“I’m not helping you,” she says. “I posted about how you had no interest in opening a restaurant until we drove past Ada Jane here and I told you what my father always wanted to do with the old house, and about how you stole my dream from me when you dumped me. Griff shared my post. Daphne did too. Six people have already commented with ways that you’ve fucked them over too, and I have a feeling we’re about to hear from many, many,manymore.”
“You can’t do that,” Jake sputters.
“Oh, I think you’ll find I put in enough of thein my opinionsandthe way I felt’s that your father can’t sue me for defamation. And even if he did, I know an attorney or two myself, and Daph’s lining up backups as we speak.”
How amusing—Jake’s head has become a tomato.
A very ripe, very mushy tomato.
And the woman of my dreams—she has taken complete control of all of the unpleasant people in this room.
Pride swells my chest.
“Get the fuck out of my restaurant,” Jake growls.
I start to rise to take part in defending the woman of my dreams, but the wine is acting as terribly as bubbly does, and I sway while my arsehole protests Jake’s demands for me.
“I’m leaving, but only because I’m sick of your face, and I don’t want anyone to think I would ever endorse your restaurant as a place to eat good food.” Bea follows her announcement by waving her hand toward my parents. “And you two. If I ever,everhear of you contacting Simon again, I’ll write my own damn movie script about what terrible people you are, and then I’ll have my brothers and their friends make it into a YouTube series, and you’ll never be able to show your faces in public again. No. Shut your mouth. You’re done talking.”
She leans into me, her breath on my ear. “Now, can we please get out of here?”
“I’ve drunk six wottles of bine,” I inform her.
“That’s very restrained of you if it’s been like this for the past hour.”
“In—hic!—deed.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner. I had to do a little saving of myself first.Ever Aftertold me so.”
She got the message.
She understood.
“I love your dimples,” he tells me. “They—hic!—horn me makey.”
She smiles, those beautiful pools of moss and trees and grass and every good green thing ever shining down on me as though I deserve to be smiled at. “I adore you, Simon Luckwood.”
My eyes water. “I do not deserve you.”
“You deserve every good thing in the entire world and so much more.” She tugs on my hand. “Come with me.”
I don’t recall my feet working.
I do recall my arsehole making its presence known twice more before we reach the door.
There’s some kind of yelling about a bill.
Butch makes a comment about dishes that makes Bea laugh, and also makes me wish I’d made whatever comment that was.
We step into the crickety night air, all crickety with the crickets cricketing, and warm arms circle me as other bodies move around us, carrying signs I cannot read in the dark.
“Simon,” Bea whispers. “We have to keep walking.”
“But I love you here,” I tell the angel holding me up.
“I love you everywhere,” she replies.
Some distant part of me realizes this is monumentous—monumental? Momentous? Good god, words are stupid—but the utter relief at no longer being in my parents’ presence, the warmth of her body tucked against mine, the effects of the wine, the fresh air, and the thought of willy dogs has me content to do nothing more than bury my head in her hair and hold on so that I might stay here long enough to sober up and understand what, exactly, is happening.
