Page 74 of The Paris Roommates: Dean
“Stop that racket!” came her muffled voice from inside.
“Sorry. Kyle says it’s important. He stopped me during painting.”
“Tell him I hate him,” she shot back.
You are so lucky I don’t tell you what he just said about you…
But he wasn’t going to speak a word about it to anyone. Kyle had asked him not to. Plus, it wasn’t his business. “Please dress and meet us downstairs. By the way, Dean didn’t come home last night.”
“Great! At least someone is having sex.”
“Thea is having sex,” he responded.
“Hey! Don’t put that thought in my head. Now go away. I’m up.”
He couldn’t help but smile. This was why Nanine called her Fifth Course, the cheese plate. She was bold. Memorable. A little shocking sometimes. Yeah, that was Madison, and he loved her for it. “Tell Brooke to hurry up too,” he said in his final salvo before heading down the stairs.
Kyle already had his fall overcoat on. “We need to get going.”
“I need to eat something or my blood sugar will go haywire,” he insisted, scrounging around the kitchen for something, anything. He looked longingly at the empty space where Thea usually set out her morning baked goods. She’d missed some mornings now that she was mostly staying with Jean Luc.
“We can pick up croissants on the way,” Kyle told him practically.
“What’s going on?” Brooke demanded as she entered the kitchen still in her yoga clothes. “Why did Sawyer wake Madison up? Kyle, do you have a screw loose? It’s only nine here.”
“I got a call this morning that we’ve been granted an appointment I’ve been waiting for,” he told them cryptically. “Trust me, you’ll want to be there.”
“Did you text Thea and Dean?” Brooke asked. “Madison said he didn’t come home last night.”
Kyle leveled him a look. “Paul Revere, Doc? You’d better not be.”
He heard the warning and nodded to ensure his friend they were good.
“Yes, I texted them.” Kyle grabbed her coat from the coatrack and handed it to her. “They can meet us there. I sent them the address.”
Brooke planted her feet, making no move to put the coat on. “Where are we going?”
“Look, would I drag Madison out of bed if this wasn’t important?” he asked, putting on his leather gloves. “Now, shouldn’t someone take Pierre’s cover off and feed him or something? I hear him stirring.”
Sawyer walked over and took off the burgundy throw. “Probably because he hears you barking orders this morning like Patton.Bonjour, Pierre. How are you this morning?”
The bird stretched his wings like he was trying to wake up. “Not well. Dean did not return.”
He said this in French, and when Sawyer got it, he started to laugh. “Pierre, he’ll be back, don’t worry. Hey, Kyle! We have a mother hen parrot. Isn’t that kind of funny?”
“The funniest,” Kyle said dryly. He went to the stairs and called up. “Madison! Come on. I know you don’t have to do your hair and makeup like Brooke here.”
“Watch it.” Brooke stuck out her pointer finger at him. “Some of us have a routine in the morning or we aren’t fit for polite company. You’re clearly not this morning.”
Heavy footsteps at a brisk pace sounded on the stairs before Madison appeared, clad in all black with her short black hair sticking up in tufts. “You’re a dead man if this is a fool’s errand, Kyle.”
He held out his arms. “Do you see a fool here? Let’s go.”
“I’m tabling the fool comment for now,” Brooke said, walking over to the coatrack and handing Sawyer and Madison their coats before donning her own.
Thea burst in through the back door of the restaurant, holding a bread basket, thank God. He crossed to take it from her and noticed she was breathing hard.
“I’m here or, rather, we are,” she said, her eyes nervously scanning the room. “Is everything okay?”
