“I'd rather not tempt fate,” Brandon reasoned. “No, maybe they wouldn't starve if I burned some cookies, but that doesn't mean that they wouldn't starve if I burned down the kitchen.” As a matter of fact, he was more or less certain of the opposite. “I'll leave the cooking to the people who are already good at it.” And despite his detestation of over half of them, Brandon had to admit that the kitchen staff were good at what they did. Even if it pained him slightly to admit it.
Though he made a face at Leah, it was a poorly masked smile. “Yeah, yeah, always think the worst of your little brother. I might develop a complex sooner or later, you know,” he joked. Most of the time, he gave his sisters good reason to believe that he was going to make trouble, so really, it was absolutely fine. “Plotting. Who says I was plotting anything?” he asked in faux sheepishness.
Once Leah called Kori on her bluff, Brandon chuckled softly. “I was wondering if you was going to do that,” he responded, giving Leah a knowing look, and more than likely revealing to Kori that yeah, he'd known that she was lying, too.
They'd finished a couple of rounds now, and unsurprisingly, no one was really paying attention to who was in the lead. Brandon had made his move to pretend to turn up the table a couple of times, but hadn't actually done it, and he was pretty damn sure he was ten seconds from a smack in the head. But that was the point. Be the bratty brother and get under his sisters' skin.
Kori explained that the other kitchen girl, the one Brandon didn't really mind, had asked about a school for the older kids, and Brandon shrugged. “I don't think it could hurt,” he said simply. “I mean, I'm sure the ones with parents have learned a little bit from their parents, but having people who know stuff teaching couldn't hurt. What kinds of classes were you guys thinking about teaching?”