“I’ll make more coffee.” Lincoln joined him in the kitchen.
“How are we going to divide the teams?” Rose packed away Dixit and set up the Pictionary. She rolled out sheets of construction drawings, face down, and then looked up to grin at me. “I getLincoln to give me all his outdated drawings to play on.”
A smile spread across my face, matching hers. It was so easy being around her.
“I love Rose more than anything in the world, but she’s so bad at this. Please don’t let me be paired with her,” William said.
Even though this had us in stitches. I was nervous about being paired up with Lincoln.
“Claire and I are both awful at this, so it won’t be fair if we’re on a team,” Rose said, and turned to me. “Are you good at drawing?”
“Let’s make it fair,” William said before I could answer. He tore off a few pieces of paper and scribbled everyone’s names on them. He crumpled them up and shook them around in his large hands. I thought Lincoln was tall, but William was something else.
He walked over to Rose. “My love, you first.” She pulled a face and picked out one of the folded names. She unwrapped it and looked at me without any apprehension. “Elizabeth.” Then she opened a second piece of paper. “And Claire!”
“Excellent,” William said. “This’ll be easy.”
“What did we miss?” Dean asked, returning with freshly heated brownies and a tub of ice cream. Lincoln carried a tray of coffees.
“You’re both teamed up with William for Pictionary,” Claire said, and the two men looked at each other and smiled.
Rose scooted up next to me, and we leaned over the big sheet of paper. “Okay, as you heard, I’m not good at sketching… but it was William’s turn to pick a game, and he picked this evil game. Do any of you want to go first?”
Claire and I shook our heads.
“Fine,” Rose said. “I’ll go first.”
When the game finally started, Rose scribbled on her side of the paper, and hand on my heart, I had no idea what she was meant to be drawing.
“Chicken!” Claire yelled.
Rose shook her head, and William leaned over with a snicker. He wasn’t even focusing on whatever Dean was drawing.
“Squirrel!” Lincoln said in that deep, wonderful voice of his.
“Yes,” Dean replied. A point to the boys, then.
I scrutinized Rose’ssquirrel. She really wasn’t good at this. She huffed and handed the marker to Claire.
Surprisingly, I deciphered Claire’s “leak” before the boys got their answer. She nodded at me, which seemed a lot better than the scathing looks I’d endured pregame. At one stage, I even made her giggle.
When it was my turn, my heart raced. I picked my clue.Subway.
A train! I could draw a train. When the timer turned, I started sketching, and Rose and Claire guessed pretty much anything but a train.
“Sausage!” Rose yelled.
“Sausage dog!” Claire said.
I growled, adding windows.
The timer ran out, and Lincoln laughed. I looked up, and our eyes locked for a second. “Subway,” he said quietly. “I’m well-trained in reading Elizabeth’s drawings.”
“You would have drawn a sandwich,” I said, savoring the few seconds that felt familiar with him.
That lopsided smile came out, and my insides melted. It was like seeing it for the first time. He nodded. “I would have.”
The game raced on, and even with our indecipherable drawings, we managed to win. The losers were sent off to the kitchen for another round of hot beverages.
