Act Your Age, Eve Brown (The Brown Sisters #3)(28)

He flushed, strawberry ice cream again. Just a hint. But he also stood tall and narrowed those flinty eyes behind his glasses. “I have a concussion.” The Because you hit me with your car part did not need to be said.

“Yes, you have a concussion,” she replied, “but you were a prick to me even before that event, so I don’t see how it’s relevant.”

Jacob’s jaw dropped. Pettily, she enjoyed the sight.

“Now, shut up about it,” she finished, slapping his breakfast onto a plate. Funny, how she’d made all this food without really noticing. Arguing with him had worked wonders for her nerves. “Here’s the plan. Since your wrist is broken and your arse is also broken—”

“I’ll give you this,” he muttered, “at least you’re thorough when you run a man over.”

Eve valiantly ignored him. Or was it Valium-ly? “—you can’t sit at a table and you can’t hold your own plate.”

“I can hold my own plate, genius,” he said, waving his left hand.

“And can you also feed yourself, genius?”

He glared. “It’s very irritating when you say logical, intelligent things. Stop it. Now.”

Ridiculous, to take such sideways words as a compliment. It was just—well. Eve’s sisters were smart. They passed exams and built careers and did incredible things with computers or peer-reviewed research. Eve failed exams, attended drama school, failed that, too, and mixed up all her words because focusing on conversations was beyond her. Family never called her stupid, and her friends only ever implied it—but intelligent wasn’t a word she often heard directed at herself.

Jacob cocked his head, watching her steadily. “You keep zoning out of this conversation. Have you suffered a blow to the head too, or do you find me that boring?”

“You are the exact opposite of boring,” she blurted out before she could stop herself.

Jacob blinked, and she had the pleasure of seeing him look genuinely at a loss for the first time since they’d met. “Oh. Erm . . .” He cleared his throat. She watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. “Right. Well. That’s true.”

Eve shoved the plate of breakfast at him, pleased when he took it reflexively with his good hand. “This’ll probably be cold after all the babbling we’ve done.”

“Excuse me,” he said severely, “I don’t babble.”

“I am ignoring you and your smartarse interruptions,” she replied, “because they do not deserve acknowledgment. As I was saying—”

“You do realize that claiming you won’t acknowledge something is an acknowledgment in itself.”

You already injured him yesterday, Eve. At least let him recover before you beat him over the head. “As I was saying, here is the plan. You hold the plate, and I,” she murmured, fighting a smile as she picked up his fork, “will feed you.”

He reacted just as wonderfully as Eve had expected. Which is to say, his eyes widened with comical horror, that vicious mouth fell into a rather satisfying O, and more strawberry ice cream crept up his pale cheeks—the outraged kind, this time, which had a sort of raspberry tinge.

“Feed me?” he sputtered.

Eve couldn’t hold back her smile anymore. It spread evilly across her face. A snicker might have escaped, too. “That is what I said.”

“Are you taking the piss? I’m not having you feed me. That is unnecessary—”

“Do you have another solution, then?”

“—and completely inappropriate.”

“Inappropriate?” Eve blinked, taken aback for a moment. “Oh—you don’t mean to say you’re sensitive about the idea of me shoving a sausage down your throat?”

To her surprise, instead of scoffing at her admittedly risqué joke, Jacob simply blushed harder. “Do you ever shut up?” he muttered.

“Do you?”

“Of course. When I’m alone,” he said, “which I seriously wish I was right now.”

“But then how would you eat my delicious test breakfast?”

“Oh, fuck off. I told you about the logic and the intelligence and the making points. It unsettles me. Stop.”

Eve didn’t mean to grin. It just . . . happened.

“How about this,” Jacob said after a moment. “You hold my plate, and I feed myself.”

“I had considered that,” she said.

“And disregarded it because?”

“Because feeding is a dominant action. A helpful action. An action that inf—infant . . .” Oh dear. There was nothing worse than confusing her words when she was trying to be badass.

She waited for Jacob to pounce on her stutter, but all he did was sigh and drawl acidly, “I’m assuming you are searching for the word infantilize.”

“Oh. Yes. Thank you.” Eve brightened. Let the badassery continue. “Feeding is an action that infantilizes you. Whereas holding something, like a table, is servile, and I am not servile.”

Jacob stared. “First of all, you think like a wolf under all that pastel hair.”

Said the wolf himself.

“And second of all, you literally work for me. You should be servile.”

“I thought I didn’t work for you yet?”