Chapter 17
THIS WASN’T THE SHOW I WAS LOOKING FOR
Daphne
I took a road trip with Bea and her brothers about two years after my parents disinherited me.
Her youngest brother, Hudson, had gotten his driver’s license a few months before, and her middle brother, Griff, was playing baseball in the minors. He had a series in Michigan, and Bea talked even her grumpy oldest little brother, Ryker, into coming with us to see Griff’s baseball game.
I was between jobs at the time—it was right before I stumbled into working for Beeslieve—and feeling like a complete broke failure, which is likely why Bea insisted I go along.
She knew it would be fun and that I needed something fun.
Fun is never a bad thing in my world, and I honestly think that’s why I still have a job with Beeslieve today.
I keep it fun for everyone else too while we’re doing the hard work.
Hudson kept taking his shoes off and stinking up the car. Ryker kept grumbling that he shouldn’t leave his farm for so long, even though he’d left it in good hands.
Bea and I, meanwhile, sat in the front seat and turned up the showtunes and sang our hearts out.
She didn’t know any of the words, but that didn’t stop her.
By the time we got to Michigan, I’d discovered road trip food is the best food ever.
And that’s why I’m pulling off the road right now.
Because I’ve passed four Cod Pieces already, and if I don’t get some fish and chips at this one coming up, I’m going to die.
Okay, probably not, but also maybe.
Oliver’s been asleep for three solid hours.
He’s snored a few times and has drool slipping down his chin. Oliver drooling in his sleep would be adorable if he wasn’t my sister’s ex-fiancé, and I have to keep reminding myself that he is.
It’s incredibly unfortunate that I need to keep reminding myself.
But I do.
My hormones are not behaving themselves.
Between the sympathy I have for his situation and the way he’s changed since the last time I saw him, and then his complete one-eighty from Mr. Grumpiest Billionaire Ever to Kindest Stranger in the Universe when he paused to make a donation to the little girl and her gymnastics club, I can’t look at him without getting that feeling in my belly.
You know the one.
Yeah.
That feeling.
That I think I like something about you feeling that I absolutely, positively, cannot have for this man especially.
This is my hardship to bear for all of the crimes of my youth. Zero doubt.
Karma has come calling.
I turn into the Cod Pieces parking lot, intending to line up for the drive-thru, when Oliver bolts straight upright.
“Wha-bum?” he gasps.
Tell me any normal woman could resist a guy when he’s disoriented and babbling nonsense while he has his own drool on his chin.
“We’re about an hour from our destination,” I tell him. “Grab the cash from the glove compartment. We’re getting the best road trip food ever invented.”
Not that it can hold a candle to Bea’s fish and chips—her dad was a chef and taught her how to cook the most amazing food—but Bea’s not here, and even if she was, she’d agree that Cod Pieces is the way to go for a road trip.
“Why are we eating at a place that’s named even worse than the Quickie-Lickie?”
“Because it’s delicious.” I switch plans and pull into a parking spot instead of hitting the drive-thru.
My bladder isn’t the teeniest, but it can’t handle two MegaHit energy drinks for long either.
“And it’s fine if you hate it, but I’m not doing my job well if I don’t show you the best-worst food in existence. Although—no, never mind.”
He blinks at me like he’s still waking up. “Although what?”
“The real worst food ever is the Miles2Go signature corn dog. It’s really bad. Like all the way bad. Not like so bad it’s good. Just terrible, if I had to use a single word to describe it.”
“William’s dick,” he mutters.
“You’ve seen the websites about it!” People have strong opinions about the corn dogs, and after Oliver’s father, William, went to prison, they nicknamed it for him. “That’s hilarious. I wasn’t sure if they’d bother you with something so trivial.”
“The nickname is why I made them keep it on the menu.” He blinks at me again, opens his mouth, then shuts it like he didn’t want to admit that to me.
I grin at him. “Daddy issues?”
“He went to prison. Do you know how hard it is for someone with our attorneys to actually go to prison? You have to fuck up more than anyone has ever fucked up. Ever.”
“And he left you holding the company together, so you took it out on him by keeping mementos of his penis in stores across the country. Oliver Cumberland, you have a petty streak. Who would’ve guessed?”
“Are we going inside or not?”
I unbuckle and swing open my door. “Yep. Culinary delight awaits.”
Oliver refills his wallet with more cash, then joins me to cross the parking lot.
It’s a little crowded, but that shouldn’t be a problem.
“Cod-stravaganza?” Oliver mutters as we approach the door, where this month’s special is advertised on a bright red background featuring Sir Pollock, the Knight Fryer, Cod Pieces’ mascot.
