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I shoveled a bunch of food into my mouth and went, “My turn!” Then I rounded the table and picked up the pen. Noa didn’t resist this time either, and he let KC feed him fish and potatoes while I scribbled.
I had just the story.
Colt once dyed the syrup for Mr. West’s drink’s sugar rim, and Mr. West didn’t pay attention. That whole night, he walked around with a blue Cheshire grin, and nobody told him.
I scraped my teeth over my bottom lip and handed the marker to Daddy.
Both Master and KC leaned close to read, and then I heard their laughter as I sat down again. They remembered that night.
Noa fought against another grin and shook his head.
We were getting there!
KC shared a story that was so short it required a verbal explanation—and that included me! Seriously? River had once had a green freaking mohawk?!
“But he wouldn’t even let Reese grow a mustache!” Noa exclaimed.
“In River’s defense, it was temporary hair dye, and it’d supposedly been for a work thing,” KC chuckled. “It lasted all of five minutes at Mclean. He basically walked through the house on his way to wash out the dye and run a trimmer over his head.”
Master was highly entertained too. “He kept grumbling, ‘I was fuckin’ undercover, leave me alone.’”
Undercover?
What on earth had he worked as? I’d thought River and Reese had worked in security or something like that.
Oh whatever. Noa let out a snicker, and that was all that mattered. And now he had “River used to have a green mohawk” doodled on his cheek.
“Oh my God, they’re all gonna see this online later,” I laughed.
That worked. That right there made Noa grin, and it felt so fucking good that my eyes welled up a little. But our fight wasn’t over. We had to make this last a while longer. I wasn’t asking too much, just…a couple hours?
While we ate, we took turns filling Noa’s arms and parts of his face with doodles. I tried to keep them funny, while Master and Daddy moved into the sweet territory. Best brat ever, darling boy, Uncle Lucian’s chipmunk, FRECKLES AF, and sweetest shit-stirrer graced his arms and neck—and a few funny anecdotes from me. Such as the time Greer ate a bad burrito and spent a breath-play event running between the demo stage and the bathroom, or the time Reese went on a soapbox rant about how superior Sadists were and a bug flew into his mouth.
But then Master changed direction. He finished the last of his food, picked up the marker, and wrote a short list on Noa’s hand.
Lettuce, crickets, strawberries, worms, dandelions
Daddy and I exchanged a grin, whereas Noa only got puzzled. Maybe he’d expected another term of endearment or a funny memory, and instead he got…what he didn’t realize was a grocery list for a lizard.
“Is that supposed to make me laugh?” Noa asked.
“Oh no.” Master shook his head. “This is very serious business.”
KC nodded and added his own doodle. A rectangle, in which he drew the topside view of a bed, two nightstands, and—okay, it had to be their bedroom, and that box thing by the window could be the terrarium?
“What’re you doing, Daddy?” Noa dipped down and tried to figure out the drawing.
“Can’t you see it’s our bedroom?” Daddy asked.
It was Master’s turn again, and he gently gripped Noa’s chin. “This is an important detail, according to two of our newer members.” Ty and Lane, of course. And the word he jotted down on Noa’s nose was “bioactive.”
Which gave me an idea for what to write next. I joined Noa’s side of the table once more and accepted the marker from Master. And then I wrote a handful of words while he used his phone’s selfie mode as a mirror.
“Bioactive? I’m so confuzzled!” Noa cried out.
I smirked to myself. His neck looked almost as tattooed as Kit’s!
Substrate, soil, leaf litter, and springtails.
