“What if I want to take them down myself?”
She gives me a look that suggests she wants to pat me on the head and call me adorable. “Sweetie…you’re living with Daphne Merriweather-Brown, and it’s been how many months since you and Jake broke up? If you wanted to do it yourself, you would’ve already done it. Where are you tomorrow? I’m making my husband and daughter come too.”
I smile at her. “Thank you. I’ll be lined up with everyone else at the parking lot at the lake. Paddleboating is half off tomorrow.”
Lana’s watching me when I turn back into the bus. “I think there are more people who’d speak out about them than we think there are,” she says.
“Yeah, but at what price? The Camilles have decades of experience with making everyone think they’re amazing. It’s easier to just run a spite burger bus until I get tired of it.”
She grins. “So it’s true that this is a spite business.”
“Where’d you hear it?”
“From Simon. Don’t worry. I won’t tell a soul.”
I squint at her. “You’re a lawyer?”
“Specializing in intellectual property. Keeping secrets is the biggest part of my job. I’m pretty good at it.”
“Hello?” a voice calls at the window. “Do you have enough burgers left to feed an army of two teenage boys?”
Lana’s gaze smacks into mine.
I’m positive I’m starting to blush.
She smiles.
It’s definitely on the wicked side.
“Is this weird?” I ask her.
She shakes her head. “Simon’s more like a brother who also happens to be my co-parent than he is anything else. If you’re having fun, have fun.”
“That’s…really unusual and pretty cool of you.”
“If I wanted more, I’ve had ample opportunity over the past fourteen years. But he’s not the one for me, and I won’t raise my kids the same way I was raised.”
My face does the talking for me, clearly telegraphing I’m not entirely sure what she means.
“My parents shouldn’t have been together as long as they were. Not a good example of a healthy relationship. I want my boys to know it’s important for them to be happy on their own instead of expecting a woman—or anyone, really—to cater to their every whim.”
“Hello?” Simon calls again.
“Hold on, I’m bracing myself for how much work I’m about to have to do,” I call back.
“Quite wise. We’ve just come from the trampoline park, and jumping made them ravenous.”
I glance at Lana. “Want them to join you? Or do you have to go?”
“Send them in. Believe it or not, I miss them. All of them.”
“Come on in to the chef’s table,” I tell Simon as I lean out the window. “Fans are working, and I’ll point them out the bus so I don’t have to smell stinky boys.”
“We don’t stink nearly as bad today as Charlie did yesterday,” Eddie tells me.
“It’s impossible to ever stink that bad again,” Charlie agrees.
Simon smiles at me while Butch and Tank hustle the boys toward the back of the bus. He’s in a T-shirt advertising the cheese shop, which is hilarious considering he can’t eat cheese, and a ball cap with the college’s women’s hockey team logo on it.
