Confessions of a Queen B*

Untitled Part 29

But instead of kissing me like I thought he would, he moved his head to the side and dropped his voice into a whisper meant just for my ears. "Scared people will think we're fuck buddies?"

I couldn't stop my lips from curling up into a smile that matched his. "Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?"

He pushed back off the wall and strolled into the kitchen, taking the frying pan from his mother's hand and kissing her on the cheek. "I'll take over the pancakes, Mum."

"You're such a darling, Brett," she replied, a thick British accent adding a musical element to her words.

If she only knew what he'd said moments before.

"Oh, and I invited Lexi to breakfast."

"Welcome." She moved to the sink and began washing off fruit. I hadn't expected her to be Indian, but now I saw where Brett got his dark coloring and insanely thick eyelashes from.

The twins raced past me, jostling the doll that was still in the carrier in my hands. "Flip them, flip them," their little voices chimed.

Brett lifted the pan off the burner, shook it a couple of times, and flipped the pancake in the air, catching it back in the pan with well-practiced ease. The twins cheered, followed by cries for him to do it again.

He caught my eye, silently asking if I was impressed.

Coming from a household where punching the microwave's buttons was the extent of any cooking demonstrations I'd seen, I had to concede that yes, I was impressed.

"So, are you going to stay for breakfast?" he asked as he slid the cooked pancake onto a plate and buttered the pan for the next one.

"Does it taste as good as it smells?"

"Better. I'll even add blueberries to yours."

"Okay, you talked me into staying." I wasn't going to turn down a home-cooked meal, especially when it included entertainment.

But as soon as I sat down, one of the twins flopped into my lap with a blue ribbon. "I'm Rapunzel, and I need you to braid my hair."

Brett remained focused on breakfast, but his lips twitched. He must have enjoyed watching someone else boss me around for a change.

Sarah rushed over to intervene. "I can do that, Bitsy."

How she could tell the twins apart was beyond me, but I wasn't going to back down from a challenge, especially in front of Brett. I handed Sarah the doll instead. "I can braid her hair, if you don't mind making sure the doll is someplace safe."

Heaven only knew what those twins would do to it if they got their paint-covered hands on it. It would make Brett's war paint look tame.

"I need you to braid it so I don't trip over it," Bitsy said, pretending hair was as long as the fairy tale character's.

"And when you're done with her, it's my turn," the other one demanded.

Brett shook with laughter at the stove.

I'd show him. "How about I braid the ribbon into your hair?"

That got met with a chorus of "ooohs," so I got to work. I may not be a fashionista who spent hours every morning perfecting my appearance, but I could braid hair. And thanks to Taylor making similar demands and a mom who was always too busy to do it, I'd gotten pretty good at it when we were younger. For a split second, I grew nostalgic for the time when my sister and I were still friends, when she looked up to me as her big sister instead of trying to deny that we were even related.