“I promise.”
Though I know it’s an empty promise.
I let out a sigh and hang my head for a minute. I know he’s lying. He knows that I know he’s lying, but I can’t ever say no to my baby brother. There is only one year between us, and I’ve always been a sort of protector to him. Since we were latchkey kids, I had to assume the position of a parent, and the tendency hasn’t ever left. He uses it to his advantage now, and I resent it, but I can’t quit him. I can’t stay out of his life completely because I know how much he can fuck it up.
“I’ve gotta go. When do you need whatever I can get?”
“Tomorrow,” he says.
I sigh again.
Tomorrow. Awesome.
“Okay, I think I can swing five. Have you talked to Dad?”
“No.”
Great.
“Okay, talk to Dad about the other five,” I say and reach for another egg, this time being careful to hold it gingerly.
“Hey, Ben? Thanks,” Mark says before the line goes dead.
I mutter unintelligibly before kicking the cabinet below me. I crack the egg, watching it drip into the pan, and stick the spatula in to stir it around.
“What did the cabinet do to you?” I hear Pepper’s voice ask from the kitchen door and snap my head up.
Her hair is sticking out in all directions, and her eyes are still filled with sleep. I have the urge to take my fingers and smooth the flyaways back from her face.
“Nothing. Just cooking,” I mutter as I jerk my eyes from lingering any further down on her scantily clad body.
“You could give Gordon Ramsay a run for angriest chef,” she says as I hear her pull one of the chairs out behind me, the seat creaking as she sits.
“You want some breakfast?”
“Oh, no, thanks. I will make myself the breakfast of champions in a moment,” she says.
I can tell that if I turn around, she will be grinning, the light in her eyes captivating. I don’t turn around.
“What is the breakfast of champions?” I ask, adding some crumbled cheese to the pan and watching it melt on top of the fluffy eggs.
“Coffee.” Her light voice comes from behind me, and I finally chance looking over my shoulder.
Big mistake.
She’s sitting in the chair with one leg propped up and her arms wrapped around her shin, pressing her breasts together. I shut my mouth before drool can escape and lean over to grab the bread and slip it into the toaster.
“Not much of a coffee person,” I say, and I can’t help but smile when I hear her gasp behind me while I turn back around.
“Don’t tell me you’re a tea drinker?” she says, wrinkling her nose.
“You don’t like tea?” I cock an eyebrow and rest one hip against the counter as I look at her out of the corner of my eye.
“Didn’t say that. But I had an ex who would only drink Earl Grey, and since we broke up, I can’t see tea the same way anymore. Took to coffee to heal my broken heart, and I haven’t looked back since.”
“What happened?”
“He didn’t like me or what I have between my legs. Or arms really, if I’m being honest.”
I choke a little as she freely talks about her, um, lady bits without a care in the world.
“He was gay?”
“Completely,” she says with a giggle. “It all makes sense, looking back. He never really wanted to touch me, and I thought that was odd. Not saying I’m the best-looking thing out there, but I have had other guys who wanted to, well, you know, do stuff with me, and the fact that he would outright refuse it sort of hurt my feelings until everything came out.” She stares out the window next to the table as she talks, and I’m mesmerized by the way her mouth moves and the way her nose scrunches up on certain words.
I’m thrown off by the jealousy I feel as she talks about other guys wanting to touch her, and I quickly turn back to my food before I give myself a chance to even think about why I’m feeling this way. I don’t know this girl. Sure, she’s attractive. She’s fucking beautiful, but I can’t mess this up. A paying roommate will help out now that I’m giving half of my savings to Mark.
“So, how did you find out?”
“Find out what?”
“That he was gay?” I slip the eggs onto a plate and slather the avocado slices on the toast. I pull the bacon from the oven, crispy and sizzling in the pan. I’ve done this every morning for as long as I can remember and have the timing down to a science.
“Dang, you are good at breakfast,” Pepper says, admiring my timing skills, and I feel a little sensation course through me, part–good feeling and part-warning.
“You didn’t answer my question,” I say, reminding her.
“Oh! Right. I found him blowing Billy Chambers in the bathroom at a party we went to together. Quite the surprise really—to me and both of them. They thought they had locked the door, and I was just trying to go pee. Anyway, I wasn’t that upset about breaking up. It was more the fact that I’d thought there was something wrong with me for a while.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you,” I say, looking at her as I sit in the seat across the table.
My heart thuds loudly in my chest as I realize I’m teetering on the edge of insanity, and I almost give an audible sigh of relief when Pepper doesn’t even bat an eye at my statement. She just leans over to take a piece of bacon off my plate and continues her story.
“Then, I started dating Chase Timbers, and boy, did he know how to kiss.” She fans her face and gives me an exaggerated grin before taking another bite of her pilfered bacon.
“I’m glad you were able to
