“Nope. Go sit. Get a drink. Gird yourself for the other grilling that’s coming.”
I smile broader.
She smiles back again, but while my smile is easy, hers seems laden with apprehension.
“Second thoughts about the family dinner?” I murmur. When she explained what she was making—over text message,as Ryker hustled me out of her bus rather quickly, and my security man did nothing to help me—she added that it was impossible to cook her family’s favorite meal without involving them.
And being the spitefully happy prat that I regularly am, I insisted I was ecstatic at the opportunity to get to know her better through her family.
“Not second thoughts, but definitely guilt,” she replies. “Terrible, horrible, insurmountable guilt. You should’ve held out for a private dinner later. They’re going to eat you alive.”
“Are you worrying yourself over me, Bea?”
“It’s more that I don’t want to face the backlash from the town when everyone finds out you fled the entire state in terror because of my family.”
“Have no doubts. I survived my own youth. I can survive an evening of uncomfortable conversation. Is this your magic sauce?”
Her cheeks turn a lovely pink. “Family secret magic sauce.”
“It smells almost as good as you taste.”
Her eyes go dark and her lips part as she draws in a quick breath.
“Drinks on the deck, you say? Lovely. I’m parched. And hungry.”
I leave her gaping after me and climb the three steps onto the broad wooden deck.
Though I do agree with her rather strongly on one point—I should have held out for a private payback dinner.
A naked private payback dinner.
Which I need tonotponder much longer until I’m in private again.
“Heard you Magic Mike’d Bea’s burger bus today,” Daphne says as I join her on the deck. She’s in loose jean shorts and a vest top. Her feet are bare, toenails painted a bright blue, hereyes hidden behind sunglasses, and her magically colorful hair tucked under a baseball cap.
I circumvent the long table adorned with a red checkered cloth and a basket of cutlery to lean against the railing in a position that gives me a view of both Bea at the grill and the boys in the garden. “Going shirtless made the temperatures more bearable, though I only danced when the tips were high enough.”
“Must be nice to be a dude.”
“The drinks are in the cooler, Simon,” Bea says from the concrete slab below. “Ryker has everything from water to tea to soda to beer.”
“I brought wine,” Daphne says. “There’s this pinot gris that I get at a winery up the road that pairs perfectly with the risotto. And it’s local, so you know it’s not fake.”
Bea squints at her. “What? Why would it be fake?”
“Never mind. Want me to take over? Or do you actually trust Hudson with the risotto?”
“Gah. Two seconds…and done. This can sit for a bit. Wait. Simon. Drink.”
“I got him, Bea.” Daphne grins at me. “I want to pick his brain about people I used to know that he might know now.”
“Donot?—”
“Give him shit about being naked in your burger bus and Ryker suspecting hanky-panky? Bea. Am I your best friend or not?”
“That’s a loaded question,” I observe.
“Very loaded,” Bea agrees. “Crap. The risotto. I’ll be back.”
