Brooke and Tinley exchange a look before she turns back to me and shrugs her shoulders.
“How about ten?” she asks and I shrug back, stepping aside and holding my arm out towards the door.
I barely manage to get it closed before a football crashes against the wood and falls to the floor.
“Okay, squirts,” I say as I suck in a deep breath and look at the big eyed faces staring up at me. “We are going to get our shit together right the fuck now.”
“Curse jar!” Kinzie yells, still peering around the doorframe from her spot on the toilet.
I sigh and dig two dollar bills out of my pocket, depositing them inside the jar … only to find out that the other twin stuck his sucker inside the glass. Now all the money I planned on pinching back is covered in sticky candy.
I narrow my eyes and take a deep breath, standing up straight and putting my shoulders back. They might be kids, but they'll get the message. No more shit. I was tough on them at first and they listened, but then this whole Brooke thing made me go soft.
Not anymore.
I'm done with the misbehaving … and I'm done fantasizing about Brooke Overland.
Time to get this shit under control before Rob and Mercedes get back. Because once they do, Hubert and I are so gone.
When I get back from drinks with Tinley, I'm even more pissed off than I was when I left. Not at her, not really. I mean, she saw a hot guy that she slept with back in the day and decided she'd go for him. He never gave her any indication that she shouldn't.
Even as I'm slamming my car door and heading up the front walk to the house, I'm fuming as I think about Tinley heading to Vegas with her girlfriends, stopping by Zayden's shop and throwing herself at him. He's made no secret of the fact that he's a pretty indiscriminate lover. Surely they'll sleep together. And then I will be the one that'll have to sit in class with her, maybe even listen to her stories. But I invited her over in the first place because I refuse to be friendless in this hellhole—even if it means being friends with a girl Zayden screwed in the backseat of that little Geo.
Yeah. I got the whole story in excruciating detail from Tinley.
I shove some hair over my shoulder and let myself in to find Zayden singing “Africa” to Sadie again. It's hard to keep the smile off my face, but I manage, closing the door softly behind me and leaning against it.
When he starts singing about wild dogs and Mount Kilimanjaro, that's when I start to chuckle.
“Hey, this song is a classic,” Zayden says as he pauses and checks on the baby, making a squinched face of triumph. “Yep. See? Works every time.”
Zayden bends down and lays Sadie on her back, covering her with a small pink blanket and stepping back with a sigh as he puts his hands on his hips and glances over at me.
“How was your drink date?” he asks as I move over to the couch and drop my purse onto it, shrugging myself out of the giant coat. “Meet any cute guys while you were out?”
I roll my eyes at him.
“Don't do that,” I say and Zayden raises his eyebrows.
“Do what?” he asks, all perfect innocence in his face and voice.
“That. Act like … this,” I point between the two of us, “isn't happening. Do you really think I'd be checking men out tonight? With you waiting at home for me?”
“Listen,” Zayden says, lifting a tattooed finger at me. “I'm not acting like anything. You're a single girl. If you want to check men out while hanging with a friend, who am I to stop you?”
“You're right. Just like you were flirting with Tinley, giving her your phone number, letting her hit on you right in front of me. A girl you took to prom. Don't you think that was a little awkward for me, Zayden?”
“Look, I'm sorry about that. How the hell was I supposed to know you were going to show up with Tinley Horton on your arm? That's just a freak coincidence right there. And if you'll take note, I did not flirt back, okay?”
“Are you going to take her call?” I ask as Zay raises his pierced brow at me. Mine seems to throb and hurt all of a sudden, but I think I'm just imagining it, pausing as I hear “Africa” start up on repeat. Who the hell does that? Puts “Africa” on repeat a hundred times and sings it off-key like that? “When she's in Vegas, are you going to fuck her?”
“I have no fucking clue,” Zayden says and I feel my hands curl into fists. The way he's looking at me, like my feelings aren't his problem, is heartbreaking. I get that this thing between us is temporary, that we were both using each other, but wow. If I needed a memo from him to remind me that he doesn't care, I'm getting it now. “What does it matter?”