Chapter 8
NATE
I’d forgotten how loud the Brookes family could be.
It was all laughter and clattering dishes and three conversations happening at once, each one overlapping the last.
At the end of the table, Poppy and Nancy were discussing a new recipe Poppy was trying out at the bakery.
John was midway through a story about a fishing trip that kept getting derailed by Dan correcting the details.
And Maya sat across from me, cheeks flushed from two glasses of wine. “Nobody’s fish was that big,” Maya pointed at Dan. “Nobody’s. Not yours, not Dad’s. I was there, and it was average at best.”
“It was not average.” Dan looked personally wounded. “It was at least eighteen inches.”
“Oh, please.”
“Nate. Back me up.”
Every head at the table turned to me. “I remember Maya catching the biggest fish that day.”
The table erupted. Dan threw his hands up. John let out a bark of laughter. And Maya turned to me with a smile so wide her dimples appeared, green eyes sparking with delight.
“Thank you.” She raised her glass in my direction. “Finally, a man with a functioning memory.”
“Traitor,” Dan muttered, but he was fighting a smile.
I let out a long exhale, releasing some of the tension that had dogged me for days.
Nancy placed her hands flat on the table and pushed to her feet. “Right. Now that we’ve established that Maya is the best fisher in this family, I think it’s time for a game.”
A collective groan went up from the table. Nancy ignored it entirely as she went to the bookcase and pulled something from the bottom shelf.
“Pictionary!” The box was battered, one corner held together with tape, the lid faded from years of use. “Teams of two. John, you’re with me. Dan, you can go with Poppy. And Maya, you’re with Nate.”
Maya’s gaze flicked to mine. A split second of… something flashed in her eyes before she shrugged, got to her feet and rounded the table, dropping into the chair next to me.
“Hope you can draw,” she said.
“I cannot.”
“Fantastic. We’re doomed.”
“That’s the spirit,” Poppy said cheerfully, sliding into the chair beside Dan.
John cleared the center of the table while Nancy set up the board and distributed supplies.
“House rules,” Nancy declared, settling into her chair with the authority of a woman who had never once lost a board game in her life. “Sixty seconds on the clock. No talking, no miming, no writing words. If your partner doesn’t guess it, the other teams can steal.”
“Cutthroat,” Poppy murmured.
“I learned from the best,” Nancy replied, glancing at John, who raised his beer in acknowledgment.
Dan leaned over to Poppy. “Fair warning, she’s terrifying at this game.”
“I’m sitting right here, Daniel.”
“I know, Mom. That’s why I said it quietly.”
Maya snorted into her wine. My mouth twitched.
Nancy and John went first. He drew a chandelier. She guessed it in under ten seconds. They high fived, keeping their eyes glued to the board. Cute.
Dan and Poppy were next. Poppy drew what was either a horse or a very large dog, and Dan’s guesses spiraled from “pony” to “donkey” to “is that a camel?” while Poppy stabbed at the paper with increasing frustration. They ran out of time.
“It was a unicorn!” Poppy wailed.
“Where was the horn?”
“Right there!” She jabbed at a squiggle that could have been anything.
“That’s the tail!”
Then it was our turn.
I pulled a card from the box and flipped it over.
Fireworks.
I could work with that. Probably.
Maya took a sip of her wine and leaned forward, elbows on the table, eyes locked on the pad. “Ready when you are.”
The timer flipped. I uncapped the marker.
I drew a line, then a circle at the top, then a bunch of lines radiating outward. It looked like a stick figure having a very bad hair day.
“Sun!” Maya shouted immediately.
I shook my head, added more lines, trying to make them look like they were exploding outward.
“Explosion? Bomb? Oh! Fireworks!”
I pointed at her. She pumped her fist.
Twelve seconds. Nancy’s eyebrows rose; she was visibly impressed.
“Lucky guess,” Dan said.
“Skill,” Maya corrected. She turned to me, eyes bright, and held up her hand.
I stared at it for a beat before my brain kicked in. Her palm was warm, her fingers small against mine, and she let the contact linger for just a moment before pulling away.
“See?” she said, reaching for her wine glass. “We’ve got this.”
Nancy drew a “sailboat” for John. Eight seconds flat. Dan drew something that might have been a tree or a mushroom cloud, and Poppy guessed “broccoli” with such confidence that Dan just stared at her for a full five seconds before the timer ran out.
Maya’s turn. She pulled her card, studied it, and squared her shoulders like she was heading into battle.
