And one day…one day, I’ll be strong enough to ask why.
Today, though, is not that day.
Hudson sighs. “Bea. Go home. I’ve got this today, okay?”
“I don’t want to be alone,” I whisper.
He doesn’t tell me to go hang out at Ryker’s like he probably should.
Instead, he shakes his head, grabs an apron out of the box that also houses the curtains that Daphne insisted I get forthose times when people wanted a high-end, private burger bus experience—so far only used by me for the purposes of seducing the man I don’t know if I ever want to see again—and he hands it to me. “Then at least put on your uniform. And don’t like, cry in the burger meat or anything. You won’t keep repeat customers if your burgers make them sad.”
“That’s not how that works,” I mutter.
He snorts.
I snort back.
And then the asshole does the worst thing he could possibly do.
He hugs me.
He hugs me, and he says, “I’m sorry he hurt you, Bea. I really thought he was smarter than that. And I wanted him to show you the whole world. After everything you’ve done for Ryker and Griff and especially me—I wanted you to have it all. One day, I’ll make sure you see the world myself. You deserve it.”
“Dammit, Hudson.” God, it’s hard to not cry. “Just let me work and pretend this is all about Jake again, okay?”
“What about me?” a man says in my window.
I rear back.
Hudson shoves me behind him. “Get fucking bent,” he snarls at my ex-boyfriend.
Because there’s Jake.
Standing there looking like he pressed his jeans and had his hair cut and his beard trimmed just to show up at my burger bus looking like a cover model while I’m in red-rimmed eyes with crusty lips and that constant, thudding ache in my head.
“I posted about your bus on my socials so that you’ll get more customers,” Jake says. “You’re welcome. Now, can we please discuss what it’s going to take for you to come to your senses and come back to me?”
Hudson looks back at me, utter disgust etched on his face.
Probably a good thing most of the weapons in the bus are things like ketchup bottles and burger flippers.
He could do some damage with one of the fry baskets though.
“Was he like this when you dated him?” Hudson asks me.
“Probably.”
“Probably?That’s a yes or no question, Bea.”
“You overlook a lot when a guy’s offering to help you make your dreams come true. And he probably hid a lot while getting all of my ideas out of me.”
“I don’t have to be here offering to take you back,” Jake says. “My mother’s opposed. She thinks you’re unsophisticated and that you use your parents’ death to get everyone’s sympathy, and you really overstepped with throwing a competing murder mystery dinner. But the sex was good enough, and you can cook. Doesn’t mean the offer doesn’t expire though.”
“Is he for real?” Hudson asks me.
“Don’t know, don’t care.” I lean around my brother and lift a middle finger at my ex. “You’re slime, Jake. Get lost.”
“You’re going to die alone and miserable.”
