Even Villains Go To The Movies by Liana Brooks Read Free Book Online

you from Tyler’s powerhouse.” She winked.
    “It’s not like that at all!” Angela’s face burned with more than the hot California sun. “Let’s talk about something else. Jacob! Tell me about you. All about you.”
    Amarilla scooted closer to Angela. “He’s named for a bed sheet.”
    Angela waited for one of them to start laughing. Neither did. “Okay. Now I want you to tell me she’s lying.”
    “She’s not,” Jacob said. “My mom was a Twihard and obsessed with one of the characters.”
    “Tell her!” Amarilla urged, clapping her hands. “It’s gross!”
    Jacob rolled his eyes and grinned in a sheepish way. “Promise to still go out with me after I tell you?” He hit her with a smoldering come-hither look.
    Dark eyes? Check. Dark hair? Check. Shameless flirting? That was a new twist. “I didn’t promise you a date at all.”
    He gasped dramatically. “I haven’t won you over with my stunning physique yet?”
    “Nope.”
    Jacob sighed. “If you must know, my mother’s high school bedroom was decorated entirely with the face of a certain character from the Twilight series who shall remain nameless. I was conceived on sheets bearing his likeness.”
    “Ewww!” Angela laughed. “Wow.”
    “That’s not the worst part.” Amarilla poked Jacob. “Tell her the rest!”
    “My mom kept the sheets, and my nursery had the same decorating scheme until I was thirteen.” Jacob hissed through his teeth. “Yeah. It’s embarrassing.”
    Angela and Amarilla fell into a fit of giggles.
    “Jacob!” someone shouted from the studio’s dark interior.
    “And that’s our cue to go wow them. Do you think you can toss your hair around in the wind?” Jacob asked, holding out a hand.
    Angela hesitated.
    Jacob stuck out his bottom lip in a pout. “No?”
    “It’s not you,” she hurried to assure him. “It’s... I was hurt, and I’m not ready to jump back in the ring.” Not to mention that the chances of a rogue and a superhero finding true love were one in a million, and her parents had used that one chance up. On her way to the studio, she tossed her apple core in the outdoor compost bin. Jacob was a perfect Arktos, she decided as she watched his movie-worthy rear end saunter off. But was it her imagination, or had he looked bulkier the night before?
    She tried to remember being in his arms, the curve of his biceps blocking light and shrapnel from the explosion. Yup, definitely more mass. She’d have to tease him about padding his suit later.
    There was a loud crunch behind her. Pivoting slowly, she scanned the empty courtyard. Not even a squirrel managed to get through studio security.
    There was another crunch, like something small and warty eating an apple core out of boredom. She knew that sound. Leaning sideways ever so slowly she peeked behind the compost bin and saw the unholy offspring of a frog and a water balloon. It looked like an escapee from a kid’s cartoon, a rounded squarish body with spindly arms and legs, bulbous eyes, all in eye-searing orange with blue polka dots. A second-generation minion.
    Daddy had sent shock troops.
    Of course he had. She grabbed the minion and squeezed. “How many of you are there?”
    It tried to squirm out of her hand.
    “Tell me, or you’re confetti.”
    “Five!” the minion shouted. “Just five!” Its twiggy arms were surprisingly strong, or would have been if she hadn’t been arm-wrestling minions since she was four for pennies.
    Angela loosened her grip.
    “Can I go now?”
    “Oh, you’re going all right.” Straight back to Texas in the first box she could find. Her father was an excellent man in many ways, but he was a super villain and had been using minions since he was sixteen. Was there such a thing as rehab for minion abuse? “Learn how to communicate without spies!” or “Six steps to not taking over the world and mowing the lawn yourself!”
    Not that she really wanted him to change, she assured herself as she snuck into the