“If you think I care about your opinion, you’ll be sorely disappointed,” Crown assures him, giving his signature Cheshire Cat grin. It’s decidedly darker than Grey’s neutral frown. The latter takes note of the former’s expression and sets his mug down very, very careful.
I forever stand by my statement that Crown is twice as scary as Cat on a good day.
Beast, despite his propensity for wild violence, is actually much calmer than our VP.
“Gidget, come with me,” Crown orders briskly, dropping his smile. He saunters off like he expects me to follow like a trained dog, and I bristle.
“Well, I never,” Reba murmurs, finally getting the brush to glide through my hair without encountering any snags. “Are you really gonna let him talk to you like that? The man is rude.”
Grey chuckles, and I smile, gently pushing Reba’s hands away, grabbing my food, and taking off after Crown. I find him waiting for me on the stairs, gaze focused on the landing and not on me.
He doesn’t even look back at me as he starts to climb, leaving Reba and Grey alone in the kitchen. That’s a big deal to me. Crown doesn’t trust Grey for shit, but I trust Grey, and he’s putting his faith in me. He’s accepted that maybe on this subject, my judgment is slightly clearer than his.
It’s the silent gestures like that which seem to matter the most.
Fem-fem follows me into the entryway, but I point at him with a single finger, opening the lid of my food and extracting a single fry.
“Stay,” I command him, tossing the fry over before closing my container back up. He snatches it midair and then whines, but he does lay down, his single paw stretched out in front of him, and watches me ascend the staircase by myself. Not sure if it was our time spent apart, the new environment or what, but my beautiful husky boy seems more clingy than usual.
Crown hesitates slightly at the top of the stairs before moving over to his room and opening the door. He steps aside to gesture me in, and then closes and locks the door while watching me settle onto his bed.
The very first thing I do is get ketchup on the pristine white linens, and he frowns.
“Shit, sorry,” I say, spitting on the long sleeve of the pullover sweater and scrubbing at it. “Little elbow grease, and this’ll come right out.”
“You’ve never once tried to get a ketchup stain out of anything, have you?” Crown asks, moving over to sit on the edge of the bed. He’s close enough to me, but not too close. He gives the stain one last wrinkle-edged sneer with his mouth and then opens the box of food.
Watching him now, I realize how monumental this really is.
If I’d told sixteen-year-old me that I’d be sitting here next to this man, sharing a meal, and getting a pass on staining his pretty little bed, I’d have scoffed and probably thrown something. I take a very careful bite of the burger.
“I don’t think you’re eating enough,” he says, and I pause with the food still partially bitten and sitting in my mouth.
“Eh?” I grunt around the food, finishing the bite, chewing carefully, and swallowing with suspicion. Like … what the fuck is he even talking about? My heart starts to race, and I feel like I might throw up.
Crown ignores me, tearing into his burger but looking at the wall instead of my face. It’s annoying as fuck. I pluck a fry from my box and throw it at him. It hits him in the chest and falls into his lap. He looks down at it, picks it up, and folds it between his lips.
“It’ll be nice to have my bed back,” he remarks absently. He glances my way, moss green eyes taking in the damage to my face before he scowls and looks at the wall again. Of course he’s mad at Gaz, but I think he’s also mad at himself. “Now that you and Beast are married.”
He turns back to me, and I frown, taking another bite of my burger and leaving the elephant to sit pretty in the corner of the room. I’m crazy. I must be crazy. I keep feeling like they’re all about to tell me something I don’t want to hear.
He didn’t … like, cheat on me with a groupie or something when he disappeared, did he?
No, no, that’s ridiculous. Isn’t it? But he’s acting weird as hell.
“This is my room,” I say, and Crown literally throws his food at the wall. I kid you not. He just fucking chucks it and lets fries explode all over the floor. He turns back to me and rakes his hand through his hair.
“Goddamn it, Gidget,” he grinds out, looking like he’s about to lose his shit. “You want to know where I was during the reception?”
