Chapter 73 LOVE IS ALWAYS BETTER WITH BURGERS
LOVE IS ALWAYS BETTER WITH BURGERS
Daphne
Bea’s burger bus—now called Spite Burgers, complete with the name graffitied over the old logo and design, and complete with a new placard mounted next to the menu explaining the history of the name—is still open when I leave work early Monday.
“I thought you were selling out every day,” I say to her as I slouch at the chef’s table in the back of the bus. I haven’t eaten much today, but even the scent of her burgers and fries isn’t making me hungry like it would’ve a few weeks ago.
My stomach is twisted in too many knots.
I could go to Manhattan. I could find Oliver. I could get Archie’s number and make him give me Oliver’s number since Margot refused when I asked her to get it for me.
She actually hasn’t taken my calls at all since the day after I got home, but she warned me she’d be busy, and it wouldn’t be about me if she couldn’t talk for a bit, even if I heard it was, and that I had to trust her.
I do.
I mean, I’m trying to.
But for once in my life, fear is in control.
Fear that Oliver doesn’t want me.
Fear that it was all a dream.
Fear that the magic spell we were under has snapped for him, and he’s come to his senses and realized I’d be more trouble than I’m worth.
I’m fraidy-cat Daphne, and I hate it, but I can’t make myself fix it.
“She’s not only selling out, she’s having numerous requests for private parties every day,” Simon answers for her. “We prepared more food today though. Marvelous solution to such a lovely problem.”
He’s shirtless and lingering in the window of the bus, drawing people in. His boys are enjoying their last days of summer vacation, playing video games at a friend’s house, so he—and one of his security guys—are here with Bea today.
Bea and Oliver have a lot in common—she’s not entirely sure what she’s supposed to do with her life, much like Oliver’s discovering what he wants to do with his.
But Simon’s been eager to help Bea with ideas.
The latest is script-writing.
She told me on our drive home from the airport last week that she made suggestions on a script while I was gone, and he’s been asking her for more and more ideas and opinions and insisting she’ll get cowriter credit when the studio that made him famous produces this show too.
Every time I’ve heard her tell him she doesn’t know what she’s doing, he’s grinned and told her neither does most of Hollywood.
And honestly?
I think he’s right. About all of it.
None of us know what we’re doing.
“We’re nearly sold out today too,” she tells me. She’s manning the grill, finishing three hamburgers for late straggler customers. “Even if we don’t sell out all the way, we’re close. You sure you don’t want anything?”
“I’m good, thanks.” I glance at my phone.
No missed calls.
No missed texts.
“Daph, he’s had a busy day,” Bea says gently.
“I know.”
I was out working with a department of transportation crew all morning—I do need to work for a paycheck, and I still love my job and coworkers—and when I glanced at my phone during my normal lunch break, I had several missed texts.
Oliver blew up the internet again. Second—no, third time in a little over a week.
No one’s talking about how we were arrested now or even about how we were on a money-donation spree across the country.
They’re talking about how he dropped a bomb in the Miles2Go board meeting this morning.
Resigned. Announced he’s giving his stock to franchise owners. And endorsed his executive assistant to be the new CEO of the company.
He didn’t say he advised against letting his father have a continued role, but the implications were there in his subtle references to how badly Miles2Go was struggling when he took over.
He hasn’t simply left the company himself. He’s completely taken it out of his family’s hands.
They’ll no longer have majority control. Or likely even a say on the board of directors.
Some people are framing it as him fucking his family over.
I don’t see it that way.
I see it as Oliver being the Oliver that I got to know the past two weeks. Publicly giving credit where credit is due with his nomination for the new CEO and doing some of that trickle-down economics stuff at the same time with his own stock shares.
Putting more control in the hands of the people doing the everyday work.
Preventing his father from destroying what he’s built back up.
And it makes me love him even more.
So much so that I couldn’t stop crying over my lunch break and had to call my boss and beg for one more afternoon off, which I’ve sworn to make up for with extra fundraising calls.
She saw the news.
She knows who I was with the past two weeks.
She knows where our funding comes from.
And she told me she’s not charging me any vacation days for the past two weeks since I was working with a major donor.
Bea and her family are my family, and my coworkers are a close second.
At the window, Simon flexes his biceps. “Burger and fries and a beefcake show,” he calls. “Free autographs too.”
