Page 92 of The Deadly Shallows

Noah leaned back, making eye contact with Kenzie over the kitchen island. “You haven’t been letting him watch The Avengers, have you?” he teased.

Kenzie gave him a plllleasse look.

“He’s just a boy. That’s what they do.” Nana Jo chuckled. “Take Noah, for instance,” she said, and he followed her gaze across the room to Gabby. “He was such a boy—except for maybe that one time he got into my makeup.”

“What?” Brooke burst out laughing.

Noah hung his head. Here we go. When his momma started on a story, there was no stopping her. And Brooke hadn’t even heard the story yet, and she was already giggling. She looked at him, her eyes filled with mirth. “You? Makeup?”

He shifted his legs fully out in front of himself, taking pressure off his right thigh as brown plastic beans tumbled over the pot in the center of the game.

“Aw, man,” Fiona said. “Oh well. I’ll get you next time, Uncle Noah.”

“See,” Nana Jo said. “That’s the difference between boys and girls.”

“I’d love to hear the rest of the makeup story,” Brooke said with a sweet tinge to her voice, but he knew she was only looking for information to razz him with.

“Me too.” Finn chuckled as he entered from the back patio door.

Gabby set her mug of hot chocolate down, her fuzzy red-and-white snowflake-socked feet crossed on the ottoman behind Noah’s head. “I wouldn’t get too chuckley there, buddy,” she said with a smirk in Finn’s direction. “I heard a few whoppers from your mom when we visited.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Finn said with a sheepish grin as he handed Nana Jo the plate of sizzling strips of steak.

“Thank you, dear,” she said, taking the plate from him.

Here came Noah’s favorite part. When the steak met the carne asada sauce, he could hear it bubbling on the stove as his mom stirred it with the wooden spoon.

Finn took a seat beside Gabby on the sofa, wrapping his arms around her shoulders.

Everyone looked expectantly at Nana Jo.

Noah groaned. What was this? Family story hour?

Once his mom finished stirring the carne asada, she set it to a simmer, put the lid on, and moved to join them. “Okay,” she said, swiping her hands on the Cooking Queen apron Gabby had gotten her last Christmas.

Was it nearly Christmas again? Noah shook his head. Time flew. It’d be his first Christmas with Brooke. He couldn’t wait.

“So the kids used to play war games,” his mom started.

Brooke’s smile widened. “Why am I not surprised,” she said, looking between him and Gabby.

“They’d climb into the tree fort their dad built in a big sycamore in our backyard up in Annapolis.”

Gabby reached over and clutched their mom’s hand. A catch always sounded in their mom’s voice when she mentioned their dad. It’d been a couple of years, but after nearly a lifetime together, losing half your soul—as his mom put it—had to be devastating.

Nana Jo sniffed. “So they’d set up the small army guys, or whatever dolls Kenzie wanted to bring to the party, around the perimeter. It was Noah’s job to secure the perimeter while Gabby was on watch with a nerf gun, and Kenzie was on backup with a super soaker. They were quite the threesome.”

“And the makeup part?” Finn asked, his grin as wide as Brooke’s.

Noah grimaced before he smiled too. It was funny but oh-so-embarrassing.

“After securing the perimeter, they’d come in the house and do up their faces in war paint. Well, one day they ran out of the washable art paint they always used, so Kenzie convinced them to use my makeup for war paint.”

“Oh, I like where this is going,” Brooke said.

Nana Jo laughed. “You should have seen them—bright pink and deep red lipstick streaks across the bridge of their freckled noses and dark blue eye shadow under their eyes.” She shook her head.

“Thankfully, we never left the backyard,” Noah said, thinking how scarring that could have been if his friends had seen.