‘Don’t make me get out my colour wheel,’ he warned.
‘Next you’ll be telling me that vermillion is a reddish-orange colour, and not the beautiful green of the luna moth.’
He cocked his head, trying to tell whether nowIwas pullinghisleg.
I wasn’t sure, actually. I was definitely fifty-fifty on whethervermillion was orange or green. But with the right teasing look, I could definitely pretend otherwise.
‘All right. Let’s dig out these edge pieces next,’ he said, sorting through the veritable haystack of pieces.
‘You and your edge pieces.’ This wasn’t the first jigsaw puzzle we’d done together, of course. A few years back, Summerween had been unusually damp, and we’d spent most of it indoors. We’d become experts on the board games that Rosie kept stashed away in the various drawers, and we’d worked our way through at least half a dozen smaller jigsaw puzzles. This puzzle was more involved than any of the others we’d attempted – except perhaps the one with the tropical parrots – but we’d find a way.
‘Edge pieces keep a puzzle civilized,’ said Noah. ‘Imagine the chaos otherwise.’
‘I don’t mind alittlebit of a chaos.’ I set down a sky piece in the middle of the frame he was starting to put together.
‘Anarchy,’ he said, pretending to be mortified. ‘You’ve been spending too much time with Finn and Lara.’
Curiously, the way he added Lara’s name sounded like an afterthought. I pretended to focus on sorting pieces, but I was wondering whether Noah was actually bothered by the way Finn and I had been hanging out. He certainly hadn’t seemed impressed the night Finn and I had painted our toenails. Or the following day at the beach soccer game.
But I had to spendsometime with both brothers. We were living under the same roof!
I tried to be tactful. By throwing Lara under the bus.Sorry, Lara.
‘Lara’s approach to doing jigsaw puzzles is just tossing them in the trash,’ I said with a laugh.
‘The stress-free approach to things,’ said Rosie, who’d finished icing her cupcakes and was now starting to wash up. ‘Remember that 3D puzzle doodad you brought home from one of your college tours? I swear that took ten years off my life.’
Noah and I worked quietly at our puzzle, making fairly good headway. That was due to him more than me, though: I was painfully aware of how closely we were seated. Every time our legs or wrists brushed, a current of electricity zapped me. Given its shenanigans earlier, I was surprised that the kitchen light didn’t short-circuit.
Josephine’s ring, however, was putting on quite a show. Enough that Noah noticed.
‘Do you need me to check the fuse on your ring as well?’ he asked drily.
I hid my hand under the table and continued to sort puzzle pieces. Mom, who was deep into a cider and therefore feeling confident about her puzzling skills, came by to help pick out some of the reds and greens. It didn’t take long before her phone started buzzing.
‘Ugh, what am I going to do about this client? Look, they’re emailing again! It’s practically stalking at this point. Maybe I should let Shauna win this one.’
‘That’ll never happen,’ I whispered to Noah.
‘I hate that you’re right, yet at the same time proud that you’re right.’ Mom sighed. ‘I’m going to need my laptop for this. You’re on your own, kids.’
Noah and I continued, quietly passing each other pieces and pressing others into place. We were making unhurried progress, and our puzzle was starting to show hints of an autumnal forest. My focus was on the couple at the bottom of the picture. Who were they? How had they chosen each other?
I hoped on some level that piecing them together would help reveal something to me about my own love life, but surely life wasn’t as simple as that.
From the music room, I could hear Finn teasing out the ballad he’d played at the Summerween concert. The night he’d played seemingly just for me.
‘I know that one,’ I called, my tongue loosened by drink.
Next to me, Noah said nothing, but I could feel his energy shift. Especially when Finn came loping back into the room, pulling up a chair at the table. He sifted through a stack of pieces, grimacing as he held up two identical-looking bits of forest.
‘C’mon, Molly,’ groaned Finn. ‘It’s beenhours. By the time you get done, movies won’t exist any more. You’d better hurry – there’s a bag of microwave popcorn with your name on it.’
I glanced at the kitchen clock. Wow, he was right. Noah and I had been working at the jigsaw for the better part of the evening. Where had the time gone?
‘You’re welcome to join in,’ said Noah, his tone measured. Although there was an undercurrent of something there I couldn’t put my finger on.
Finn sipped at the remnants of my cider. ‘This thing has like a million pieces, and they all look the same. Who picks out a jigsaw puzzle that’s all leaves? It’s sadistic.’
