Aces Wild (House of Cards Ser...

Grace was listening to an alarm blare, a handsome Spanish man swear and was laughing hard enough to cry a little. Grace and her best friend Nate were in the kitchen of her family home, while he was trying to impress the entire James family with the latest recipe the bar he worked at had taught him. It wasn't going well to say the least.

To add to the moment of levity in a normally emotionally dense house, Grace's mother, Maddison, was filming the entire debacle on her cell phone, inevitably to end up on youtube and help spoil the aura of sexy, confident lothario that Nate had built up online. Everyone did so love to cock block that man. He was her best friend, and in moments of tragic honesty, Grace could admit to herself that she was in love with him, but he was a slut. He refused to emotionally connect with the women he slept with, and would run from a girl the moment she started to drop hints about wanting to be a girl friend and not just a bedmate. Although he was better than the players from highschool, because he was honest about his intentions straight up, and never went out of his way to break a girl's heart. It just happened anyways because most normal people can't seperate love and sex as easily as he seemed to do.

Grace yanked her thoughts off of that worn out path, knowing that it would just sap her happy away and focused instead on harassing the man in question. "No wonder you're so damn scrawny Nate. You can't cook worth shit. Even I do better and I'm the one that made spagoup!"

Of course, mentioning that little cooking mishap was a mistake. Grace was at best a half hearted cook. She wasn't designed to be domestic, and it showed whenever she had to cook for herself. When her parents had been out of the city for a week last year, Grace was left to fend for herself and spagoup had unfortunately been born. She'd been making canned vegetable soup and wanted to add another can in to make it last for two meals. So she'd opened the cupboard, grabbed the next can, opened it and added it, all without really paying attention. It wasn't until she sat down and started to eat that she wondered just exactly why her vegetable soup had spagetti in it that she realized her mistake. And no, canned spagetti with cheese and sause in it does not taste good mized in with vegetable soup, no matter how 'not that horrible' it sounds. It was so bad even NATE wouldn't eat it, and he was a hoover when it came to free food.

"Hey, once I scrape off the burned bits, this will at least taste good. When you screw up food, not even the dog will eat it!" Nate retorted, making both the red headed James women from at him in confusion.

"Nathaniel sweety, we don't HAVE a dog..." Maddison James reminded kindly, her mouth batttling to hide her grin. It was always hard to stay mad at Nate, despite his outrageous behaviour most of the time, he was just so...appealing.

"That you know of Mrs. James, that you know of..." Nate remarked randomly, making Grace and her mom both laugh some more at his strangeness. There were days that Grace wondered if he would be happier as a comedian than a photographer. Except for the whole genius behind a lens thing he had going on.

"So Grace, did he balls up and ask you to the Fall Ball?" Grace's mother asked, trying to make Nate jealous. Pretty much everyone in Grace's family, and the entire Vega clan, were expecting Nate and Grace to end up together, but Grace refused to be a notch on a bed post. Not that Nate didn't love her, he just didn't love love her and that was the crucial ingredient missing for her to let him get that next step from her. So until he smartened up or she finally gave up all hope, Grace acted like their brief intimate moments were just practice for someone else later and left it at that. It would be made easier if her mother didn't insist on trying to rile Nate up so he'd confess some ill thought out proclamation of undying love. It seemed he just didn't have it in him.

"Actually no, instead one of Aunt Opi's student's, Colby, asked me to the Ball." Grace stated, keeping the smug look off of her face when Nate frowned slightly and went back to muttering at the food he had all but flambayed. Nate and Colby didn't get along. Not in the whole, beat their chests and hurtle insults at each other way, but more along the lines of not at all wanting to be in the other's presence way. Which is why she had pulled Cody aside and made him a deal. He was pretty much in love with her aunt Ophelia, and he seemed to have already deduced Grace's reluctant attraction to her playboy best friend. But Opi was about as resistant to the concept of dating as Nathaniel was, and so they both hoped to provoke a little jealousy out of their respective interests. Though Grace doubted that Nate would even bat an eyelash over her going with Colby, she was looking forward to the chance to just go on a date with a handsome man. One who would not press her for anything she wasn't willing to do. They were just going to dance, which was a nice change from her constantly freaking out and running away from the guys she usually went to these kind of things with.

