Aidan waited. “I could bring you a menu, but there’s not much point, since you already know what’s on it.”
“Isn’t that great?” Beth gave a wavering smile. “We don’t even have to look at the menu. I love the tree, by the way. Tell Geoff the only thing that’s missing is mistletoe.”
“Your sister seemed to do all right without it the other night.” Aidan winked at Posy, who kept her expression deadpan.
“We’ll have two burgers, thanks, Aidan.”
“Coming right up.” He looked at Beth. “And you don’t eat tomato, is that right?”
“That’s right. Oh, Aidan—” she st
ood up and flung her arms round him “—I love that you know that about me, and I love being home.”
Aidan looked nervous as he patted her on the back. He had a cute lopsided smile that ensured he was never short of female company. “Right. Well, customer satisfaction is important to us, so that’s great. Always good to see you, Beth.” He retreated to the kitchen, no doubt to tell someone that strange things were happening to the McBride sisters.
Beth plopped back into her chair. “Don’t you love the fact that everyone knows everything about you?”
“No. It drives me insane.” Posy was starting to wish she’d ordered something other than coffee. Would it be hypocritical for her to order a beer while she poured coffee down her sister?
“What did he mean about you doing all right without mistletoe?”
“No idea.” She watched as Rory Wilson, the training officer for the team, detached himself from the others and strolled across to her. He greeted Beth warmly and then slapped Posy on the shoulder. “I hear you’ve discovered America.”
“Very funny. I’m catching up with my long-lost sister, Rory, so I’ll see you at training next week.”
“I hope you have the energy to attend.”
Definitely a mistake to kiss Luke in the Glensay Inn.
She didn’t want gossip to spoil what they had. On the other hand, she wasn’t sure exactly what they did have. Was it just sex for Luke? Or was it more than sex? Was it going somewhere, or nowhere?
“I have plenty of energy. And you can tell the guys to calm it down because I’m getting annoyed, and I’m dangerous when I’m annoyed. Also, Bonnie tends to bite people who irritate me.”
“We’re happy for you. It’s past time you met someone.” He rejoined the group at the bar and Beth focused on her.
“You met someone?”
Posy leaned forward. “Tell me about Jason. What’s he done?”
“Nothing.”
“You don’t travel without two suitcases for no reason. There must have been something.”
“Nothing. That’s why I left.”
“You don’t leave a man who has done nothing wrong.”
“Doing nothing can be wrong.” Beth slumped in the chair. “I mean he literally does nothing with the girls. He swans in at the end of the day, undoes all my hard work settling them down, enjoys ten minutes of quality time designed to rev their excitement levels to Christmas Eve proportions and then leaves me to calm them down again.”
“You’ve left your husband because the girls are excited to see him at the end of the day?”
“Are you being judgy again? Because if you are, I’m walking out of here right now.”
Posy decided not to point out that her sister wasn’t capable of walking anywhere until some of the alcohol in her system had evaporated. “I’m trying to understand, that’s all. You and Jason seem perfect together. You’re such a solid couple.” And she was horrified. She’d thought Beth was settled and happy. She’d had no idea there was anything wrong. “Does Hannah know? Did you talk to her?”
“You really think I’d turn to Hannah for relationship advice? Her longest relationship is with her laptop. She doesn’t know how it feels to be in love, let alone how it feels to have problems.”
“Well, you should have called me. When did you start feeling unhappy? Did something happen?”