Roses & Guns

14. Out and About

I frowned at his question as I tossed the chopped tomatoes and other various foods into the frying pan. He could be so oblivious sometimes. I turned the burner on to medium heat and turned around to look at Liam.

I let out a sigh. "Yes, I did. Alex mostly stays out of the news, maybe that's why you didn't."

"The Rossett family is huge," he commented.

"You think so? You know, they are a total of four brothers in the family, then there's Anastasia, and I don't even want to start on Xavier's family tree." I turned back to the stove to give the food a quick stir before adding simple seasonings.

"I know about Gino but who's the other one?" His eyebrows raised up in confusion.

"Dunno," I answered him. "He's never talked about. I just read that somewhere," I lied, not wanting to explain how I had a hired spy in the family. "Anyway, I'm just happy that you've finally decided to give someone a chance. It sucked seeing you mope around, you seemed so lonely."

I turned off the stove and turned around to face him again. He studied me for a while, his mouth closing and opening as if he wanted to say something but right at that moment the doorbell rang.

I washed my hands before going to check who it was.

"Iv, I need to tell you something," he said as he followed me to the door.

"Sure," I told him. I opened the door to find Ashton standing there with his back to us. He kept looking left and right as he was expecting someone to jump him.

I cleared my throat. "You're facing the wrong way Ashty boy."

He turned so quickly that I wouldn't have been surprised if he fell right then, which he didn't. "What're you doing here? Ran away from Theo? He asking too many questions?"

"Shut up, Ivory." he pushed past me to go inside. His eyes flickered nervously all over the room as he ran a nervous hand through his hair.

"What the fudge is up with you?" I asked, annoyed. He was freaking me out and I did not enjoy that.

"None of your business." He pulled Liam from the elbow. "I need to talk to you, come on."

Before I could say another word, they both disappeared upstairs into Liam's room. I stared open-mouthed after them at the blunt dismissal. How dare he? Oh boy, he was going to pay.

I pulled out my phone, they had already turned on music at an irritatingly loud volume so I didn't need to worry about them eavesdropping.

I was just about to call Juliana when my phone started buzzing.

"You're going to live an awfully long life ya know? I was just about to call you," I spoke after picking up the call and threw myself on the couch. The dinner was going to go cold, Liam could do the lovely honour of reheating it later when he would think to come out of the little gossip room.

"Oh, well . . . um I-I found out about something Ivory, about what Liam and Ashton are hiding."

My interest piqued up to sky level at her words and I sat up straight. "What is it?"

"I—" she was about to say something but another voice joined in.

"Who is it?" someone asked. I immediately rolled my eyes when I recognised the voice as Cameron's, the devil himself.

"Just Ivory," she answered, her voice extremely calm. Damn, I bet she was sweating inside, I had to praise her acting skills. "Cam!" her gasp was followed by a little commotion on the other side.