wasn’t helping me do my job? Unbelievable.
Although the truly unbelievable part was that, after all these years, all it took was a word out of Beckett’s mouth for me to go flying into ice queen mode. I didn’t have to let him bother me this much. I could just let it go. I didn’t have to drag a whole damn iceberg around. This thing was heavy.
And yet—
“No,” I said. “If the husbands want to experiment on you, I don’t want to stand in the way.” I pushed to my feet and wiped my hands on my skirt. The chalk would blend in with the print. “My problems with Beckett don’t have to be everyone’s problems.”
“But that’s where you’re wrong,” Bethany said. “Like Meara said, we’re always on your side, even if it means giving up oyster-induced sex and badass babes in leather jackets.”
“Oh my god.” I groaned at the ceiling. My anger at Beckett had blurred out her obvious flirtation with Mel. “You already love her, don’t you?”
“A little bit,” Bethany admitted. “I can’t help myself around girls with short pompadour hairstyles and lots of black eyeliner. And the ripped jeans and the leather jacket!” She pressed her fists to her mouth. There were actual hearts in her eyes. “But I won’t go there with her if it bothers you.”
I hefted the sandwich board and pushed open the door. “Beth. Honey. I would never do that to you. I’d worry that you’d spontaneously combust into a swarm of pink killer bees.”
As it was, I was likely the one to combust here, though it would be for entirely different reasons.
chapterfour
Beckett
Today’s Special:
Slow-Roasted Loyalty over a Bed of Lunacy
The interiorof Small Point Oyster Company—SPOC to those who knew—was the same as it had always been. Dark, shiny wood. Weathered bronze. Water views as far as the horizon stretched. It was quiet and cool, the faint scents of lemon wood polish and vanilla extract lingering in the air. The raw bar was scrubbed to a shining, sterile clean. The white and stainless-steel kitchen gleamed.
It was the exact change of state I needed after my encounter with Sunny. No humidity curling around my neck, no sunlight to blind me from common sense. No gorgeous hazel eyes or wicked grins. This place was a blast from the mentally suppressed past and there was nothing sexually confusing about it. Perfect and perfectly fucked-up, just the way I liked it.
As I made my way up the back stairs to the offices hidden there, I tried to remember the last time I’d visited. It had been years, and I’d lived comfortably with that distance because I’d hired the right people to maintain order and keep this place running the way my great-uncle had wanted. Excellent local food and drink with top-notch service. Simple, honest, and exceptionally good.
Easy enough, right?
