A Missed Opportunity

16

I press my hand to my chest with a frown, looking between them. "Gorgeous can be manly." I weakly argue. "It can!"

"Mommy's." Cameron grumbles under his breath.

My jaw drops at that. "Hey," I scold, lifting my hands to my hips.

Noah blows out a breath as he walks up to stand on the other side of the box. "That was harsh, Nut." He murmurs. Cameron crosses his arms stubbornly. I shake my head and look back into the box. "Come over here and help us look through this." Noah gently beckons. It's an order, but he makes it sound a lot like an invitation.

We still haven't discussed disciplining. He's found a gentle loophole, and I let him have it until I remember to sit down with him to talk more.

Luckily, Cameron mostly responds the best to gentleness. He freezes up and pulls back once he notices some sort of anger in an adult's voice—As a lot of other kids do. Noah has caught onto this, so more often than not, he's pretty quiet and smooth about his 'disciplining'. Not only does that help with getting Cameron to listen when we need him to, but it also helps him trust Noah a lot more.

As Cameron steps up to the box, he coughs. But not like a normal soft cough that would make me and Noah smile softly at each other as we discover the joys of parenthood. No—He coughs loudly, dramatically, and without doing that vampire move with the whole cover your mouth with your cape thing.

"Ew..." Noah murmurs with a scrunched nose. Cameron sniffles and makes a gross sound in response.

"That's gross, Cam. We cover our mouths when we cough." I grimace and shuffle away from him some. He frowns at both of us. I shake my head and reach into the box to find a new decoration. "Ooh, we could put up the leaves." I hold up a circled-up string of paper leaves.

"Those are ugly." They both inform me.

My nose scrunches at that. "First of all, creepy." I grumble. "Second, you leave my leaves alone. They're perfect." I huff as I lift them up out of the box. They stay silent, but I swear they make faces at each other when I turn my back. I don't have any proof, but I just have a feeling.

"Motorcycle Santa!"

I spin back around immediately and look in horror as the stupid thing is lifted out of the box like it's the holy grail. Noah looks curiously at it in his hand while Cameron looks over at me, beaming. I stare at the little doll of Santa Clause dressed in a black long sleeve and his red and white festive pants sitting on a red motorcycle. He even has his cool sunglasses. At first, I thought it was cute, so I picked it up and added it to our Christmas decorations.

I was so wrong.

"Why do we have Christmas stuff in the Thanksgiving box?" Noah mutters as he leans back a little and bends to check what's written on the side of the box, confirming that this is the Thanksgiving box. He shrugs it off and inspects the thing more.

I drop my leaves and rush back over. "Wait, don't press the—"

Noah smiles and presses the little button at the bottom of Santa's motorcycle. He smiles wider at the staticky sound of tires screeching across the road before Born to be Wild by Mars Bonfire begins to play while Santa bounces back and forth. The little headlights on his motorcycle flash and everything.

I shut my eyes and dip my chin to rub my temples while the stupid song goes on. Cameron bounces along with it, and Noah bobs his head from side to side with a grin. They let it go on and on until it finally ends with Santa's motorcycle revving.

"Oh," Noah happily inspects it more when it's done. "I think it'd look nice right here." He walks over to the coffee table and sets it down. I follow quickly behind him.