“Were you fucking smoking in here?”
I have no idea how much time has passed when I look up again from my book, this time to see Hunter scowling at me from the doorway. “And hello to you too,” I say with a roll of my eyes. “And no, of course I wasn’t.”
“It smells like it.”
“Well, it wasn’t me.”
“Dex?”
I say nothing, and his stern looking face suddenly breaks into a grin. “I see you got the ‘be cool and you can be on my team’ shit from him.”
I keep my mouth shut and he rolls his eyes. He steps into the room and shoots a glance at the window where his brother was sitting before and smirks. “You know, I taught him that.”
How the fuck did he see that?
He saunters over and slumps into the arm chair across from me, steepling his hands and grinning wickedly at me like he’s holding something back. I frown and lower the book in my hand. “Oh what.”
The grin spreads across his face. “You know, you’re pretty bad at this.”
I frown. “At what?”
“Avoiding me.”
I roll my eyes. “Please, get over yourself. I’m not avoiding you, dick.”
“Clearly,” he says with a grin, spreading his arms wide.
“There’s no way you’re seriously always this full of yourself.”
“You’d be surprised, princess.”
I grin in spite of myself, feeling my face go a little pink as his eyes flash at me, as if latching on to that one little grin.
He eyes the pile of books and magazines strewn around my chair. “Nice hiding place, by the way.”
I make a face. “Cute. I told you, I’m not hiding.”
“Fine, sulking, or whatever.”
I sigh, shaking my head. “You’re impossible, you know.”
“I try. Let’s go back to you sulking around though.”
“I’m not sulking, I’m just-” I rub the bridge of my nose with my fingers. “Look, I’m going kind of insane being cooped up in here, okay?”
“Yeah you’re looking a little hermit-ish,” he says, nodding a chin at my pajama pants. “You going to cut back on bathing to really pull off the look?”
“I can bathe just fine, thank you.”
He leans forward in his chair. “You sure? I’m happy to help if you need, it’s all part of the Service.”
I can feel myself blush as I roll my eyes and shake my head. “I bet. Look, I just need to get the fuck out of here at some point.”
“The library? I agree.”
I roll my eyes. “Out of here like this ‘this house’. I’m in this place day after day and I’m starting to go fucking crazy.”
Hunter cracks his knuckles. “Well, we’ve got another press thing tomorrow, and then you’re going to meet with some foundations your mom set up for you to get involved with on Wednes-”
I groan loudly and drop the book on the ground at my feet. “No, now. And I don’t mean to go pose in front of cameras. Look, I need to do people things. I need to see culture or whatever. Can I just go exploring or something?”
He grins, raising an eyebrow at me. “Exploring?”
“Yes, exploring, or fucking something. I don’t want to spent the next however long I’m here lounging around like a damn hermit. I feel cooped up here.”
“The word is ‘safe’, Mad-”
“You know what I mean.” I stand and slump my shoulders as I look at him pleading. “Please.”
He makes a face. “What exactly did you have in mind?”
“A museum?”
He snorts. “Are you kidding me? No way, they’re huge public spaces. It’s a security nightmare.”
“Dude, there are priceless world-renowned museums in this city, and I live like a block away from all of them and I can’t go see them?”
“It’s a risk.”
“It’s your job to mitigate that.”
He glares at me, but there’s a little bit of a smirk in the corners of his lips. “I’ll bring it up with the director.”
“Pushover,” I say with a grin.
10.
Pushover.
It’s like her own little barb right back; her own little dig right back at me after I teased her.
And I like that. I like that she throws it right back; that she takes my shit and dishes it right back.