Page 95 of Worth the Fall
“Like a rock, O’Grady. Like a fucking rock.”
I laughed and watched her head bounce with the movement. “Sorry. I’ll start letting myself go now that you’re all in.”
She pulled her head up and glared at me. “Don’t you dare.”
“I knew you liked it.”
Thanksgiving dinnerat my dad’s was pretty much a tradition in our family. Not like we’d had any other options, unless we wanted to have an early lunch at Main Street Diner before they closed for the evening. But we hadn’t done that in years. Not since Clara was born.
“Are Sven and Lana coming over?” I shouted toward Brooklyn, who was currently doing her makeup in the bathroom.
She had done Friendsgiving with her best friend since her parents had moved to Florida, and I didn’t want to ruin her tradition, so I figured we could combine it.
“The more, the merrier,” my dad had said, and I couldn’t have agreed more.
“They can’t make it. There were more people without family this year, so Lana is hosting at her place. I didn’t want to invite twelve people over to your dad’s.”
Okay, so twelve strangers might have been about ten too many.
“Sounds good. Lana and Sven know they’re always welcome, right?” I asked again because I didn’t want Brooklyn to feel like she had to give up anything in order to be with me.
She stepped out of the bathroom, her face lined in different shades and stripes, and I fought the urge to ask what the heck she was doing to herself.
“They know. And I know. Thank you for including them.”
“What’s happening there?” I made a circle in the air toward her face.
Okay, so apparently, I couldn’t help myself.
“It’s called contouring and highlighting. Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.”
Clara ran into the room and started bouncing on the bed. “Miss Brooklyn, I want contouring and highlighting too!”
Brooklyn’s eyes met mine and held. “I think we could do that.”
She gave me a look that warned me not to say no even though my stomach was twisting.
I hated makeup.
“I’ll be downstairs,” I grumped.
“No. Stay. Come in here,” Brooklyn demanded.
I had no idea why she wanted to torture me this way. Forcing me to watch my daughter get a face full of makeup that would make her look far older than she really was wasn’t my idea of a good time.
Brooklyn waited for me to join them in the bathroom before giving me a kiss on my cheek. “You’re being such a good sport,” she said before I rolled my eyes and grumbled under my breath.
“I’m going to blend my makeup really quick, and then we’ll do yours, okay?” Brooklyn asked my daughter, who was watching her with laser-focused attention.
And since I had zero clue what any of that meant, I did as well. Brooklyn grabbed some weird egg-shaped thing and started pressing it all over her face, and before I knew it, the harsh stripes disappeared, and her face looked normal again.
“Hop up here.” Brooklyn patted the countertop, and Clara climbed up.
I watched as she drew much lighter lines on Clara’s face before using the same egg-shaped thing to do the wholeblendthing, and the lines disappeared, just like they had on Brooklyn’s skin. I noticed the difference on my daughter instantly though. Suddenly, her chubby cheeks looked more defined, and there was a color on them that typically didn’t exist. Brooklyn added some pale lip gloss, and, voilà, my daughter had turned into a teenager in less than ten minutes.
Clara turned to face her reflection and made a sound I’d never heard before. “I look so pretty.”
“You do. With and without makeup. Just like your mom,” Brooklyn said with a smile.