Page 31 of Twisted Throne
I looked back over at Lucy where she had moved from raiding the fridge to rifling through the cabinets.
“Do you know how to work this thing?” I asked her.
“Yup.” She pulled out several bags of chips. “Spicy or cheesy, what do you think?”
“I think that I would love it if you’d come over here and make me some coffee, please.”
“Oh, come on! You can figure it out!”
I looked back over at the glossy, intimidating looking machine.
“Yeah, pretty sure I can’t.” I laughed.
“Find the beans and dump them in the grinder. I’ll come help in a sec.” She barely looked at me, just kept piling junk food up on the island in the center of the kitchen.
After rummaging around in the sleek cabinets above the machine, I found several bags of different variations of coffee beans, along with stacks of cups and lids. Unfortunately, the packaging on the coffee was all in Italian so I couldn’t read anything on them. Lucy was still muttering to herself, so I just grabbed one at random. Considering that I usually drank store-brand, pre-ground coffee, I was in no way picky. If I was even going to attempt to keep up with Lucy, I absolutely needed the coffee, regardless of what kind it was.
I dumped the beans into the grinder. At least I could figure out that much. None of the buttons were labeled with anything other than random symbols, so I just pushed the one that I thought looked the most like coffee beans and hoped for the best.
Instead of the loud grinding noise I expected, I heard a gurgle.
“Shit!” Hot water spewed out of the coffee maker, splattering my arm and splashing across the counter.
“What the hell did you do?”
Lucy dropped a pack of chocolate chip cookies on the counter and ran over to me. She pushed a button on the machine and it shut off.
“Here, I’ll do it. You go over there and look for popcorn. I think I got everything else.”
I eyeballed the mountain of chips, cookies, and pizza she had piled up.
“I don’t think we really need the–”
A clanking, grinding noise echoed through the kitchen. My shoulders hunched at the noise as the coffee grinder roared to life, drowning me out.
It would probably be easier to just get the popcorn than to ruin Lucy’s fun anyway. I squatted down to investigate the lower cabinets while Lucy continued to clack and clank around with the coffee maker.
I had spotted a box of microwave popcorn—pristine and expensive, like everything else—in the back of the cabinet and had my entire head and shoulders wedged in there as I stretched to reach the box.
After I’d managed to snag the box I stood up and stretched my back out.
“Two cups of coffee, coming up!” Lucy grabbed two cups out of the cabinet as the machine started to hiss and steam.
The rich, full smell of coffee filled the room. I inhaled deeply. I felt slightly more awake already.
The door opened behind me and Paul walked into the kitchen.
“Hungry?” He looked over at the mountain of snack cakes, cookies, and chips piled up on the counter and raised his eyebrows. “You must be starving if you couldn’t even bother to put on shoes.”
Oh crap. I forgot I was barefoot, just wandering around a freakin’ mansion like a hobo.
Of course, Paul was still impeccably dressed per usual. The only consideration he’d made to the lateness of the house was ditching the tie and unbuttoning the top buttons of his silk shirt. Which I was determinedly avoiding looking at. My fingers did not tingle from wondering what that silk would feel like over his warm, muscular–
“We’re going to watch a movie, so we got some snacks.” Lucy looked over at me and not so subtly winked at me. “It’s a scary one, you should watch it with us so Gia won’t get too scared.”
“Oh, you’re scared?” Paul turned to me, his eyes dark and intense and the smirk on his face anything but.
“No!” I glared over his shoulder at an innocent- looking Lucy. “We aren’t watching anything scary, and we don’t need company. Girls only.”