“There’s like a hundred things here, I’m allowed more than one thing.”

“You’re not even blond! You can’t pull off peach!”

Ainsley looked affronted. “Um, excuse you, I’ll have you know I rock peach. And your lips are perfect bare. Mine need all the help they can get.”

“You can borrow it whenever you want.”

“No, you get cold sores. If I hold onto it, you can borrow it if you use an applicator, how about that?”

“Or I could use an applicator all the time, and you can borrow it.”

“I don’t trust you. You’d get lazy and rub your herpes all over it to claim it.”

I threw my hands up and looked at Brooke for support. “Wow. Wow. Are you hearing this slander?”

Brooke shared an amused look with me, and all the fierceness flooded out of me. She sat up straighter and laid her palms out. “Okay, chill, this doesn’t need to end in blood. How about rock paper scissors?”

Ainsley looked at me.

I looked at her.

She shrugged.

Damn it, she knew I was going to crack. She knew it, and had zero shame in taking advantage of that fact, and only for her, only for her. Winning, knowing Ainsley wanted it so badly, would feel sour now. “Joint custody?” I offered. Good-bye, beautiful lipstick.

“Oh, Darc,” Brooke protested. She knew as well as I did if it disappeared into Ainsley’s room I’d probably never see it again. But I had to set terms regardless, otherwise I looked like I was easy to walk all over. Which I was, when it came to Ainsley, but that wasn’t the point.

Ainsley held up a hand to shush her. “I have full custody. You get unlimited visitation rights.”

“And if you go away for the weekend? Or if I need it on a Dad weekend?” While Ainsley did sometimes join me in visiting Dad every other weekend, I was the only one of us bound by the family court to see him so regularly. Once Ainsley turned eighteen, it became totally her call when to go to Dad’s, and as a college student, packing up a suitcase and traipsing across town twice a month was usually too much of a hassle for Ains.

She hesitated. “Case-by-case basis. If one of us has a special event that weekend, it goes to that sister.”

We turned to Brooke as one. She tented her fingers and looked between us, frowning. I was glad to see her taking the role of adjudicator seriously. After a couple of seconds pondering, she spoke. “I guess I’ll allow it, on the condition that Darcy gets to pick two more things, now, and they’re automatically hers. Deal?”

“Deal,” I said.

“Don’t hold back, Darc,” Brooke warned.

I stuck my hands in my lap. “I won’t.”