“I need to practice.”
“Okay.”
“But you want to watch the football?”
“Not seeing how this is a problem,” I told her truthfully. “Thought you got stage fright?”
Her hands ran over her thighs nervously. “And?”
“You’ll do better knowing I can’t hear you.” Perfectly reasonable in my opinion. Generous even. Here I was offering to not only read her paper but watch the game instead of listening to her screeching.
“You think you’re so clever,” she snipped at me.
My shit-eating grin pissed her off as I knew it would. “Obviously so do you, or you wouldn’t be asking for my help.”
I watched her struggle with her reply before she opted not to say anything at all and instead turned her back on me completely.
Looking over to the oven, I saw Jett watching me, and I rolled my eyes at his obvious disapproval.
I wasn’t even allowed toplaywith her? To hell with that; they pushed me into this situation, I’d be damned if I didn’t get to play a little.
Chapter 6: Mia
After we had finished eating and tidied the kitchen area up, I had to wait even longer to leave the house because Brute needed to get food packed for him.
I couldn’t cook, but even I could make a smoothie. I instantly knew there was something wrong with the smoothie when Jett asked the Brute to go upstairs and check his computer for him. As soon as their feet hit the stairs, Quinn exploded into action, and within ten minutes, she had blended some truly disgusting ingredients together, while Gray kept watch in the hall.
I didn’t understand their dynamic. The whole family was unhinged in my opinion. They all seemed to thrive on lies and deceit, and I wasn’t too keen on Ava becoming part of this. What was the big deal about telling him about the smoothie? To make things worse, Ava was on Quinn’s side. More and more, she seemed to be getting friendlier with the exotic Quinn, and every time we were all together, I felt myself getting pushed out.
Or maybe I was being a drama llama . . . It wasn’t unheard of for me to slightly overreact. My mom was an actress, so it was in my blood, I suppose. Well, that was my excuse anyway.
With a grocery bag filled with boxes and containers, the green smoothie, and some fruit, Mom Quinn had packed all her little Brute’s food for him to survive the next week. How on earth would I manage a week with him in the apartment? I’d already imagined him naked in the shower more than once since this afternoon.
Maybe when his brother was rearranging my apartment, he could have upgraded our air-conditioning. I had a feeling I was going to be overheating a lot with Ash in the next room.
Jett and Ash came back into the kitchen, and I jumped off the barstool to finally go home.
“That’s you all set until lunch tomorrow,” Quinn told him with a wide smile as she pushed the brown grocery bag toward him, and as Ash thanked her, I realized what Quinn had said.
“All that’s fortonight?” I asked in horror as I looked at the bag.
“They practiced for five hours today,” Quinn told me as she wiped her hands on a dishcloth. “They have practice tomorrow morning too. Do you know how many calories they burn?”
Ash slapped his stomach with one hand as he effortlessly lifted the bag with the other. “I’m a growing boy,” he told her playfully.
“Yeah, you are,” Quinn laughed good-naturedly. “Just don’t mess up your meal plan. It’s my grade, remember.”
“Yes, Queeny, Iknow. I won’t.” He turned to me and jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Ready?”
Nodding, I hugged Ava goodnight and exchanged a smile with Quinn. I felt bad for her, but honestly, I did think they were all overreacting.
As we walked back to the apartment, Ash spent most of the time on his phone, and I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to make conversation or not, so I walked alongside him in silence.
“You’re not usually this quiet,” he said suddenly, just as we reached the street to my apartment.
“You were on your phone,” I replied, feeling slightly defensive.
“Checking the football.” Ash flashed his phone at me, and sure enough, he was watching the game.