To this day, her best friend believed that she had given her Vcard to some dope but the truth was that other than the experimenting she had done with Nathaniel, Grace had no experience worth talking about. She just didn't trust anyone to get intimate with them, too many horror stories from alot of her friends to risk hooking up with some guy. She wasn't doing it for any conservative or religious reasons either, she was a hardcore athiest and couldn't tolerate a lot of the bull she heard the religious fuzzy wuzzies spout out. No, her virginity was intact because she chose to keep it that way. And Nathaniel was actually decent enough to never once press the issue, although he went out of his way to make sure she was 'taken care of'. It was confusing as hell to say the least and Grace was breaking the holding pattern their relationship had been in since she was 16. It was time that he either stepped up to be WITH her, or she stopped being a coward and went with someone else.

"Grace, it's not nice to zone out mid conversation." Maddison James teased her daughter lightly, a smirk on her face.

Grace knew that look, her mother was plotting something nefarious, and was the kind of woman that was capable of a great amount of anarchy. She was a perfect match for Westley James, Grace's mercurial father. "Sorry, you guys must not have been all that interesting." Grace immediately teased back. And then felt something cold, wet and sticky splatter across her face.

Now Nathaniel was laughing uproariously, the batter he had hucked at her dripping from his fingers as he wiggled them at her in clear invitation to retailiate. Grace felt her eyebrow arch up as she scraped the batter off of her face and gave him 'the look'. Nate's eyes went wide, the smile left his face and he bolted for the other side of the kitchen island the moment Grace vaulted from her chair. He was fast, but she was faster and she reached the bowl of batter on the island before he did, lobbing some of the gooey paste back at him while her mother started to laugh. This was not the first time that an attempt at cooking had ended in a food ffight, and Grace knew her mother well enoguh to know that shortly she would join it.

It took three mad dashes around the island before Grace's usual lack of anything resembling grace had her tripping over her own feet and sprawling to the floor. The bowl full of batter she'd had in her hands went flying and nailed the older red head with inevitable messy results and Nate fell over laughing at Maddison's stunned look. And then they were both in for it big time as Maddison calmly walked to the sink while they tried to struggle to their feet, knocking each other back over. Neither one was going to be spared Maddison James' wrath as she turned the hose nozzle from the sink on and shamelessly drenched them both to the core.

But the biggest surprise had to be the full and throaty sound of laughter coming from the kitchen doorway, as Grace's Aunt Opi stood clear of the danger zone and laughed her ass off at them all. It was a beautiful sight to see, her pale aunt's face flushed with the blood rush of laughter, her pale eyes glittering with the wicked sense of humour no one suspected and her hands pressed to her belly over something that wasn't vile illness. Grace could see why someone like Colby was all but in love with her beautifully distant aunt and she wanted nothing more than to see her like this all the time. Opi was always a bit reserved and conservative seeming, but as she had gotten more and more sick, and the chemo had killed her strength, Grace had seen the spark leave her aunt's eyes. She knew that Ophelia was giving up on life and when that happened, Grace wasn't sure what came next. She hadn't voiced her fears to anyone else, but Grace knew that her aunt might consider 'sparing' everyone the torment and taking an alternate way out. Suicide would hurt the James family, but Ophelia was the kind of person who might consider it a kindness instead of forcing them to watch her suffer like she was.

And before the negative thoughts could bog her down more, Nathaniel had scooped some of the goop off of himself and splattered it at Ophelia, making Grace gasp in surprise. Only Nate seemed to not care that she was sick, he was hell bent and determined to get her involved in the fun of life as well, but Grace knew her aunt was a bit of a neat freak. Still, her eyes glittered with laughter even as she stopped chortling.

"Nathaniel Spade Vega, if you have gotten any of that batter on my hat I will make you clean my class room for a month." Ophelia warned, her voice warm with lingering laughter.