I clap my hands. “We can get seven pieces of cod for the price of five. This is a good day.”
He squeezes his eyes shut, but I think he’s partially smiling.
The tiniest amount.
The itty-bittiest amount of smile that one can smile, in fact.
But it’s still a smile. I swear it is.
Or possibly he has gas.
Those protein bars he has stocked in his back seat will do a number on a normal person’s digestive system.
I tilt my head sideways at the other sign on the door—Closed today.
Weird.
Clearly, the store is open.
There are people inside.
The menu is shining brightly.
Cars are moving through the drive-thru.
It’s definitely open.
I grab the door handle and we stroll inside.
Cod Pieces’ signature fried fish smell permeates the air. I get one good half whiff in, and then the singing starts.
“What in the hell?” Oliver mutters.
I look around wildly, and then I spot it.
The kids’ fishbowl.
It’s a kiddie playground that not every Cod Pieces has, but this one does. Rounded plexiglass, to simulate a fishbowl, usually holds the kids inside while they run around on underwater-themed slides and climbing thingies.
And there’s clearly a birthday happening inside.
That’s where the singing is coming from. I can’t see the kids, but I can see the adults singing.
Looks like grandparents.
“When you have a happy Cod Piece, your happy’s happy too! For your Cod Piece Birthday, your wishes will come true! Happy happy Cod Piece! Happy fish and chips! Happy happy Cod Piece! Good luck with your fish lips!”
“Oh my god,” I whisper.
“That’s for a kid’s birthday?” Oliver mutters to me.
They start the song over again as I pull us toward the counter to order. “Let’s get it to go,” I say.
“Oh, no. I need to experience what normal people do for their birthdays.”
I try to stifle an unexpected laugh and end up snorting instead.
The kid at the counter makes a face at us.
Typical teenager.
I interpret it to mean dammit, more customers.
Probably playing on his phone a minute ago.
“Welcome to Cod Pieces, where our pieces are lit and our chips don’t drip,” he says. He’s wearing a giant cod head as a hat, and I can’t tell if Oliver’s choking noise is from the greeting or the outfit.
“A five-piece cod and two chips, plus an order of hush puppies, please,” I say.
Gotta ease Oliver into this.
The grease can be a lot when you’re not used to fast food.
Although this might not be easing him in.
Guess we’ll see.
“Thirty-two seventy-six,” the kid replies, looking behind us toward the fishbowl and not paying much attention to us at all. “You want a codpiece with that?”
Oliver makes another choking noise.
I can’t look at him—if he’s horrified, I’ll feel a little bad, and if he’s laughing, I’ll lose my shit and laugh with him until I can’t breathe.
The Cod Pieces closest to Athena’s Rest doesn’t offer actual codpieces the way the diner offers kids fake diner hats so they can pretend they work there too.
This might’ve been a bad idea.
The chaos that I find whenever I go back to where I came from has clearly followed me out onto the road.
But a girl can only drive by so many Cod Pieces before she needs a snack.
Though I will not be saying that out loud to Oliver.
Probably.
It would be amusing to watch his reaction.
But maybe not yet. Maybe in another couple days.
“You got the cash, Ollie?” I say without looking at him.
He forks over a hundred-dollar bill.
The kid looks at me, then at Oliver, then pulls out the magic marker that they use to check that a dollar bill is real.
“This again?” Oliver mutters.
I pinch my lips together.
The kid makes change and hands it back to him.
He drops all of the change into the tip jar—it’s a fishbowl, of course—and the kid’s eyes go as round as the mom’s eyes did this morning.
And then he looks down at Oliver’s shirt, where I forgot to make sure he took the tag off, as someone shrieks behind us. “That’s the sign! Oh my god! The stripper’s here!”
I choke on a gasp.
I’m up for a lot, but— “A stripper? At a kid’s birthday party?” I say to the teenager behind the counter.
He squints at me, then at the tip jar, then back to me. “So you’re like…playing that you don’t know?”
I give him the double eyeballs of know what?
He glances at Oliver, then back to me. “Dude. That’s game to bring a girl to your show.”
“What show?” Oliver asks the kid.
He smirks. “Okay, yeah, I’ll play like you don’t know what’s up. They’re senior citizens, and they gave us a thousand bucks to not let anyone under twenty in the door. If you’re planning on shaking them down for more, can I get a cut?”
“I thought he was supposed to be in a medieval knight costume,” a woman says, much closer now.
“I thought he was supposed to be Sir Pollock.”
“Maybe he’s the handler.”
“I hope not. Look at that ass. I like looking at ass.”