Without it, I’d be going into debt helping pay for these two to eat.
“They’re getting ice cream after all of this too, aren’t they?” Hudson calls.
“Betting that depends on if they’re also lactose intolerant,” she calls back to him.
“I like her,” Charlie says before wolfing down the last of his burger.
“Is she the one you’re taking on a date this weekend? Is she just kissing up to us?” Eddie asks.
“It’s not a date,” Bea says. “It’s an apology dinner.”
“So you’re going to bang him?” Charlie asks.
“One, inappropriate, and two, I’d have to want to for that to happen, and I don’t.”
“Are you sure?” Eddie asks.
“Eat your fries,” I tell them, ignoring the sinking in my stomach.
She doesn’t want to sleep with me?
That’ll put a damper on my dreams.
My boys hold up matching empty trays.
Butch appears with two large ice creams in oversize waffle cones. One chocolate, one vanilla.
The boys pounce.
“Thank you,” I say to Butch.
He nods and grunts once.
Probably meanswe all benefit when their mouths are full.
“Go sit,” Pinky says to the three of us.
“We’ll get the rest,” Tank agrees.
“Take the boys. I’ll be along in a moment. I need a word with Bea.”
My children are thankfully distracted by the ice cream and allow themselves to be led toward an open picnic bench in a shadier area close to the trucks.
Bea leans her forearms on the windowsill again and looks at me expectantly. “You want to plan another party?”
Her dry sarcasm makes me smile broader. “Your friend Daphne isn’t here today?”
“She has a day job saving wildlife through a non-profit, so she only helps me on the weekends. Did you want to ask her out too?”
“No. Not at all. I simply wish to go into our evening together prepared. You’re using me for publicity for your burger bus. Is that correct?”
Her eyes go flat. “Are you always this blunt?”
“Naturally. I don’t object, by the way. Simply saying I wish to know the role I’m playing.”
“You don’t care if people use you for your fame?”
“I’m quite happy to let the right people use me as they’d like.”
