Ryker looks at her, then at me. He grunts in clear disapproval.
Hudson looks at her, then me. He grins with pure mischief.
If Griff were here, he’d look at her, then me. And then he’d lean in to listen and suggest ten times bigger than whatever Daphne’s about to suggest.
He’s such a middle brother. And currently in Milwaukee for a weekend baseball series.
I don’t acknowledge Daphne’s request because I don’t have to.
She’s going to talk to me no matter what.
Here now, or at home later.
She slips past my brothers. “Finish up that last order and close the window,” she tells them.
And then she pulls me into the entry well of the bus, which isn’t private, but it’s more private than anywhere else. She switches on our extra fan and aims it into the bus, which will make it harder for the boys to overhear.
Harder, but not impossible.
“You know what’s coming up next weekend?” she whispers to me, clearly up to something in a way that reminds me of my brothers back in their high school days.
“Full moon? Paddleboard races at the lake? Summer knit-off on the square? A cheese festival?”
“JC Fig’s grand opening.”
I stare open-mouthed at the woman I would’ve called my best friend for the past five years. “Excuseyou?”
“Bea.” She puts a hand on my arm, grinning. “Do you know what the opposite of love is?”
“Hate.”
“Apathy. The opposite of love is apathy.”
“And paying attention to a twatnozzle’s grand opening of the restaurant he stole from me is apathetic?”
She peers around me and into the bus, then cackles as she huddles closer to me. “Going to his grand opening would be being the bigger person.”
“Fuck being the bigger person.”
She drops her voice even lower. “Even if you went on the arm of his favorite actor?”
My chest heaves inward as a noise I’ve never made in my life flies out of my mouth.
It’s not quite a gasp, not quite a hiccup, but definitely something horrified.
Her entire face is squeezed up in unmitigated joy. “Right? Jake would shit himself. He’d have to serve you nicely without looking like the fuckwaffle he finally showed you that he really is, and you know what Jake loves more than anything?”
“I’m gonna go with a tossup between Peter Jones and himself.”
“Eating food full of butter and cheese.”
“Daphne.”
“He won’t be able to cook a single thing that Simon Luckwood would eat or like. I’ll handle the reservation. I know all the right things to say so that they’ll know a celebrity in disguise is coming. You know Jake’ll eat that up because his socials game is shit without you, and I only know next week is his grand opening because I’m a petty bitch who wants to know my best opportunities to make him feel the way he made you feel.”
“How is it possible to perpetually have a girl crush on you while also sweating in horror?”
“Because this means you have to take another turdnugget on a date.” Her face freezes, and she leans around me to peek into the rest of the bus again. “Okay. Phew. I don’t think he heard me.”
