Relying On Ben and Jerry (Waltham #1)

Chapter Ten: According to Aubrey

It turned out that finding my way out of the building wasn’t the hard part—convincing my sadistic brother to stop the car while running at break-neck speeds beside it down a busy road in clogs was definitely a lot harder. The little brat didn’t even slow down until he got to a red light, and he only let me in because I stood in front of his car and refused to move otherwise. Let me tell you, keeping up with a car going on an average of thirty miles per hour wearing a pair of clogs and a tutu with everyone and their mailman turning around to watch you do it was not something I wanted to relive again for the rest of my life.

I stormed into the foyer still fresh from that incident, my feet aching and throbbing like a gigantic bruise. My leggings slopped with my movement, soaked from plowing through piles of snow in my haste to keep up the car, and my teeth were chattering because of the freezing cold material against my skin. I slammed the door behind me the moment I was in the warm house, hoping that I was going to hit my idiot of a brother behind me. I heard him grumbling something from the other side of the door, scowling from the moment he opened it with a very red nose. I shot him a venomous glare and then a victorious smile as I went through my next steps in my mind, planning on putting on a scalding hot bath and staying there for a long, long time, all the while plotting the demise of a certain ungentlemanly jerk to which I knew where he sleeps . . .

Alas.

“You’re home!” my mother sang, thrilled. She bounded out of the living room, holding a giant plate of cookies mounded up in the middle and a smile the size of Felton’s brooding capabilities. When we she saw my state—which I must have looked worse than I really was—she gasped like I had come home with a peg-leg. “Lena! What happened?”

“Please tell me that Felton was the accident child,” I replied, scowling. “If he was planned, I’m going to have to run away from home. I hope that one day you will understand the reasoning behind my slightly radical behavior.”

“Whoa, whoa, hold up,” she called over me as she put down the plate of cookies, narrowing her eyes. It was just about to get real. “What happened? Why are you shivering, and soaking wet? Felton?”

“Lena thought it would be fun to run beside the car,” Felton told our mother, snorting. “Not my fault she’s going to give herself hypothermia.”

“You liar!” I accused, curling my hands into fists. “He refused to let me into the car and told me that it was because he couldn’t be seen around the weirdest chick in school, and then he locked the doors and tore out of the parking lot. I had to chase after him just so that I wasn’t going to be stranded.”

“Felton!” our mother exclaimed in horror. “Don’t be such a little brat!”

“I’m the brat?” he demanded incredulously, waving a finger to point it wildly at me and my sopping wet (but still pretty darn amazing) outfit. “Just be thankful one of your children doesn’t dress like Madonna!”

“You take that back,” I gasped.

“Children, cease your arguing this instant!” our mother shrieked over the both of us. We were no match for her Jersey-issued lungs and we knew it, so we took to glaring at each other with acid before turning to her, waiting for her explosion. Her lips were so thin they could have been drawn on with a red pen.

The thing that surprised us most was when she drew in a deep breath and steadily let it out, her lips going back to normal and the flush leaving her cheeks a little bit. She did a few more deep breaths before she declared herself calm enough and she nodded to herself before turning to us, looking mighty Zen for a lady who was totally and completely off her rocker. As if she was reminded by that fact herself, she took another soothing breath.