With two of their resident female hangarounds chatting behind his back, he was getting increasingly self-conscious. The last thing he needed was one of them offering her help, as if he couldn’t even prepare some basic food on his own. So far though, the conversation was about—out of all things—honey bees being killed by pesticides.
“There’s this book, The Last Buzz, and it sums up the research so far. Everyone should read it,” Nao said, lounging in the armchair in the corner.
Blackstar, who for some reason chose blackout curtains as the fabric for her next sewing project, nodded from above her thread and needle.
“I couldn’t live without avocados.”
“I know, but I’ve been looking into the way they are grown, and I’m starting to think that buying them is unethical.”
Blackstar winced when the needle pricked her finger. She sucked it into her mouth and reached for a thimble. “What isn’t unethical?”
Gray methodically pressed the knife through the flesh of the banana. In moments like these he wished the entirety of the new kitchen wasn’t open plan. It wouldn’t have been an issue before the fire, but now that they moved the facilities to a much smaller space, any food prep meant being constantly watched.
"Oh, yeah, I've read that book! The one on bees," Nick, Fox's oldest son, said, inching closer to the women. Seventeen, with a face covered in acne and a mop of ginger hair, he wasn't exactly a catch.
Blackstar laughed, tossing her black gothic mess of a hairdo. "You read a book? Fox said you dropped out of school because reading ‘annoyed you’.”
Nick crossed his arms on his chest with a frown. One of his few advantages was that he was a big guy for his age. He’d butted heads with other kids at school, and all too often ended up a bully because of it. In Gray’s opinion, it would do him good to be around adults who didn’t take any of his bullshit.
“No, I dropped out ‘cause my future is with the club, not analyzing The Great Gatsby.”
Blackstar hummed, cutting through the thick black fabric with her special scissors. “I don’t know. That’s a good book. Very deep.”
Nao laughed, tapping her friend on the shoulder. “Don’t be like that. Everyone has a talent. Nick here clearly wants to prospect as soon as he’s old enough. You’ll make it if you’re determined,” she told him.
Gray put the cut bananas into the smoothie maker, stalling when he realized he’d also planned to use a peach. He’d even washed it, but now had no idea how to approach the round fruit with just one hand.
He wouldn’t ask for help. The brief silence behind his back was a sign of the hangarounds waiting to witness his failure at the mundane task. If Shadow weren’t a dangerous monster, maybe Gray would have used him as a fruit peeler.
Shadow could rot in the cellar for all Gray cared.
“Let me help with that,” Nick said, and to Gray’s astonishment, the boy grabbed the peach right out of Gray’s hand.
He almost stepped away, choking on air as he stared at the two healthy hands holding the fruit with such ease. Even a brat like Nick considered him incapable of taking care of himself by default now—a fall for the club’s most agile member.
He could physically sense the touch of the women’s gazes, and there were only split seconds for him left to challenge this new order of things.
But the little fucker started cutting the peach in half, and went on. “I’ll be doing things like this when I prospect anyway, so might as well start, right? Dad told me you all took good care of old Davy when he got his leg crushed last year. Shit happens, and the club needs to stick together, am I right?”
Davy. Davy who had been over sixty when the accident happened and retired not long after. Did Nick think he was some kind of hero ‘cause he was cutting up a fucking peach?
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Gray asked and pushed at Nick’s chest so hard the guy’s back hit the fridge.
The women stilled, their conversation forgotten, but while Gray didn’t want to make them uncomfortable, he also needed to make his point. Shame formed a fat, slimy ball in his throat when he pushed away the cutting board with the fruit. “I can deal with this on my own. Nobody asked you to cut my fucking food.”
“Jeez, I was just trying to be helpful to a guy in need. You were clearly strugglin—”
That was it. With an arm or without it, he would not have a kid, barely a hangaround, disrespecting him this way.
He grabbed Nick’s wrist and twisted it so hard the boy dropped the peach. Just as he wanted to pull away, Gray used the momentum to follow him instead of forcing Nick his way, and thrust the kid’s arm back so hard Nick yelped.