the bottle.”
The bottle. Right. Because of course this inanimate thing needed a bottle.
I cleared my throat, trying to recover any cool factor I may once have had. “I just meant...if Alex is shirking his responsibilities, you should let him know.”
She nodded but she still looked so freakin’ sad.
I looked around wildly for anything that might ease the tension in this room and make her stop looking like she was three seconds away from a breakdown. My eyes snagged on the remote. “Want to watch a movie or something while you wait?”
She shot me a look out of the corner of her eyes and when her lips quirked up a bit in a mischievous little grin I felt a surge of triumph I imagined only Olympic athletes could relate to. “Yeah, why not?” she said.
I reached for the remote and went to one of the eight million streaming sites my dad subscribed to. I didn’t want to get into a whole ‘what do you like?’ ‘what do you want to watch?’ battle so I went with the obvious.
“Princess Bride?” Her voice got all high with excitement as she turned to me. “That’s perfect.”
One side of my mouth hitched up and I felt like the Tin Man. My cheek muscles would start making a creaking sound any second now. The smile felt rickety and weird. Not bad, just...like it’d been a really long time since I’d smiled like that.
I met her gaze, which was dancing with laughter now.
It had been a long time since someone had smiled at me like that. Come to think of it, I wasn’t sure anyone ever had.
We settled in easily—almost too easily. Sure it had been nice to read my book in peace, but I found something even nicer—watching a movie with a girl who was ridiculously easy to be around.
Aside from the occasional crying fit from Buttercup, or the odd snack break, or the bottle feedings, which were just ludicrous if you asked me, we spent the next hour or so in peace.
Eventually I got tired of watching her yawn and pat the baby’s back. “Hand her over,” I finally said.
She blinked up at me. “What?”
I reached over and plucked the baby out of her arms, careful to keep the neck safe because you know...heaven forbid we kill the fake baby.
Her smile was slow and steady as she watched me put the baby on my own shoulder to take over burping duty. “I’ll take Buttercup, you make yourself comfortable.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“I know.”
She blinked and licked her lips, suddenly looking...nervous. I was also hyper aware of the fact that we were alone, and other than the flickering lights of the TV, we were alone.
And she was hot.
Pretty.
Cute.
Whatever. I was definitely attracted to her.
“Um, do you think Alex will be home soon?” she asked softly.
I gave a little grunt. There was that blow to the solar plexus. The reminder that the family’s golden boy had come in first place once again. I looked to the TV screen but barely saw what was there. “I don’t know. You could try texting him again.”
She gave a little snort of disgust. “Yeah, because that’s worked out so well for me before.”
I just stared straight ahead. I didn’t want to defend my brother and it wasn't my place to speak for him.
“This was such a bad idea.” She muttered it under her breath and it wasn’t the first time she’d said it.
I shifted away from her. “Look if you don’t want to wait here with me, I can just—”
“No, not me being here,” she said quickly. “I meant…” She pointed to the baby on my shoulder. “This. This was so stupid. We could have just done the paper but nooo.” She dropped her head back against the couch. “I had to go and come up with a grand plan.”
“A grand plan, huh?” I asked. I snuck a look at her out of the corner of my eye and caught a yawn. The poor thing was exhausted, and her voice was growing slower by the second.
“It was a stupid plan,” she said. “Max was right.”
“Max?”
She didn’t answer and I tried not to get jealous. I mean, it was ridiculous enough that I was jealous of my brother right now.
“I thought I could make him like me,” she said, her eyelids drooping as she lifted her knees to get more comfortable now that she didn’t have a doll in her arms. “I thought he’d like me if he got to know