Evan's laughter wasn't his normal laughter, but Leah didn't need that to tell her that it bothered him when his siblings made things rough. Rather than bring more attention to it, Leah took a different route and tried to come up with something to say to lighten the mood. “If nothing else, you can ask her to do one of the more unpleasant jobs that comes with taking care of a baby. A little bit of payback, you could call it.”
In spite of her doubts, the show of affection earned him a reluctant smile. “It's one of those believe-it-when-you-see-it things,” she explained. “Like your doubts about whether Ana will like you.” Leah nudged against him gently. “We've all been spoiling Mari with attention. It'll take all of us some adjusting when it comes to sharing our attention between the two of them. I think we'll manage at some point. It's the getting there part that's worrying me.”
“More like agreed to it.” Smirking, Leah reached out to trace his smile lines with her fingertips. “You and Mari both want the dog, so I'm doing this for the both of you. Besides, every kid should have a pet.” Her smile turned wry. “But you realize you could've had a dog long before this, right? Back when I was at Castle Clinton and told you about all the little puppies that were there.” He'd chosen a dog for George, but hadn't gotten one for himself. She wouldn't have been surprised if he'd forgotten that little moment, though. Her memory was strange when it came to remembering things like that. She shrugged when he asked what breed. “As long as it isn't monstrously huge like Dog, we can let her decide. Something that won't scare the baby – or me.” Rambunctious animals made her nervous when they were around Marigold; she could only imagine how much more nervous it would make her to have an animal like that around Ana.
“I could argue that we're still somewhat distant,” Leah pointed out with a light laugh. “All four of us live in different parts of the compound, so we don't see each other every day like we used to. I'm actually kind of glad about that.” She paused to laugh again. “Not that I don't love them, but being crammed together for so long makes me appreciate the time apart.” Although, as she'd told Kori not too long ago, it was hard to keep up with what everyone was doing. Family activity nights had gotten sparse of late, but that had a lot to do with Leah being exhausted most nights.
Leah shrugged and looked away, refocusing on what she was doing. “Nothing's wrong. It was another one of those weirdly bad jokes on my part. You should be used to those by now.” With another smile, she held up a small stuffed doll. “What do you think of the doll I made? I used feathers for the hair.” She smoothed her hand over the doll's hair. “It doesn't look too troll doll-ish, does it? Maybe I should stick with sock puppets from now on...”
The strength of his agreement made her grin. More and more each day, she was beginning to believe what he'd promised her in the beginning; that this wouldn't be a repeat of her nightmare. Evan wouldn't let anyone take this away from them. “Alone time is always a plus. But I'm drawing the line if you ever ask me to wear a dress again. Pretty sure that's what got us here in the first place.” She poked her tongue out at him.
With a mischievous smirk, Leah reached for the stencils while giving him a sideways glance. “I thought one of your rules was that I wasn't allowed to use paint...”