Quincy isthegossip in Athena’s Rest. If you want the entire town to know something, you tell him. If you want to keep a secret, you avoid him. If you want to start a rumor about someone though, he’s not your guy. He only deals in truth.
And he’s likely Daphne’s spy.
This should be a good thing.
But my stomach hurts.
“Can you eat butter?” I ask Simon as I pinch the flame on the candle between us. “I know how to avoid peanut allergies, but lactose intolerance wasn’t something any of my brothers’ teachers ever asked the parents to worry about.”
“In small quantities.” Mr. Smiley’s nose wrinkles. “Are you familiar with ghee?”
“My dad was a chef. I’m familiar with a lot of food.”
And the smile returns. “Was he?”
“He was.”
“Did he teach you to make your burgers?”
“He did.”
“With whatever magical secret ingredient you use?”
I smile. I could give credit to using produce from Ryker’s farm, but I know half the success of my burgers will be because of Dad’s secret ingredient, which will go to the grave with me.
“Yep.”
“And he introduced you to ghee?”
“It’s delicious.”
“It’s marvelous. All of the taste, none of the risk of discomfort. Tell me more about your father. Did you cook with him often?”
“I used to go to work with him on the weekends. Ryker did too, right until our parents died.” I glance around the dining room.
Yep.
They’re all staring.
Waiting for the show.
Reason enough to grab more bubbly.
But none of my story is a secret. Everyone in town knows it.
“What did your mother do?” Simon asks.
Tell him, Bea. Tell him why we’re here.
I ignore myself. “She was a professor in the math department at Austen & Lovelace.”
And twice a year, she acted with the local community theater for a hobby, which she adored, and which I am absolutely not telling Simon.
Both because since Mom died, Lucinda Camille took over running the theater, and also because I don’t want to draw the correlation between Mom’s hobby and his job.
Not when I’m afraid it would make me feel like her local success was less than his international fame since they’ll move an entire movie production’s schedule to accommodate him. Even when fame and fortune from acting was never what she ever wanted.
Weird, right?