Bea smiles and shakes her head. “Sorry, Daph. He is who he is.”
I make myself smile back at her. “He makes you happy. And he sells a lot of burgers for you. That makes me happy.”
I look down at my phone again and switch over to the family text message.
The one that has Bea and all three of her brothers.
I snap a picture of Simon, then send it to all four of them. Bet you’re sad you’re not here to see this, I text.
Hudson won’t answer quickly. He went back to college while I was on my trip.
Griff won’t answer quickly. He’s getting ready for a game in Atlanta.
Ryker won’t answer at all. He stopped by earlier with more vegetables from his farm, saw Simon’s flexing for himself, sighed like he’s ninety-three instead of twenty-six, and left quickly.
And Bea will eventually answer with something that will make her brothers all respond with throwing-up emojis.
I scroll and pull up my text messages with Margot.
She was one of the people who sent me the livestream with Oliver.
Maybe we can meet halfway between me and you for brunch this weekend?, I text her.
Her response is almost immediate, and she’s accurately reading between the lines of my message. It hasn’t been a full week, Daph. Have some faith.
It’s been long enough.
Four days is forever when you’re in love and don’t know if you’ll ever see him again.
If he’s coming.
If he won’t be one more person to abandon me.
I cringe at that thought and switch over to text Lana, Simon’s ex. Like, looooong-ago ex. She’s the boys’ mother, and the four of them have their own unique co-parenting family situation that’s surprisingly functional.
Far more functional than my family. Simon keeps talking about Bea adopting him into her family, but he and Lana and the boys have adopted Bea and her brothers and me into their family too.
It’s pretty cool.
Plus, Lana let me whine to her about Oliver being bad for Margot before the road trip. It feels like forty-seven years ago that I was telling her how wrong Oliver and Margot were for each other and how boring he was.
And yes, she was one more person texting me this morning.
She heard the story of my road trip at a cookout yesterday at Simon’s house.
I need to binge something dark. You in? I text her.
Tomorrow? I have the boys tonight. I’ll bring snacks. Hot cheese puffs are your favorite, right?
Shit.
And now I’m tearing up again.
I have to do something.
I have to get over this fear.
I have to find his phone number, and I have to call him. I need to hear his voice.
“Afternoon, old chap,” Simon says out the window. “Would you be interested in trying the best burgers in the entire world? I recommend at least two. One’s never enough. And not because they’re not big. They’re healthy-sized. They’re so delicious that one will never be enough.”
Bea cracks up. “One is a good-size meal,” she tells the new customer.
“Are you Bea?” a familiar voice replies.
I jerk upright at the table. Did I—did I manifest this, or am I imagining it?
I can only see Bea’s profile, but I see one of her eyes flaring wide and her jaw going a little slack. “I am,” she says.
“And who are you?” Simon says. “And how many burgers would you like?”
“Simon,” Bea hisses out of the corner of her mouth, but she’s smiling.
And I don’t think she’s smiling simply because Simon’s being Simon.
“Where’s Daphne?” the customer asks.
His voice—his voice.
Oliver’s here.
He’s here, asking for me, and it hasn’t even been a full week, and I need to stand up and get my ass out of this bus and tackle him with a hug and a kiss and tell him that I love him and I never want to leave him behind anywhere again, especially in a jail cell, but my hands and feet are suddenly tingling and my eyes are flooding with tears and I have forgotten how to move.
I can barely make out the sight of Bea leaning into the window beside Simon. “Why?” she asks.
“Because I miss her and I hope she misses me and it’s been too long since I saw her, we have a winning lottery ticket from Pennsylvania that we need to put to good use, and also, I have this polar bear for her.”
Something thumps onto the counter.
Something that looks suspiciously like Angelina Juliana Priestly would look if I were staring at her through blurry eyes.
“Come inside the back of the bus,” she says to Oliver. “Simon only has one security guy with him today, and you’re basically the most famous person in the world at the moment, and I’ve already seen what can happen with that one too many times this summer.”
Oliver makes a frustrated noise, but he clearly does as he’s told because she turns to me with the biggest smile that I can see even through my tears and adds a double thumbs-up to it.
And then I hear, “I don’t need any damn secur— Daphne.”
It’s Oliver.
All of him.
In jeans and a T-shirt, leaping into the back of the bus.
I twist in the seat and try to stand, but I can’t make it up.