off even as he swiped a piece of bacon off the plate and quickly devoured it.
“Then make it,” the little brat said with a careless shrug as she turned around just as he managed to swallow that crisp piece of bacon.
“That’s your job, not mine,” he pointed out as he stubbornly crossed his arms over his chest, mostly to stop himself from grabbing another piece of bacon.
“So, you think my job is to be your personal slave?” Sloane asked conversationally as she sat down with a large bowl of oatmeal mixed with blueberries and a cup of tea.
“Of course,” Chase said, just to piss her off as he waited for her to get up and grab a spoon so that he could steal another piece of bacon.
With a big syrupy-sweet smile and a dreamy sigh, Sloane turned around and said, “I didn’t know that you were delusional, too.”
“Not delusional,” Chase said, reaching down and releasing the locks on his wheelchair. “I just know the pecking order in life.”
“Pecking order?” Sloane repeated, sounding more amused than pissed, which of course, meant that he wasn’t doing his job.
“Mmmhmm, pecking order,” he murmured, rolling over to the refrigerator.
“And what’s this pecking order?” she asked with a curious smile as she took a small sip of tea while he opened the fridge.
“It’s nothing too complicated,” Chase said, reaching for a beer only to narrow his eyes on the rows of water that were now lined up where his precious beer had once been.
Realizing that she’d just scored a point, he grabbed a bottle of water and acted like that’s what he wanted. She simply sat at the small kitchen table, calmly eating her oatmeal as she watched him, waiting for him to react. Too bad for her, he knew how to play this game better than she did.
“So, then explain it to me,” Sloane said, sounding curious as she took a sip of tea.
With a shrug, he simply said, “You’re my bitch,” which should have had her flipping out, throwing her tea in his face and storming off, but instead, the woman that he’d stupidly refused to allow his sister to fire smiled.
“Oh, and how do you figure that?” Sloane asked, chuckling.
“Because you work for me,” Chase said, placing the bottle of water between his legs so that he could roll over to the kitchen counter that better still hold his precious junk food.
But of course, it didn’t.
That would be two points for the little demon, he mused, barely resisting the urge to grind his teeth and let her know just how pissed off he was that she was fucking with his well-balanced life. Accepting the fact that he wouldn’t be having a delicious breakfast of beer and Doritos, he rolled his wheelchair back to the table, grabbed a piece of bacon and shoved it in his mouth, all while keeping his eyes locked with hers.
“I see,” she murmured, reaching over and helping herself to a piece of his bacon, which almost got her hand slapped.
“I’m glad you do,” Chase said, still keeping his eyes locked on her as he reached over, grabbed the bottle of syrup and poured half the bottle over his pancakes.
“I really do,” Sloane said, picking up his fork and stabbed it into a large piece of syrup-soaked pancake and popped it into her mouth.
Eyes still locked on her, he reached over, snatched the fork from her, stabbed an even bigger forkful of pancake and shoved it in his mouth, thoroughly chewing the delicious morsel.
“So,” he said once he was finished chewing, “then we have an understanding.”
Reaching over, she stole his freshly squeezed orange juice, raised it to her lips and said, “We most certainly do.”
*-*-*-*
“Get the fuck out!” came the lovely roar that signaled the end of Chase’s first, and probably last, physical therapy appointment.
Sighing, because she’d foolishly thought that she’d have enough time to finish her iced tea before the screams for mercy began, Sloane took one last sip of the refreshing beverage before placing it back on the nightstand, picked up the remote control and shut the television off all while wondering why his sister refused to back off and let her do her job.
She’d tried to explain that it wasn’t a good idea to rush Chase, but his sister had apparently talked to her friends who knew better than Sloane and had decided to take Chase’s recovery into her own hands. Again. Sloane had done her best to make the other woman see reason, but since