The Gossip and the Grump (Three BFFs and a Wedding #2)

Laney does.

I won’t take that from her, because if anyone can find a way to be happy and work through the problems, these two can.

I know they still have secrets from each other, but not malicious secrets. More like I forgot to tell you I was the one who started the rumor that you didn’t wear underwear in high school, which will not come as a surprise to Laney at all when Theo confesses.

Nor will it bother her.

She knows who Theo was and how much he’s made right since high school. And I know all the dirt there is to know about Theo, even if I don’t want to remember it anymore, and I have no concerns for them.

None.

They’re one of the few couples that I honestly expect to make it.

They both know relationships take work and are willing to do it.

And tonight, when she’s perfectly capable of using her crutches to compensate for the leg in the cast, he’s carrying her in here instead. The one thing Theo’s not short on is energy. Next up is utter and complete loyalty and dedication to the people he loves. Followed very closely by basically lives to test boundaries.

Put it all together with him secretly being in love with Laney nearly his whole life, and that makes a recipe for Theo being the best boyfriend on the entire planet right now.

Swoon.

Also, fuck you, Greyson Cartwright, for being nothing like the man you were in Hawaii who would’ve understood why I had to go.

Even though I should be thanking him.

If he were the man he’d been in Hawaii, beans only know if I could’ve resisted him.

If he were the man he’d been in Hawaii, he would’ve walked into my café and asked how we could work together to make it even better instead of being Mr. Grumpy Pants Secretly Plotting To Change Everything all day.

Jitter scrambles to his feet and wags his tail, then presses his body against me and whines softly as Theo approaches with Laney. I scratch his neck while I hold his collar. “Sit, boy. Theo will love on you in a minute.”

Jack and Decker both rise on either side of me. “Here, Laney, take my seat,” Jack says while he snaps his laptop shut.

“Mine’s better,” Decker says while he tucks his laptop under his arm. “More room to prop your leg up.”

“You get a chance to take a DNA test yet?” Jack adds.

Called it.

And now I’m realizing I have one more regret.

In Hawaii, I told Duke that the high school English teacher, Ms. Crackerjack, had an affair with one of the parents of one of her students, Mr. Arbys, that resulted in quintuplets.

He’ll probably figure out the whole truth on that story pretty quickly, though maybe not that Laney’s father is the man we suspect of having an affair with my uncle’s wife. The triplets’ dad definitely isn’t their biological dad, but we have yet to nail down for one hundred percent sure if Mr. Kingston is.

And I definitely need to stop in to see my neighbor down the street.

The new twenty-three-year-old high school English teacher that Grey will suspect has quintuplets if he bothers to think about all of the gossip I told him at all.

“Let a woman get settled before you pester her about who your father is.” Theo sets Laney down in an empty barrel chair across from us, then pulls the entire low table closer to her and helps her prop her cast on it. “Mai tai?” he asks her.

She tips her head back and laughs. “No.”

“Save that for home,” Decker agrees. “None of us want to see her lose her clothes again. No offense, Laney. It’s just like…seeing your cousin naked.”

Laney’s average height, with brown hair, blue eyes, a tan still on her white skin after our week in Hawaii for the wedding that wasn’t, and the cutest butt on the planet. Her wardrobe is entirely functional business casual, but today, she’s in a super baggy pair of Theo’s sweatpants to accommodate her cast, with a bright blue-and-green patterned blouse that would be appropriate on a video conference call. Her future involves taking over the online custom photo gift empire that her parents built as we were growing up, and she’s going to rock it when they retire and hand over the reins.

She brings the best surprises since she can have anything custom-made.

“You okay?” she asks me after Theo leaves for the bar to get her a glass of wine, leaving Jitter brokenhearted at having to wait even longer for love from Theo. My dog has favorites in town. “You’re very…still.”

“I’m processing.”

“Hear anything new?”

Hear? Yes. But more—pick up on?

Greyson Cartwright has a tea obsession. Between the beanie and the way he kept gravitating toward the fireplace and rubbing his hands together, he doesn’t like the cold. He has at least one someone he’s avoiding talking to, if I was reading the signs right once I figured out Zen was holding on to his phone for him.

Plus, there was the way his phone wouldn’t stop buzzing in Hawaii until he shut it off. I don’t think this is a new avoidance.

And more than once, I caught him watching me in the reflection of one of the windows or glancing back at the kitchen with utter misery etched on his face. Like he didn’t want to be the grouchy asshole that he was being, and like he wanted to be back in Hawaii too.

But that might’ve been me projecting.

What would today have been like if he’d understood why I had to leave the way I did in Hawaii?

I swallow and meet Laney’s gaze. “He’s getting bids to renovate Bean & Nugget entirely.”

“How entirely?”

I know I need to say it, but I can hardly bring myself to force the words out. I run my hands through Jitter’s fur to make it more palatable. “He wants to convert it into a kombucha brewery with a completely redone menu, add mead if he can get a liquor license, rename it The Hive, and keep a wall of board games for regular gamer nights.”

Jack makes a noise.

I know that noise.

That’s a noise of he’s building my idea of heaven.

Decker reaches around me and shoves him. “Shut up.”

“No, I get it.” I sigh. “It would sound interesting if he was doing it to another building.” I’d go there and destroy the triplets in a round of Settlers of Catan every once in a while if we had a gaming hangout in town. Instead, I have to do it in the privacy of one of our houses.

Boring.

“And I think he’s planning on putting beehives on the roof and I heard his assistant say something to him about finding a place that can make the fiberglass bee that he wants to mount on the building,” I add.

“Isn’t Chandler deathly afraid of bees?” Laney asks.

“Yes.”

“Does your new boss know this?”

“I don’t know. But I got the impression he doesn’t like Chandler.”

“Fuck, that’s funny,” Decker mutters. “I hate this guy. I’m not supposed to think he’s funny if he’s a dick to our family and the café. How did you pick up on all of this and I didn’t today?”

“You didn’t get the same emails I got.”

“What else do you know about him?” Laney asks me.

“Not enough. I’m working on cracking Zen, his assistant, but I don’t think they trust people easily. It’ll take me some time.”

“I’m googling,” Decker says.

“I’m googling,” Jack adds.

Decker’s on a MacBook. Jack’s on a PC laptop. Do not get them started on who computers better.

“We got you, Sabrina,” Decker says. “By the time we’re done here, we’ll know everything from his social security number to his favorite brand of socks.”

He wears socks with pandas on them.

At least, he did today, and fuck you again, Greyson Cartwright, for making me swoon over your ridiculously cute socks.

The worst part about having Duke in my everyday life now?

I get it. I totally understand why he’s mad at me, and there’s nothing I can—or will—do about it. I’ll apologize, and I’ll be a good employee so long as Bean & Nugget exists, but that’s all he gets from me.

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