LAILAH #2
“I’ve eaten one,” Jay said, and everyone froze to look at him.
“What!?” Parker said, slamming his fork down on the table. “You let him have some of your cookie?”
With the looks I was getting from Cami and Parker, I wanted to crawl under the table and hide.
“I think an explanation is in order,” Parker said, crossing his arms.
I looked over at Beth to see if she could help me out of this. Shockingly enough, she was reading the newspaper and sipping her coffee like nothing was going on.
“Trouble?” Parker insisted.
I hesitated, but then couldn’t take the pressure anymore. “Jay and I went on a long run, and while taking a break, I found out he’d never eaten a sugar cookie before, and Parker just happened to send some along, and—”
“What the actual fuck. You gave him one of my apology cookies?” Parker shouted.
“Not a whole cookie, just half,” I said, not understanding why he was so upset.
Jay just sat back and watched the whole thing, his eyes shining with humor.
It made me linger on him a moment, because typically he never showed that much emotion.
His head was freshly buzzed, so his hair was just a faint black hue over his scalp.
He was taller than most Asians I had met before, but even though he was lean, he was buff.
Guess that comes with the territory of working with a father who owns the largest private military organization in the world.
“Fine, I won’t share my cookies with anyone ever again,” I huffed, rolling my eyes. “Happy?”
“No,” Parker snapped. “I want you to share your cookies equally. If you're going to give Jay some, then you have to be fair with the rest of us.”
“Wait, are you still talking about cookies?” Cami piped up.
My gaze snapped back to Cami with my mouth open in shock at her suggestion. “Cami.”
“What?” she replied.
“If that’s the case, then Cami, you can never have another cookie,” Parker said, laughing so hard he almost fell out of his chair.
“Parker,” I yelled.
“Oh, come on, that was too good to pass up,” he said, smiling.
I just blushed and ducked my head while stuffing my face with the cinnamon roll.
“Well, look who’s up before noon,” Hudson said as Micah joined us and sat next to Jay.
Micah’s thick chestnut hair was in a haphazard messy bun, and he wasn’t wearing a shirt.
My eyes lingered on his tan skin and muscular chest, which led me to notice the fact that his sweatpants were low on his hips.
His sapphire gaze wandered over the table, taking in the food and people around him with a scowl on his face.
“With you assholes being so loud, how is anyone supposed to sleep?” he muttered.
Hudson put down his book and looked at Micah, running a hand through his honey blond hair.
Normally he had product in it to keep it there, but it was nice to see him so relaxed for once.
“Studies have proven that sleeping longer on the weekends throws off your whole sleep schedule.” He pushed his glasses up, drawing me to his blue eyes that shone with intelligence.
Micah didn’t answer and poured himself a cup of coffee.
“Seems like I’m late to the party,” Brayden said as he sat on my other side.
“If you want to call it that,” Micah muttered, loading up his plate.
“Well isn’t this nice having everyone here for breakfast,” Beth said, smiling at us. “Lailah, I’m sure you must have lots of questions about what happened last night. If you feel up for it, we can chat about it when you're done eating.”
“Thank you, I do have lots of questions,” I sighed, glad that I wouldn’t have to beg for people to explain.
“Lovely. Cami can show you to my office when you're done,” Beth said, rising from her seat and heading out of the dining room.
“Would you like any of us to come with you?” Brayden asked.
I smiled at him and shook my head. “No, I’ll have Cami with me, but thanks for offering.”
“When you're done with Beth, you better not run off. You said you’d have a movie day with me. I might even be talked into teaching you how to play Call of Duty,” Parker said.
“What’s that?” I frowned.
Parker’s eyes widened in shock. “You’re joking. You have two brothers, and you’ve never heard of Call of Duty?”
“My brothers were never into video games. Our parents told us that if we wanted that stuff in the house, we had to buy it ourselves,” I explained.
“This is something we will have to rectify. I, myself, am not in favor of wasting brainpower on video games, but it does help with hand-eye coordination,” Hudson interjected.
Grinning, I looked at the rest of the guys, and they all seemed to be in favor of teaching me how to play. “Okay, I’ll give it a try.”
Parker whooped as he shot up from his seat, mumbling about having to hook up the second unit for more players as he left the room.
I turned back to Brayden. “Should I be worried?”
“No, I think you just became Parker’s dream girl. No one else likes to play video games with him . . . he gets a little intense.”
“Come on, Lala. The sooner we talk to my sister, the faster we can get this shit show started,” Cami said, nudging my arm grinning at my shocked face. “Told you I had two sisters, guess I forgot to tell you who the second one was.”