Haunted

Nightminds - UNEDITED

Disclaimer: This chapter has not been edited from the original as posted on JBFF. There will be mistakes, typos, continuity problems and other issues.

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"Welcome Home," Maddox said, giving Brent a big kiss. They were standing in the airport surrounded by a screaming crowd. Both Brent and Maddox had earplugs in so the noise wasn't as horrible as it could be but it was still loud.

"Love you," Brent said, kissing him back. "Let's get out of here."

"Hope you don't mind, I'm not alone," Maddox said when they walked outside.

"Dada!" Hannah cheered when Brent got in the car.

"How are my girls?" Brent asked, smiling from ear to ear. "Dada missed you so much."

"Da!" Chloe clapped her hands. "Kiss?"

"Of course," Brent stretched so he could kiss Chloe. He gave Hannah a kiss while he was back there. "Ooh, Hannah, look at your nails!"

"Kylie did them," Hannah said, holding her hands out for him to see. "Them needs fixing though, can you do it?"

"Uh," Brent glanced at Maddox. "Do we even own nail polish?"

"Nope," Maddox so far had gotten away with taking Hannah to see one of the girls whenever she needed her nails done but they were starting to catch on. "Why don't we invite Scarlett over?"

"I want Dada to do it," Hannah said.

"I can do it," Brent insisted. "How hard can it be?" he asked Maddox.

They found out exactly how hard it was a few hours later when Maddox had to make a panicked phone call to Scarlett, the only one of his sisters who might not judge him for having such a hard time with something that looked so easy.

"Is Hannah crying?" Scarlett asked.

"Yeah, we tried to paint her nails," Maddox admitted. "And, uh, it's not really working. Do you think you can tell us what to do?"

"What do you mean it's not working?" Scarlett demanded. "You put the paint on the nails, Dax."

"Yeah, well, her nails are really tiny," Maddox said. "So Brent missed and it got on her finger and we can't get it off."

"Really?" Scarlett asked. "Did you put enough polish remover on it?"

"Polish remover," Maddox repeated. "What is that?"

"Oh em gee," Scarlett gasped. "Mom! Mom, Maddox didn't know there was nail polish remover!"

"Apparently we need nail polish remover," Maddox told Brent.

"Oh, that makes sense," Brent looked relieved. "Do we have that?"

"No?" Maddox gave him a look.

"Maybe it's called something else," Brent shrugged.

"Does it have any other names?" Maddox asked Scarlett.

"No, it's just for nails," Scarlett said. "Mom is going to bring me over. How did you get the other polish off her nails even?"

"We just kind of painted over it," Maddox said.

"Dax!" Scarlett giggled. "You're so bad at this."

"Yeah, we are," Maddox agreed. "Hannah, it's okay, Scarlett is going to come fix it."

"Thank goodness," Brent sighed. "I'm going to play with Chloe."

Brent and Maddox didn't escape nail polish lessons forever. For Hannah's birthday that year everyone bought her nail polish and nail art kits. Maddox learned fast after that but even better was watching how dedicated Brent was to learning all kinds of new designs and tricks. It made Maddox laugh every time he caught Brent watching a tutorial on YouTube or scrolling through design ideas online.