Page 25 of Things We Left Behind

“I can’t stand by and watch that happen,” Nash insisted, slapping his brother on the shoulder. “I don’t wanna spend the next week listening to you bitch about your stupid frostbitten face.”

I, on the other hand, had no problem watching Knox be force-­fed snow by three vengeful women…and Stef and Jeremiah. But I was at least going to do it with a front row seat.

“We can use the door on the side of the garage,” I offered.

Knox brightened. “We’ll flank ’em. That’ll teach ’em!”

We trooped into the mudroom with the dogs on our heels, and I armored up.

In the garage, Knox glanced down at my gloves and snorted. “I can’t believe you’re going into a snowball fight with fucking designer driving gloves.”

I peeled one off and slapped him across the face with it. The sting was most likely absorbed entirely by his thick beard. “Don’t make me challenge you to a duel. I have a better arm than you do,” I warned him.

“As much as I enjoy watching anyone slap my brother in the face, if we don’t get out there soon, they’re just going to try to steal your truck and do doughnuts in the street,” Nash said, gesturing toward the door.

“Right. Here’s the plan,” Knox said. “We head out, take a minute to build an arsenal, then we attack.”

“Sounds good to me,” Nash agreed, a little too amicably.

I was immediately suspicious. The Morgan brothers’ love and loyalty ran deep, but they still behaved like prepubescent pains in the ass on a sugar high when left to their own devices.

Knox gestured for us to be quiet and opened the side door. When he peered outside, Nash turned to me and made a slashing motion across his throat. Then he mimed making a snowball and hitting his brother in the head with it.

I gave him the double thumbs-­up.

“Do you see anything?” Nash whispered to Knox.

“It’s dark and it’s fucking snowing. All I see is a bunch of white shit,” Knox snarled back.

“Look harder,” Nash advised before reaching into his pocket, whipping out his phone, and texting someone. Presumably his fiancée. Smirking, he pocketed it again. “Let’s move,” he said.

“I’m on point,” Knox insisted.

“Then get your ass out the door so we can at least start packing snow, dumbass,” his brother said, pushing him out the door.

I followed them into the white night. Six inches of snow blanketed the ground, but it didn’t quite muffle the giggles that were coming from the front of the house.

Waylon and Piper trotted outside. The basset hound put his nose to the ground and immediately snowplowed a path to the fence that divided my property from Sloane’s. He lifted his leg, nearly peeing on the curious Piper, as she followed.

Knox knelt in the snow and began frantically forming snowballs. “Just make as many as you can carry,” he hissed at us.

Nash followed suit.

I, however, went to war, thinking bigger than a pathetic handful of snowballs. I stepped back into the garage and grabbed a yellow plastic bucket off the shelf. Outside, I dragged it across the ground, filling it in one sweep.

“Waylon, c’mere,” Knox ordered.

The dog had a full muzzle of snow and a crazy look in his eyes.

Knox held the hound’s jowls between his hands. “Go get Mommy.”

Waylon sneezed, and we heard the giggles abruptly cut off. “Bless you,” came Jeremiah’s deep baritone in a stage whisper.

“I didn’t sneeze,” Naomi responded. “But thank you anyway.”

“Guys, shut up or they’re going to hear us,” Lina hissed even louder.

“Go, Waylon,” Knox whispered, pushing his dog toward the front of the house. “Find Mommy.”