"Another hidden talent," said Luke. The tinsel was really well placed, okay?
There was another moment of awkwardly observing Uncle B and Taisce, in which they embraced and he was just kind of there feeling weird and considering breaking into song to make it stop. (This was not a normal chain of thought.)
Then Luke felt even weirder for caring, because he did like Taisce. She was cool enough to get his uncle Jameson, and seemed to generally think he was as awesome as Luke did. Minus most of the sarcasm. It was just hard to be happy about people getting closer, sometimes. It opened the door to things going wrong, the kinds of things a kid nephew couldn't fix or actually do anything about. She'd been really good about this birthday stuff, though. That was points.
But whatever, right? This was fun. His uncle was a grown man and stuff. He could do whatever he wanted. So what?
Happy times. Good.
That was the point.
"You want the cookie," Luke agreed, when prompted. "Taisce made it."
He then felt an odd surge of pride at his own niceness. Maybe Rae was right -- he was totally a good kid. Or maybe it was a symbol, part of beginning to accept Taisce into their little circle. Maybe. Then again, Luke was prone to acting on a whim. Five seconds later, he had no idea why he didn't take the credit for himself.