Mad Boys (Blue Ivy Prep, #2)(75)

“Nope,” I said. “Didn’t forget. Totally avoided.”

She laughed and bumped my shoulder. “Then it’s your fault we have this many.”

“Yep, we should fire me.”

“Nope,” Aubrey said. “Cause then I’d be stuck here without Yvette to help, and I’m not asking Payton Fucking Webber.”

I snickered. “Oh come on, she’d die if she got to read our fan mail.”

It probably wouldn’t be actual death, unfortunately.

“Pretty sure she’d just spit on it,” Aubrey said. “Go make coffee, and then we’re going to divide up the crates and dive in. I’ve got an idea…”

Rising, I glanced at Jonas who still seemed to be studying the mail like it might bite him. “Want some coffee?”

“Not right now,” he said. “But I’ll order us pizza and drinks. ‘Cause this could take hours.”

Us.

“Planning to help, Hot Shot?” It was a joke, but the intense way he looked at me erased the humor.

“Yep, unless you don’t want me to.”

“I don’t mind if you help at all, in fact…I’d appreciate it. But it can be boring.”

“Then we turn on a movie or something if we get bored…” So practical.

I grinned. “Pizza sounds great. Aubrey—”

“Prefers white sauce to red on her pizza. She also likes chicken and mushrooms.”

Yes, she did.

“And spinach,” he said after a moment. “The weird stuff.”

“It’s only weird if you don’t like spinach,” Aubrey retorted. “But that sounds amazing. Thank you.”

“Welcome.” He glanced at me. “Same thing as always?”

Since I could eat practically any kind of pizza and apparently so could Jonas, we’d gotten into the habit of ordering one vegetarian and one meat lovers. I grinned. “Yes, please.”

“Are you going to drink soda?” He glanced at Aubrey. “Or do you want the fancy water stuff?”

“It’s just fizzy water and it’s not that fancy,” Aubrey replied with a nearly indulgent smile. “But I think I’ll need caffeine so get a couple of the two liter bottles?”

“Okay,” he said as he pulled out his phone. “I’ll be right back.” Then he vanished into his room.

As soon as the door closed, Aubrey hopped over the sofa and joined me in the kitchen as I ground the coffee. “Who is he and what did he do with the douchebag?”

To be fair, she wasn’t wrong to question it. The last few months had been kind of a revelation, if a hard-earned one, considering the fire. If we hadn’t ended up being roommates, I didn’t think we’d be anywhere near this comfortable with each other.

At all.

Still, I laughed. “He’s working on it.” Tamping the grounds took a minute, and I waited to until the shots were brewing before I reached for the milk in the fridge. “I think we’re really becoming friends.”

Aubrey stared at me as I filled the little silver pitcher.

“What?”

“You’re becoming friends… with one of your stepbrothers?”

I shrugged. “He’s my stepbrother ‘cause his mom happens to be married to Dad. It’s not like we knew each other before the school or anything.”

“Still your stepbrother,” she pointed out. “He still lied to you.”

They all had. “I know,” I reminded her. “I have not forgotten any of it. Not the hate or the way they treated me…” The paint. The kisses. The degrading speech. Irritation scraped under my skin. “But Jonas and I…we’ve been talking and we’re working on the friendship thing.”

“Doesn’t change what he did.”

No. It didn’t. “I can’t hang on to hate forever. And I didn’t hate them…or I didn’t before I figured out what they were hiding.” The steamed milk was next. “He asked if we could be friends. He’s been a huge help, and he offered me this place, plus he’s been kind. For the most part.”

“Okay, you work on being friends with him, and I’ll watch them like a hawk. I still want to stab them all with spoons and make them pay.” The ferociousness in her tone made me smile.

“That’s ‘cause you love me best,” I said, bumping her hip as I poured the foamy cap into place on her coffee.

“Yes, I do,” she said, lifting the coffee cup. “I don’t like fuckboys who go out of their way to hurt others, especially not my best friend. They’re just lucky Yvette isn’t here. They’d never sleep again…”

We made faces at each other and then burst out laughing. Yvette would go for more than pranks. She could be downright cruel when provoked. Then, she had lots of practice from dealing with all the people from her parents' world.

Just, pissing off Yvette was a mistake.

I finished with my coffee when Jonas emerged with a couple of notebooks, sticky notes in six different shades, and a stack of pens.

Wiping the coffee machine down, I tracked Jonas’ progress over to the living room. He set his stack on the coffee table before he reached for a crate and lifted it to sit next to the notebooks and sticky notes.