Beauty and the Beat

Beauty and the Beat (16)

“Only half of it,” he corrected, but that was no different to me. I didn’t want half a cookie, I wanted a whole one. “Stop being such a baby and let me grade the tests.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and pouted. He really was mean to me.

“Sadie,” he suddenly said after a few minutes of silence, and I looked over to see he was grading my test. “Automatic F.”

I gasped. “Ethan!”

He gave me a look.

“Do you really expect me to call you Mr. Deveraux outside of school when I'm living in your house?” I demanded, my face hard.

He rolled his eyes now. “Just calm down. I was joking. You got a B plus.”

That was good enough for me.

When my phone started to ring, I checked the caller ID and groaned. Why the hell was Maxxon calling me?

As much as I didn’t want to talk to him, I answered it anyway. Whatever I had to do to stop talking to Ethan for a little while.

“What do you want?” I demanded for a greeting.

“Nice to talk to you, too,” he responded. “I wouldn’t expect anything less from my little Sadie.”

He hadn’t even said twenty words to me and I already wanted to yank my hair out. “What do you want, Maxxon?” I snapped.

“We’ve got to go look for costumes for the dance show,” he informed me, but this was not something I wanted to do. As much as I didn’t want to be with Ethan, I didn’t want to be with Maxxon either. “It’s not like we can just go up there naked. Even though, of course, I would love to see you without any clothes on, but…”

“Shut up, Maxxon,” I growled, not in the mood to deal with him. “I’m not going anywhere with you today. Just leave me alone.”

I hung up before he could say anything else, and then tossed the phone onto the table. If he called again, I wasn’t going to answer. I didn’t want to talk to him any longer.

“Problems in paradise?” Ethan suddenly asked me.

I jumped. I almost forgot that he was even there. “What?” I snapped.

He rolled his eyes at me once again. “Problems with your boyfriend?”

I bit the inside of my cheek. Sometimes I forgot that he thought Maxxon and I were dating. Sometimes I couldn’t believe that I actually let him believe that I was actually dating Maxxon.

“No,” I denied, even though it sure seemed like there were problems. “We’re perfectly fine. Perfectly happy. Perfectly… perfect.”

And again with the eye rolling. He did that so much that I wouldn’t have been surprised if his eyes fell out of his head. “Fine, fine, whatever. I’m glad you’re fine and happy and… perfect.”

He didn’t sound glad, or even sarcastic. I decided to ignore him and pay attention to my growling stomach.

“There has to be something I can cook,” I sighed, pushing myself up from my seat and making my way into the kitchen. “Do you want anything to eat?”

“That depends,” he called out from the dining room, “are you going to poison me?”

“Maybe.”

“There should be pasta that I bought in the cupboard.”

I opened the cupboard, and just like he had said, there was a box of pasta. Bowties, not the stringy noodles. I couldn’t help but smile.