Page 29 of Brand
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Cami
“Boring as fuck today,” Sketch commented as he flopped down on the couch in the front.
I couldn’t argue with him and I honestly had no idea why all four of us were here. Blade was currently tucked away in his room and when I peeked in his window a bit ago, I found him napping in his chair. And Brand was in his room cleaning his station, not that it really needed it. I’d come to find out that he was not only very clean and organized, but he took pride in this place and the work he did.
“So it’s that time,” Brand said coming out of his room, holding a bag of M&Ms in the air.
I looked at Sketch wide-eyed because I had no idea what he was talking about.
“Already?” Sketch said with a little hint of a whine in his tone. “Blade, get your ass out here!”
“I don’t know why you’re even bitchin’,” Blade said, a hing of amusement in his tone. “It’s not like you ever actually get stuck doing it. It’s like the candy gods are watching over you every time, I swear.”
“True that,” Sketch said with a triumphant smile as he sent a wink my way.
“Okay…what’s going on?” I asked, my eyes darting around to each one of them.
“So, Brand had this dumb-as-fuck idea of how to pick who does the shop scrub down every month. We each pick out one of these bad boys, then he shakes the bag—like it fucking matters—and digs out another one. Whoever holds the match to that one, is the winner, or loser, I guess. They get to stay behind and clean this place top to bottom.” Sketch explained all of this as he reached for the bag and did some sort of weird massage over the thing.
“Kinda like in that movie?” I asked, then couldn’t place what movie that seemed familiar from.
“EmpirefuckingRecords, hell yeah!” Sketch lit up like I’d just said the coolest thing ever.
Yes, that was it. Another one of those movies that had come out when I was little and I wondered if Sketch had even been born yet at the time it was popular.
“Alright, let’s get this over with,” Blade said, unfazed by the whole Sketch thing, unlike me.
Brand tore open the top of the bag and passed it around. I tipped it sideways and shook it until I had one in my hand.
“We should do two since there are four of us here now. Hey, if anything, it will make the cleaning go faster.” Brand was looking at Sketch as he spoke. “Blue,” Brand said as he pulled out the first M&M after we all had ours.
“Nope!” Sketch said with a smug smile.
“Shit,” Brand said as he looked at his hand, then tossed both of the offending colored candies into his mouth.
“What do you do when two people have the same color? I mean, now it would make sense, but say on the next one if Blade and I had the same color?” I asked.
“Then you rock, paper, scissors it.” Brand flashed me a smile then shook the bag again, dumping out the candy that would choose one of our fate for the evening. “Red.”
“I’m out!” Sketch said tossing his brown one up in the air and catching it in his mouth.
“Ever single fucking time,” Blade grumbled, shaking his head at Sketch. “Not going to complain this time though.” He held up his orange candy, then tossed it into Sketch’s opened mouth.
“Wait, what if I had orange, or yellow?” I asked trying to be smart. I didn’t. Nope, I had the chosen color. And I may have been taunting them to hide the trepidation and nervousness about being stuck with Brand alone for who knew how long.
“Then Brand gets to do it alone. I think that is the way it should go.” Sketch shrugged like it was the best solution to the problem. A problem that didn’t really exist.
“Let’s see it, Cami,” Brand said, his eyes dancing with some sort of mischief.
“Fine,” I said with fake annoyance as I held up my red M&M. “I’m at your service, Sir,” I added a little head bow as a joke.
And when I looked up there was something in his beautiful eyes that had my head reeling. But before I could get lost in it any further, Sketch stepped in between us, ripped the bag out of Brand’s hand, and poured half the candy coated chocolates into his mouth.
And later that night after the shop was closed, Brand and I got to work. For the most part, we were quiet. There was a list of things that were to be done, and honestly, I wasn’t even a little bit surprised by it. That seemed to just be the way Brand was. I had to admit that I found it cute.
I’d been lost in my head the last two hours. Thinking about the very man that was breathing the same air as me right now. We were alone. It was mostly quiet. There was the occasional grunt from him and yelp from me, because I was clumsy as all get out, and couldn’t manage to wipe something down without catching my nail or smashing my foot when moving things around. And so sweetly, he asked if I was okay every time.
