He rolled his eyes and pushed past me toward Kurt. I turned around and propped my hands on my hips.
“Leelee is the fun one. She feeds me ice cream, donuts, and soda all of the time. All you’ve done since you’ve been home is watch tv and work on cars. Give her heck, Uncle Kurt.” He bumped fists with Kurt and strutted into the living room.
I wasn’t afraid of Kurt. It was the man whose voice I had heard but whose handsome face I hadn’t seen yet who was making me uneasy. He was the one I didn’t want to see. I wasn’t afraid, but I wasn’t exactly chomping at the bit to talk to him.
“You can’t hide forever, Frankie,” Kurt chided.
I could, but it wouldn’t help me much. I had a feeling Brooks wasn’t going to give up until I actually gave him the boot and told him to shove it where the sun don’t shine. I slowly made my way down the rest of the hallway and slugged Kurt in the stomach before he saw it coming. He always underestimated me when it came to hitting him. While he probably was my favorite brother since he was closer to my age, he still drove me insane. Bringing Brooks to dinner was his latest stunt to piss me off.
“Oh, Frankie! Look who came to dinner! I think we might have to make something else to eat, though. I don’t have enough ingredients for shepherd’s pie.” Violet stood at the kitchen island flipping through a pile of recipes she had printed off the internet.
Luke stood behind her mouthing for me to do something.
I didn’t want to help him since I’m sure he had something do with the fact that Brooks was here, but I was also starving and didn’t want to have to choke down whatever Violet was thinking of making. “Oh, well, then let me make something. You know I don’t have access to a kitchen on the road so cooking for everyone will be fun.”
Violet looked up from the stack, and her face fell. “Are you sure? I really don’t mind making dinner.”
I walked over to the pantry and pulled open the door. “You can help if you want. Though it’s probably not going to be anything fancy.” I scanned the shelves and tried to think of what I could make that would feed nine people.
Yes, I had seen Brooks sitting on the other side of Violet, but I had ignored him. In the two point five seconds I had looked, he seemed refreshed and not so haggard like he was before. His bright blue polo shirt was stretched across chest, and his hands had been folded in front of him. His eyes had been trained on me but I hadn’t given him the time of day.
I grabbed two boxes of spaghetti and turned around to toss them on the counter. “We can do spaghetti and meatballs. Do we have any French bread?” I asked Violet.
“There should be a loaf in the freezer.”
“Vi, that’s not French bread. It’s just a loaf of white bread,” Luke snickered.
Violet stood up and walked over to the freezer. “Well, bread is bread. How am I supposed to know it’s French, English, or German?” She grabbed the loaf of bread and chucked it at Luke.
Luke snatched it mid-air and laughed. “You’re rather feisty tonight.”
I grabbed the loaf of bread from him and set it next to the noodles. “This will work, Violet. I can make pieces of garlic toast with this.” It was best to try to keep her happy before she started chucking more food around.
Thankfully making spaghetti and giving Violet things to do gave me the excuse I needed to ignore Brooks. Luke herded Kurt and Brooks into the living room to watch some show while Violet and I cooked.
“Is Leelee coming over?” I looked over my shoulder and watched Violet sawing some onions to put into the sauce.
“Uh, Kurt said she was working late on some car she needed done by tomorrow. She might be by later if it’s not too late.” She stuck her tongue out and carefully sliced the last piece of onion. It was a miracle she was able to put food on the table for Luke, Ash, and Rose. “Want me to toss this in?”
I lifted the lid to the sauce, and she carried the onion over to the pot. I stirred in the onion and set the timer on the stove for half an hour. While the sauce cooked, we needed to roll meatballs and get the bread ready.
The sauce bubbled away on the stove, and we worked side by side chatting about nothing while I kept one ear trained on the living room listening to the guys. For the most part, Luke and Kurt were doing most of the talking with occasional input from Brooks.
The timer on the stove went off, and I pulled the pan of bread from the oven. I had dropped the meatballs into the sauce fifteen minutes ago, and we were just minutes away from eating.
“Holy hell. It smells amazing in here so either you guys ordered in, or Frankie is cooking.” Leelee stepped through the front door and kicked off her work boots.
Violet slammed a pile of forks down on the counter. “Really Lee? That is how you are going to play me? How about we talk about when you and Kurt are going to make me an aunt?”
“Nevah!” Kurt shouted from the couch.
Leelee rolled her eyes and strutted into the kitchen. “As soon as Kurt grows up, I’ll be all about that life. For the time being, you need to realize you already are an aunt. Scarlett and Mitch have two kids.” Leelee sat down at the island and propped her head up on her hands. “And don’t act like you are some Martha Stewart. I chipped a tooth on those fucking cookies you sent home with Kurt last month.”
“She did,” Kurt confirmed.
Violet threw her hands up in the air. “I cannot be blamed for your chipped tooth. That could have happened at any time that you were eating.”
“Pictures or it didn’t happen,” Luke called. He may give Violet shit about her cooking, but he always had her back at the end of the day.
“Who in the hell takes pictures of their chipped teeth?” Leelee wondered.
“Dinner done?” Kurt asked.
I stirred the pot of sauce one more time and turned off the burner. “Just need to drain the noodles, and we are good to go.” I dumped the huge pot of noodles into the colander and drizzled a little olive oil over them.
Ash came streaking into the kitchen and grabbed a plate from the stack Violet had set out. “I call dibs on the non-French bread.”
Violet rolled her eyes and sat down next to Leelee. “So I don’t know the names of every freakin’ bread on the planet. Who cares?”
Leelee leaned back and looked at her. “Say what? Girl, carbs are life. How can you not know the different types of bread?” Leelee ran her hand down her body. “This body was made by bread, honey—French, sourdough, pumpernickel, rye, whole wheat, ciabatta, focaccia. You name it, it has touched these lips and worked its way onto these thighs.”
“You talking about bread again?” Kurt walked over to Leelee and pressed a kiss to the side of her head. “Couldn’t even come and say hi to me.”
“Hello, Mr. Jensen,” she purred. “You can’t really blame me for following the smell of delicious food, can you?”
Kurt wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into his embrace. “You’ll make it up to me later,” he mumbled.
“Ew,” Luke muttered. “Keep that shit over at your place. Lee’s Speed Shop might be into that mushy feely shit, but I can tell you that doesn’t happen at SRK.”
“It’s a good thing you have that baby in your arms, otherwise I would totally smack you in the balls right now,” Violet threatened.