Act Your Age, Eve Brown (The Brown Sisters #3)(43)

“Please, sit. And help yourselves,” she smiled, indicating the jugs of water and plates of gingerbread at the center of the big, circular table.

Eve made a stifled little squeaking sound as she sat, and Jacob knew without looking that she was shooting heart eyes at the gingerbread.

“Thanks, Marissa,” he murmured. Then he snagged a plate of gingerbread and held it out to Eve, because, well—her arms were shorter than his, so she’d have to lean over to reach.

She stared at him wide-eyed, like his basic courtesy was some kind of miracle, and Jacob felt himself grow irritable and overheated. For fuck’s sake. Just because he wasn’t a sunny cartoon character didn’t mean he couldn’t be nice, too.

“Stop looking at me like that,” he muttered, “and take the gingerbread.”

After a moment, her surprise dissolved into a smile. “Yes, boss,” she whispered impishly, and took two.

He ruthlessly squashed his grin.

Then a voice to his right popped the little bubble that had formed around he and Eve. “All right, Wayne. What’s up with the arm?”

Ah. Yes. There were . . . other people here. It looked as if almost everyone had arrived, in fact: the ice cream people, the artisanal cheese people, the teacher in charge of the floats by local children, the Thai street-food people, and so on. The man speaking was Craig Jackson, a florist from another nearby village. He was a loud and nosy type with beady, judgmental blue eyes and a love of speaking over people. Including Marissa. Jacob privately suspected that the man would not be contracted again for next year’s festival.

Jacob, by contrast, had been on his absolute best behavior during all meetings. After all, Marissa was the one giving him this opportunity based on nothing but the essay he’d emailed her months ago outlining point by point why he would be an excellent bet for one of the stalls on offer. He certainly owed her the bare respect of paying attention to whatever she said.

Turning to look at Craig, Jacob said stiffly, “I have fractured my wrist.” He’d have thought that much was obvious, what with the cast and all.

Craig released a snicker that signaled incoming bullshit. “How’d you manage that, Spock? Sudoku-ing too hard?”

Jacob set his jaw. He didn’t appreciate Spock comments. He’d received a lot of them over his lifetime, and he knew exactly what they were supposed to imply, and they made him want to throttle people before sitting them down for a long and detailed chat on why the world would be a much better place if they stopped congratulating themselves on being normal and started to accept that there were countless different normals, and Jacob’s kind was just as fine as everyone else’s.

In his head, that detailed chat usually involved a lot of curse words and multiple threats of violence.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t in much of a position to carry out threats of violence, since a woman whose professional respect and continued grace he very much relied on was watching this entire interaction with an unreadable expression. He resigned himself to squashing down his anger for the greater good—well, for his own greater good—when Eve leaned forward to glare flintily at Craig.

Jacob blinked, momentarily taken aback. He hadn’t realized she could glare like that. But it turned out that big, expressive eyes, while very good at sparkling adorably, were just as good at delivering death stares.

“Spock,” Eve repeated after swallowing her mouthful of gingerbread. “What does that mean?”

Craig faltered for a moment. “He’s, er, a character from one of them—”

“No, I know who Spock is,” she said dismissively, as if Craig were being excessively stupid. “I meant, what did you mean by it?”

Craig paused. “Well,” he said after a moment. “Would’ve thought that was obvious.”

Eve produced a lovely, vacant smile. “No,” she said. “Explain it to me.”

Once, as a child, Jacob had seen a mongoose eat a snake. He was now experiencing a similar fascinated, secondhand alarm.

“Welll,” Craig repeated, drawing out the word uncomfortably this time. “Obviously, Spock is . . .”

Eve waited, blinking slowly.

“Spock is . . .”

“What?” she nudged.

“Well, you know that Jacob is . . .”

Eve waited. Then she repeated, “What? Jacob is what?”

“Yes, Mr. Jackson,” Marissa interjected. “Jacob is what?” Much like Eve, she waited for his answer with a deceptively patient smile.

“Erm,” Craig mumbled. “Er. Ah. Never mind.”

“Are you sure?” Eve asked.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“But—”

“I said it doesn’t bloody matter!” Craig barked, his face flushing red.

Jacob’s amusement drained away at that, replaced by a cold fury. “Do not,” he said quietly, “raise your voice at my employees.”

Craig shifted uncomfortably, looking away. “Christ,” he muttered. “Let’s bloody get on with it.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Marissa said severely. “If you’re done disrupting proceedings, Mr. Jackson, we are all busy people and have no time to waste.”

Craig’s redness ratcheted up to fire engine, but, with a wary glare in Eve and Jacob’s direction, he kept his mouth shut.