His dad ignored their conversation, his head buried in the fridge. “We also have ham! You still like meat, right?”
“Yeah, I do, Dad, but I don’t need anything. We grabbed coffee when we left the airport.”
Noel elbowed him. “That was an hour and a half ago. I’m starving.”
Chris pointed his finger at his only son. “Coffee isn’t sustenance, it’s a stimulant. A man cannot live on Starbucks alone.”
“Chris, what’s going on?” a woman called from down the hallway.
Victoria Winters appeared at the edge of the kitchen in her furry pink bathrobe and messy blond hair, staring at them. Her hazel eyes widened behind her dark-framed glasses when her gaze landed on her son.
“Look who wanted to surprise us!” His father said.
With a squeal, she launched herself at Nick and he caught her with a grunt of amusement. Nick embraced his emotional mother as she bawled into his shirtfront.
“Gee, Mom, I thought you’d be glad to have me home.”
She smacked his back. “Of course I am. These are happy tears.”
His mom pulled away and squeezed his face between her hands. “You look gaunt. You haven’t been eating enough.”
The statement didn’t require a response.
His dad crossed his arms over his chest, throwing him under the bus. “He was just telling me how coffee was a balanced breakfast.”
“We will just see about that!” His mom kissed his dad as she passed him in the kitchen and his gaze followed her. After thirty years together, the love between his parents never dimmed. Nick wanted what his parents had: a relationship based on love, respect, and mutual life goals.
His mom grabbed a loaf of bread from the cupboard and Nick shook his head. “Really, Mom, you don’t need to go to the trouble.”
She waved away his protests as she went to the fridge and started pulling items out, lining them up across the counter.
“Noel, get in here. I have a bone to pick with you, young lady,” his mother warned.
Noel laughed, coming up along beside her. “It wasn’t my fault! He swore me to secrecy.”
“You aren’t supposed to keep secrets from me!” his mother responded, playfully smacking her with an oven mitt. “I don’t care who is doing the asking. I trump my son every time!”
Noel hugged Nick’s mother from behind and kissed her cheek. “Wasn’t it a good surprise, though?”
His mother patted Noel’s arms. “Yes, baby, it was. Thank you for picking him up.”
“My pleasure.”
“Now, get to cracking those eggs,” his mother ordered. “You can do with a bit of fattening up too. I know that hospital runs you ragged, helping all those pregnant moms.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
It shouldn’t surprise him that his mother treated Noel as if she were her own. Noel’s mother, Heather, and his mom had been best friends all their lives. More like sisters.
Although they’d grown up together, he wouldn’t exactly say that he held sisterly feelings for his best friend. Even when Noel teased him mercilessly, he never needed a break from her the way he did his siblings. In fact, not talking to Noel would drive him crazy. She’d been there for all of his ups and downs and vice versa.
Victoria wiped her hands on her robe. “I better go get my phone and call your sisters. They’ll be so glad to have you home.”
Nick pulled his own phone from his pants pocket. “You do that. I’m going to text Amber.”
His mother and Noel made identical faces and he groaned. “Mom! Not you too!”
A sheepish grin split his mother’s face. “I’m sorry, honey. I know you’ve been off and on since you were eighteen, but I don’t think she is right for you. She’s very…”
Noel opened her mouth, but Nick pointed his finger at her. “You hush it.”
“You ought to watch the way you speak to the woman cooking your breakfast.” Noel cracked an egg against the side of the counter without breaking eye contact and dropped the contents into a large mixing bowl. “Never know if she’ll add a little something extra.”
“Mom, you wouldn’t let her hurt me, would ya?”
His mom snapped her fingers, the cell phone cradled in her other hand against her ear. “Self-centered. That’s the word I’m looking for.”
“Mom, she is threatening your only son.”
His mom tilted the phone away from her mouth to respond. “Nick, I love you, but you better be nice to her. I’m not policing her cooking. Yes, good morning, sweetheart.” She turned her back on them to talk to one of his sisters, missing the childish face Noel made at him. “You will never guess who is home. Nick!”