Chapter 83

Holding back a laugh, she shook her head at me. “You. You and that face.”

At the other end of the table, Dad lifted his chin in the living room’s direction. “I’ll put your painting right there over the mantel where everybody can see it, okay, son?”

“No, you don’t have to do put up any—”

“Hey.” Dad gave Derek a serious look. “I’ll put it up. That other thing is ugly.”

“Mom loves it,” Boone said. “Good luck getting it down.”

Kenya laughed and murmured something in my brother’s ear that made him grin. Those two had definitely made up.

Dad grabbed his glass and drained it. Then he looked at Derek again. “Spencer couldn’t come?”

That hurt a little. That he would ask Derek about my son, instead of me. But I understood.

“Uh, no,” Derek said, his stare darting to my face and then back to Dad’s. “You know he’s with Mona on Christmas Day and then we have him on the next day.”

“He’ll come to your house tomorrow. Right. Yes. And you’ll give him our gifts?”