Page 124 of Fluke
“Don’t do that to my chair.” She lifts a brow until he sets it back on all fours. “He’s working.”
“Doing what?”
Mom shrugs.
“Does anyone find it strange that none of us really knows what Foxx does?” Banks asks. “Is he in intelligence? Is he a spy? Is he really not our brother at all but a plant from an enemy?”
“That would explain a lot.” Maddox walks in and smacks me on the back. “What’s up?”
“Foxx likes his privacy,” Mom says. “We need to give it to him.”
“Oh,the irony,” I say, making my brothers laugh.
Maddox slides a box on the counter. “Here. This was on the porch.”
“Thanks, Mad.”
Banks hops up and slides the box to himself. “I believe that’s mine.”
Mom drops the spoon in her hand against the counter. “Banks Owen Carmichael, if you hacked my Amazon account again …” She yanks the box away from him and picks up a knife. “If this isn’t pods for the coffee maker, you’re in trouble, little boy.”
Banks backs away, frowning.
She rips the knife across the tap holding the box closed. Maddox and I look at each other, amused.
“Banks,” Mom says, glaring at him as she pulls out a box of individual packets of potato chips. “Who gave you my password?”
“No one,” he snaps back at her. “But I love how you thought you made it the one thing I’d never guess.”
“You obviously guessed it.”
“And I’m touched.”
Mom tries not to smile.
“What was it?” I ask.
Banks spins around. “My birthday. For the first ever—it was my birthday. It’s never mine and it’s never been Maddox’s.”
“True,” Maddox says. “I’ll vouch for him on that. It’ll give you a complex after a while.”
Mom shakes her head. Eventually, the frustration turns to a chuckle.
Banks gives her his best smile—the one that works on most people. “Can I have them, though? Since we already got them?”
“I’ll put them on your Christmas list.”
“I just want you to know that the youngest child usually takes care of their elderly parents,” Banks says, walking backward toward the door. “And that is me.”
He turns to leave.
“Good,” I shout. “I heard you have lots of experience with the elderly recently.”
“Fuck off, Jess.”
The door slams behind him. At the same time, Maddox gets up.
“I need to go,” he says. “Ashley will be home soon, and I promised to take her out to dinner tonight.”