The timer flipped.
She drew a circle. Then four legs underneath it. Then something on the front that could have been a nose or a handle or possibly a trumpet.
“Dog! Cat! Table!” I was grasping. “Pig?”
She shook her head frantically, added two big floppy things on either side of the head.
“Elephant!”
She dropped the pencil and grabbed my arm, eyes wild. “Yes! How did you get that?”
“I have no idea.”
“We’re telepathic.” She said it with absolute conviction, wine-bright and beaming. “That’s the only explanation.”
Poppy leaned over to Dan. “Are we witnessing a Pictionary miracle?”
“We’re witnessing a crime against art,” Dan replied. “But yeah, somehow it’s working.”
Nancy’s gaze met mine across the table, a smile playing on her lips. It was the smile of a mother when her family is all together and the evening is going exactly the way she hoped.
Something about it made my throat tight.
The final round came down to us and Nancy and John. We were tied, and the room had reached a pitch that probably qualified as a noise complaint. Dan and Poppy had been eliminated two rounds back and were now serving as a very biased peanut gallery.
Nancy drew. John guessed “pine tree” in record time.
Nancy looked right at me. “Beat that.”
I pulled a card. Read it. My stomach dropped.
Serenade.
How the hell was I supposed to draw a serenade?
The timer flipped. I put marker to paper.
A stick figure. A bigger stick figure next to it. I added a window above the smaller figure. Then musical notes coming from the big one’s mouth. It was the worst thing I’d ever created, and I’d once drawn a tactical map in mud with a stick.
“Person! Two people. Singing? Someone singing to someone. Romeo! Balcony! Oh my God, serenade!”
I spun around. Maya was on her feet, both hands in the air, face lit up like New Year’s Eve.
“That’s it! We win!”
Chaos. Poppy screamed. Dan put his face in his hands. Nancy threw her hands up in mock outrage while John chuckled quietly beside her, not the least bit bothered.
Maya launched herself at me. Her arms went around my neck and she pressed against me, laughing into my shoulder.
I caught her on instinct, one hand on her back to steady her. She was warm, her hair smelled like that sweet shampoo, and her laughter vibrated through me.
My arm tightened around her back before I could stop it.
She pulled away after a second, still grinning, cheeks flushed. “Telepathic. I told you.”
“You told me,” I agreed, my voice rough.
She leaned back in her chair and picked up her wine with the air of a woman who had conquered all she surveyed. She looked beautiful. I hated that I noticed. I noticed anyway.
I took a long pull of my beer. Tried to convince my heart to get back to a normal rhythm.
Across the table, Dan caught my eye. His expression was carefully neutral. Too neutral. It said he’d seen every second of that and was choosing, very deliberately, to stay silent.
I looked away first.
By ten-thirty, Poppy was face down on the table, her head resting on her forearms, and Maya’s eyes had gone soft and unfocused in a way that said the wine had caught up with her.
“Right.” Dan pushed to his feet, steadying Poppy as she bolted upright. “I think these two have had enough to drink. I’m driving them home before they start singing.”
“I don’t sing,” Maya protested. “And I’m not drunk.” She wobbled when she stood, thoroughly undermining her argument.
There was a flurry of goodbyes. Poppy hugged Nancy as if she was leaving for war, then hugged John, then me, then Nancy again. Dan grabbed his keys and herded her toward the door.
Maya made the rounds. A long hug for her mom, a kiss on her dad’s cheek that made John’s face go soft.
Then she turned to me.
“Night, Nate.”
She stepped in and wrapped her arms around me. Casual. The same way she’d hugged her parents. Except her cheek rested against my chest for a beat. Then another. Her fingers curled into my shirt.
Then she straightened, stepped back, and gave me a smile that made my heart roll painfully in my chest.
“Thanks for being my Pictionary partner.”
“Anytime.”
She turned and followed Dan and Poppy out the door.
I remained rooted to the spot, Maya’s warmth still ghosting over me.
Nancy let out a yawn. “Right. I’m off to bed. Goodnight, Nate.”
“Good night.”
John followed with the Pictionary box tucked under his arm, dropping a hand on my shoulder as he passed.
“Good game tonight, son.”
“Thanks, Mr. Brookes.”
“John,” he corrected, the same way Nancy always corrected me. Then they disappeared down the hall, and their bedroom door clicked shut.
The house settled into silence around me.
I retreated to Maya’s room, stretched out in her bed, and let the lingering scent of her keep me awake for a very long time.