Page 37 of The Triple Threat

Ellie didn’t take her eyes from me, her mouth dropped open not unlike her brother’s had been earlier. I knew I’d been sharp with her, but I couldn’t handle all the feelings her smelling like my mom did to me.

“Ellie?”

She shook her head and turned to Delphine. “I think we’re having cake… I don’t know… erm I’ll ask Bronte.”

Delphine put the coffee down. “It’s okay, darlin’ I’ll go ask her.”

“What the hell, Hunter,” Ellie snarled, turning to me. “What woke you up biting your ass this morning? And how come what he did is suddenly okay with you?”

“Duh, because he knows it was a joke,” Carter replied, sounding like a dick.

“I didn’t ask you,” she shot back. “I asked him.”

Brown eyes bored into me and I couldn’t help but think how hot she looked. Then the smell wafted over to me again and I rolled my eyes.

“Just go eat cake with Bronte, Ellie.”

“You’re as big a dick as he is,” she replied, her eyes full of fire and brimstone. “I have no idea why I even speak to you.”

“Suits me fine,” I scoffed not able to stop myself from sounding like Regina fucking George.

Okay, so I knew Mean Girls, but it wasn’t something I spread around. My mom had made me watch it with Ellie when she was about eleven and I was thirteen. Everyone was over at the ranch and for some reason Ellie didn’t want to go outside and sit in the yard. Because I had sunburn, I’d been the one designated to watch the damn movie with her. Ellie had given me a lecture practically the whole way through how mean girls like Regina George didn’t deserve to be happy. She went on for so long, the damn name stuck in my head.

Of course, I also now got why she didn’t want to go outside, it was the fucking cows. I was still messed in the head though and wasn’t in the mood for playing nice with her.

“You finished?” I asked, forcing my eyes wide to make the point I was done.

Ellie’s eyes however went narrow as she looked at Carter.

“This is for you,” she said as she flipped him the finger. “And this one left over is for you. Oh, and forget about the calendar, I don’t need your help.” She then turned to me and flipped me again before turning on her scuffed heels and storming over to the other side of the café.

“She’s a damn spoiled brat,” Carter muttered as he took a sip of his coffee.

As I watched her yank out the chair and start to tell Bronte everything, I kinda wanted to agree with him, but she was a damn sexy one that was for sure.

Damn Hunter Jefferson, what a big douche canoe. How dare he speak to me like that, especially considering we’d kissed the night before. Well, he wouldn’t be getting any more of my sugar, not unless hell froze over or I needed CPR and he was the only man around to give it.

“What the hell did he say to you?” Bronte asked, halfway out of her chair.

“Leave it, sweetie. He hangs around with a douche, so he’s a douche, no mystery there.” I glanced over my shoulder to see Hunter looking over at me, so I did what any normal twenty-four-year-old woman would do and stuck out my tongue.

“Oh, it’s Hunter you’re mad at. Not your brother.” Bronte’s eyes gleamed with mischief. “That says so much.”

“Like what?”

“Like you want in his pants real bad.”

She elongated the word real and wiggled her perfectly shaped eyebrows.

“I do not.” I snatched up the menu. “Are we eating, eating or just having cake?”

“Don’t you dare change the subject, Eleanor Mary, but both.”

“I’m not,” I protested, looking up at her with a frown. “I’m hungry is all.”

Bronte leaned across the table and whispered conspiratorially. “He’s watching you. Did you know that? In fact, he can’t take his eyes off you.”

I buried my head further into the menu. “Don’t know and don’t care. Now, please can we just decide what we’re eating.”