CHAPTER SEVEN #3
“Excellent. And while I’m at it, I’ll make the rest of the teams.”
“Wine?” Gabrielle asked me. I hadn’t even noticed her get up, leave for the kitchen, or return. She held a stemless wineglass and bottle.
“Just a half-glass,” I said with a nod.
She poured me a half-glass of the light red and handed it to me. “That’s our 2021 Merlot.”
I took a sip and let it sit on my tongue for a moment. “Delicious.”
She smiled, put the bottle in the middle of the coffee table, then sat next to Maverick on the couch.
“Okay, next team. Maverick, Danica, Tom, Sam, and Laurel.”
“That leaves team ‘Awesome Sauce,’ who will win all the things,” Jagger cut in, flexing his biceps. “Me, Marco the Great, Raina, Gabs, and Damon.”
Everyone seemed satisfied with their team.
I leaned toward Mabel. “You okay, kiddo?”
Her nod wasn’t convincing. “It’s not even.”
“I mean, technically, the world isn’t even. I believe there are more women in the world than men. So …”
She shot me a look.
“I appreciate you being flexible. I think us getting out of the house and spending time with people is good for us. Takes our mind off—”
“Kyla?”
I pursed my lips together. It was better than my gut reaction to her name, which was to gag. Finally, I nodded. “You’re safe. We’re safe. I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you. Let’s enjoy our pizza and play some games.”
They cleared off the coffee table and opened the board game. We were the Green Team.
I’d never played Cranium before, but it was a lot of fun.
Even Mabel seemed to relax a bit and started guessing some of the questions.
She opted not to sculpt the clay or hum a song.
But she accepted the pencil and paper and sketched out something with her eyes closed.
None of us got it before the timer though.
I was worried that she would get frustrated at her inability to draw something as simple as a toaster, but when she opened her eyes, she snorted and smiled at how ridiculous it looked.
It was our turn again. We landed on green and I pulled a “Star Performer” card. A “Sideshow” card to be specific, which was where you had to manipulate the arms and legs of another member of your team, rather than do the charades yourself.
The card said: milking a cow.
“It’s a Sideshow, so I need an assistant,” I said, expecting Mabel to step up.
She shook her head at me.
I didn’t know Austin or Honor well enough …
Naomi must have picked up on my uncertainty and leaped to her feet. “I’ll be your puppet.”
My belly did a flip as I stood up. For good measure, I finished my wine. Liquid courage, and all that.
“Okay … uh …” I stepped behind her.
“What’s the hint?” Mabel asked.
“Action,” I said.
Honor moaned. “That’s impossible. Everything is an action.”
“I think ‘thing’ is harder,” Mabel argued.
“Ready?” Raina asked, holding the timer.
I nodded.
She flipped the hourglass, and I grabbed both of Naomi’s hands, lacing my fingers through hers from behind. I held them out in front of her and made the motion of milking a cow.
“Uh …” Jagger said. “Is this appropriate?”
Naomi giggled. “I was about to ask the same thing.”
“Yes, it is,” I said, my body temperature rising. My hands were getting sweatier too.
All I could think of next was the fact that when people milked cows, they were usually sitting on a stool. So I went into a yoga Chair Pose and pulled Naomi’s butt onto my lap while continuing to move her arms in a jerking off—but also udder milking—motion.
Oh, fuck my life.
“Driving a car?” Honor asked.
I shook my head.
“Shooting a machine gun?” Austin said.
I shook my head again.
“Puppet master?” my kid asked.
“No.” I wasn’t sure what else I could do besides what I was doing. How else did you convey “milking a cow”? I couldn’t make any noise. I couldn’t use Naomi as the cow and pretend to milk her.
Oh god, that would surely get me booted off the island, but not before all these men kicked my ass.
With my fingers still laced through hers, I held her thumbs and forefingers with mine and made them pinch invisible udders. I’d never milked a cow in my freaking life. Maybe I was doing this entirely wrong. Was I supposed to take the cow to dinner and a movie first?
“Are you … milking a cow?” Mabel finally asked, wrinkling her cute little nose.
Before I could unlink my hands from Naomi’s, I rose both sets of our arms into the air in victory. “Yes! That’s it.”
“Time,” Raina said.
“Yeah, okay, I can see that now,” Naomi said, untangling our fingers. Her grin was lighthearted and beautiful as she spun around and offered me a high five. “I wasn’t entirely sure why I was sitting on your lap at first. Not gonna lie.”
“It was the milking stool,” I said with insistence. “I swear.”
Her green eyes twinkled as she went to sit back down. “I get that now.”
My cheeks were probably redder than the merlot in everyone’s glasses; they were certainly warm enough. “Sorry if—”
She held up her hands to stop me. “It’s a game, Lennox. Relax.” Then she winked at me before topping up her wine from the bottle. “More?”
I shook my head. “I’m driving.”
“Dad made me drive the truck today,” Mabel said. “We didn’t get pulled over by the police. He was lucky.”
All the adults in the room snickered.
“Mom has let Damon do that before, but only on the property,” Laurel said. “Why’d you get to drive?”
“He had a migraine and couldn’t see straight. Probably from getting bad news about—”
“Which reminds me, I should really have some water. Mabel, water?” I said, standing up and giving her a look she knew well. A look that kindly, firmly requested her to change the subject and keep our business private.
“No, thank you. Anyway,” my kid went on as I made my way to the kitchen, “please don’t tell the cops. I’ll never do it again. I’m not sure I’ll ever get my license. I didn’t enjoy it one bit. Too stressful.”
I found a glass in a cupboard and turned on the faucet, then filled it. Chugging over the sink so as to not leave drips on Gabrielle’s floor, I stared out the kitchen window at the never-ending rows of grapes in the fleeting light of dusk.
“You okay?” came a familiar, friendly voice. I spun around to find Naomi. “Migraine back?”
I filled my glass again. “No. But I need to remember to drink more water.”
“Do you get migraines often?”
I shook my head. “No. And this one wasn’t too bad. It started when we were here. After my phone call, and then got progressively worse as we drove home.”
“Bad phone call?”
“You could say that.”
“Anything I can do to help?”
Not unless she was willing to use that wolfsbane to finish off a woman who should have been shivved in the kidney in prison.
I just shook my head again. “It’s all good.
Thank you though. This has been nice. Mabel’s never been keen on making friends, or very good at it.
So getting her to interact with children her own age is beneficial. ”