Dating Trouble (Grover Beach Team Book 5) by Anna Katmore

She can do the dishes.”
    “Your brother’s girlfriend won’t be doing your chores,” Beverly told him off with a finger pointed at his face.
    My breath caught in my lungs as I shot a glance at her and noticed from the corner of my eye that Ethan did the same. We looked at each other then, and I gulped. Ethan’s cheeks turned an adorable shade of lovely. “Mom, she’s not my girlfriend,” he murmured.
    “See? She’s not his girlfriend.” Chris rose from his chair. “She can do the dishes.” He tried to slip out of the room, but Beverly caught him by the collar of his black shirt, which he’d buttoned correctly by now, and pulled him back, laughing.
    “No way, buddy. You do your job first.”
    “Ah, all right, I’ll do it,” he surrendered and chuckled. He started to pile the plates on the table. When he winked at me as he grabbed mine, I knew he was just taunting me all along. And it was okay. Nice, even. What in the world had happened to the jackass I met at school? Did he store his insufferable outdoor manners in the closet as soon as he got home?
    Chris carried the dishes to the sink and shouted over his shoulder, “Dessert in twenty!”
    That was the cue for Ethan to rise, and I followed suit. He pulled me back into his room for another game of Mario Kart .
    “What did your mom mean by ‘play it out’?” I asked while I picked my character for the race.
    “We have a deal in this house. When Chris and I cook, she has to clean the kitchen afterward, and when she cooks, one of us has to. Usually, we play a game of basketball in the backyard.” He grinned. “Loser has to do the dishes.”
    That was so sweet my heart melted a little for this family, but what really caught my attention was something different. “Wait. Did you say when you and Chris cook?”
    “Yeah. It’s something I enjoy a lot. We both do.” Ethan waited for the red light on the screen to switch to green, then we both raced off, and he continued, “A couple of years ago, we actually had this plan to open a restaurant together one day and call it The Twin Chefs or something.”
    “That’s a great idea.”
    He nodded. “I’d still love to do that, but I think Chris is more into basketball than cooking now. He wants to play in college, maybe go pro.”
    The sad note in Ethan’s voice loomed over us like fog over San Francisco, so I suggested, “But you can do that restaurant thing on your own, as well. You could be One Amazing Half of the Twin Chefs .”
    “Right, and you could come test my food.”
    “I’d be there every evening, I swear.” Quickly, I crossed my heart before I grabbed the wireless steering wheel again and tried to beat Ethan in this race. Not a chance. “Well, if your dream of the restaurant doesn’t work out,” I said, “you can always pursue a career in car racing.”
    “And spray the name Super Mario on my cart?” He laughed.
    I shrugged and put my controller down. That was enough defeat for one evening. “Where’s the bathroom?”
    “Past the kitchen, second door on the right.” Ethan pulled back his legs so I could get off the bed, while he started a single player race.
    Out in the hallway, music drifted to me from the kitchen. I sneaked a peek inside on my way. Instead of the mount of dishes getting smaller in there, it seemed the stack had doubled after dinner. Chris was pouring what looked like cream into four dessert bowls on the kitchen island, singing along to Sam Smith’s “Stay.” He didn’t notice me at all. His body moved gently, as though he was tapping his heel to the rhythm. Next, he grabbed some fruits from a bowl behind him, started to peel them, and I went to find the bathroom.
    I could hear his singing even in here. It gave me goosebumps of fascination. Ethan had been right; busying themselves in the kitchen gave the twins a happy time. This was so weird because it was so different from how I pictured them—especially Chris. Maybe I was wrong and he wasn’t an