“Brio, help me for a minute?” Ezmeray asked.
I hadn’t been in any kind of relationship in a long-ass time, but I knew ‘get in here so we can talk’ when I heard it.
“Smells good,” Charlotte said as they moved into the kitchen, making the spicy tomato and tangy cheese scents waft into the living room.
“Anything smells better than whatever the fuck Chris made last night.”
“Language,” I grumbled.
“I’m all for a good diss,” Alara said. “But that was lame,” she added, clucking her tongue at the teenager. “I mean, if you’re gonna be a dick, be a dick. That’s my motto.”
“What would you say?” Liam asked.
“Depends on how bad it was. You could have gone with that it tastes like a learning experience… or asked what the ingredients did to him to make him punish them like that…”
“He doesn’t need help in the insult department,” I told Alara.
“What did he try to make?” she asked, ignoring me.
“Pizza,” Charlotte added.
“Pizza?”
“It was both soft and burnt at the same time somehow,” Liam supplied.
“Why would you make pizza? In the city of pizza?”
“Don’t listen to her,” Ezmeray said as she breezed in with a tray of different sodas and juices for the kids to choose from. “She can’t even fry an egg.”
“I make an epic sandwich, though. Which is way better than eggs.”
“I like sandwiches,” Liam said.
Was he… warming up to Alara?
The kid was cold with everyone. Not a single one of the maternal figures he’d met so far had been able to get him to engage. Then there was Alara, calling him a dick, and getting him to open up.
She walked over, snatching an orange soda off the tray, then dropping down on the couch to discuss what made the best sandwich with my moody-ass nephew. Who she not only got to talk, but smile. And once… almost laugh.
“I like her,” Charlotte said, catching me looking at Alara.
“Yeah? I would have thought she was a little rough around the edges for you.”
“She reminds me of the heroine in the book I’m reading. She’s kind of… snarky too.”
“Snarky. That’s one way to describe her.”
“She’s a mage who does blood magic.”
“Alara?”
Charlotte rolled her eyes. “The heroine in my book.”
“Right. That makes more sense. Though, I wouldn’t put blood magic past Alara either.”
“Did I hear book and blood magic?” Alara asked.
“She’s like Pavlov’s dogs,” Ezmeray said. “And those words are her bells.”
