Following Brent

Chapter 7

Madison Vaughn

"I just hope Zee didn't cook dinner," Zach said as we made our way up our loft building, balancing eight grocery bags on each arm, two of which were filled with my room decorations. I was particularly excited about that, but we spent almost 3 hours at the market and I hadn't had a meal since the first few hours on the plane. I was dead hungry. If I was going to spend hours on designing my room, I needed some meat in my tummy first.

Dylan groaned. "Oh God, no. What if she did?"

I laughed, saying, "her cooking skills can't be that bad."

Dylan gave me a deadpan look. "The last time she tried using our kitchen, she ended up making something that tasted like vegetable soup," he spoke.

I frowned. "What's so bad about vegetable soup?"

Zach looked at me with a pained expression, as if the memory of it was torturing him. "She was trying to make apple pie."

"Oh," I grimaced, suddenly not hungry anymore.

"Well, either way," Dylan started, "four of these grocery bags are filled with food. We could just pretend to be too tired and secretly eat dinner in our rooms."

I rolled my eyes but Zach looked like he was seriously considering the suggestion. I laughed at them. "Or, we could just sacrifice for the girl. If she did cook, she must've worked hard to do it. You can't let her efforts go to waste."

"I like Dyl's plan better," Zach concluded, setting down one of the grocery bags he was carrying so he could fish out his keys from his pocket and open the door to our loft. "We're home!"

Suddenly, a girl with an apron excitedly skipped toward us, a huge smile on her face. Her long, wavy, beautiful umber brown hair made my dull blonde hair look like the head of a broomstick. She had blue thin-almond eyes, a button nose and perfectly aligned pearly whites. I could only assume she was Zee.

Confirming my assumption, she greeted, "Hola! You must be Madison! I've hear so much about you. My name is Elizana Anacleta Zamore Los Apostoles De Alvaladejo!" She cheerfully shook my hand. She had a strong Spanish accent, so I assumed she was a foreign student like me.

I remembered what Dylan said earlier about acting surprised when I heard her name, so I humored her, making the most surprised look I could muster. "Wow! That's a long name," I said with an exaggerated tone.

I guess my acting skills were poop, because the next thing she did was punch Dylan on the shoulder. "Ay, traidor! You told her!" she accused.

Dylan laughed, raising his hands up in surrender. "I didn't mean to! It just slipped."

Zee rolled her eyes, her smile never faltering as she turned her attention back to me. "He loves stealing my thunder. Anyway, call me Zee!"

I laughed. "Nice to meet you. You can call me Mad, though." The guys took the grocery bags, leaving the bags with my decorations, and left us to talk.

"Mad, you have no idea how happy I am that you're here now. Do you know how hard it is to be the only girl in this loft? Es penoso! All the roughness and the complete lack of personal hygiene and don't even get me started on the—"

"Uh, Zee?" Zach interrupted from the kitchen. "You're wearing that apron. Does that mean you tried cooking again?"

Zee looked down at her outfit and laughed. "Tonto de mi! I forgot I was wearing it this whole time! I was about to cook, but Rob brought home pizza before I could start. I put it in the oven so it doesn't get cold." Dylan and Zach shared a relieved look, but it was brief. I guess they didn't want Zee to catch it.