He looked back at Noah.
“I like apricot. You are free to reach your own conclusion.”
Noah bit into it.
Chewed.
Nodded.
“Acceptable.”
“I’ll take that victory.”
Owen arrived a few minutes later with rain on his shoulders and marine cable tucked under one arm.
He greeted Noah just as calmly.
No embrace.
No exaggerated brightness.
Only, “Your bench still looks better than Caleb’s.”
Caleb objected at once.
Noah rolled closer to Owen’s side of the workshop.
“His labels are crooked.”
Owen grinned. “They were crooked before.”
“I know.”
The words stopped all of us.
Noah did not notice immediately.
Then his gaze returned to the uneven labels on a storage bin.
“I know they were crooked.”
Owen’s expression softened.
“You used to straighten them whenever Caleb annoyed you.”
Noah’s right hand reached automatically toward the roll of labels on the shelf.
He caught himself.
“Not today,” I said.
His gaze snapped toward me.
“I can peel one label.”
“You will peel one. Then twenty.”
“He knows you,” Caleb said.