Nate just nodded happily, accepting his fate because Grace could see a big gob of batter about to drip off her aunt's primrose coloured hat. "Nitwit, help me up. I think I twisted my ankle in that  fall." Grace demanded, trying to ignore how her ankle was starting to throb.

Nate earned a smack up the back of his head when he scooped her up instead of just giving her a hand up, and set her on the island as if she were still a five year old to be manhandled like that. Just because he could haul her around like a sack of potatoes didn't mean she wanted him too. "Well now that someone is injured and the clean up has started, I think I'll retire back to my room. And clean off my hat. Nathaniel, I expect you to be prompt for clean up duties." Grace's Aunt Opi warned and left the room with a dignified air.

"Are you alright?" Nate asked Grace as he pulled her sock and shoe off to show that yes indeedy, her ankle was swelling up nicely and bruising. Not a break but a pretty decent sprain. Grace was just clumbsy enough to have done this more than once or twice before. Her mother came over to check as well, bringing an icepack from the freezer.

I either have to stop hurting myself so much or get better at ignoring the pain... Grace whinced as the ice pack was put over her swelling ankle. It didn't help that Nate had moved a chair over so he could sit and hold her ankle up while her mom continued to move around the kitchen cleaning. They were both so nonchalant about it! Grace fumed as she realised that they were calm because this happened so often, they already expected it. It was frustrating because everyone else in this damn family of hers was so bloody coordinated. Execpt for her aunt Shiobhan, Aunti Shiv was the only other one to knock herself around as much as Grace did.

"Are you ok sweety?" Maddison James inquired, her honest concern as she wiped some of the batter away.

"It doesn't exactly feel like kisses from kittens mom, but I'll live. Can you go get my cruches from the garage though? I think I'm going to want to stay off of it for a few days. And if Nate tried to pick me up again, I'm poking out one of his eyes." Grace asked and subtly warned.

Both her mother and Nate chuckled at her, the routine long ago set since she was so accident prone. Yes, they had cruches permanently set to Grace's height because no one else really ever needed them. Her mother left, heading to the garage to grab the cruches as Grace and Nate sat and dripped in the kitchen. It was going to take a while to clean up, Grace realized, because somehow they had gotten batter everywhere... At least the fire alarm had shut up when Nate had finally given up on his failure of a meal. It was nice to see him screw up once in a while, helped restore Grace's faith that there was balance in the world.

When Nathaniel bent over Grace's ankle to gnetly kiss it better, she instincively flinched and kicked him in the face. Maddison James walked back into the kitchen, covered in batter herself and with the amused looking Westley James in tow to see Grace apologizing over a bleeding Nate as he held his now broken nose and tried to wipe the tears of pain away without just smearing the blood and batter all over his face.

"There are moments when being your best friend is hazardous to my health..." Nate stated, his voice muffled and strange sounding as his nose was bent all out of shape.

"And there are moments where just being you is hazardous to your health so stop complaining. Besides, it's your fault I sprained my ankle. Suck it up you big baby." Grace retorted, handing him the ice pack from her swollen ankle.

"Do I want to know?" West asked Maddison while the children treated each other's injuries.

"All is fair in love and war. You taught me that one Wolf." Maddison replied smugly, lightly jabbing her elbow into her husban's stomach.

"I hate to come home to blood and tears, you know that." West growled in response, pulling Maddison in for a kiss while Grace and Nate both made sounds of disgust at the parental show of affection.

"My parents are disgustingly in love." Grace whined jokingly. She was actually happy to see her parents still acting like love sick teenagers, even if it was gross at the same time. Most of her friends' parents were divorsed at least once. But it was the sad look in Nate's eyes that made her stop laughing so much.

"It's a hard standard to live up to, my dad and yours. I'm not good enough to even try Graceless. Now let's get your foot into a cold bath since I stole your ice pack." Nathaniel's moment of honesty was nearly forgotten as Grace let him help stand her back up.

Her ankle hurt a lot more than she expected it to and she cried out in pain as her leg gave out. Son of a bitch, I think I did break it. Grace whined internally while her father scooped her up like Nate had not too long ago and took her out to the car. At least this time they were going to the hospital for her and not for aunt Opi.