Wildflower flirts with him for exactly three seconds before looking at me and winking.
Derby looks deeply uncomfortable.
I enjoy that more than I should.
August sits between two other kids, telling Derby across the table about the sandbox jail, and Princess Chomp’s legal record.
For the first time since the road out of Kentucky, something in me loosens.
Not happiness exactly. Something rougher.
After supper, the campground turns golden and strange. String lights blink on over the fire circle and along the front of the garage. Motorcycles line the edge of the yard like patient beasts. Someone starts music from a speaker, old rock first, then twangy country with enough grit to make the women sing too loud on purpose. Kids are herded toward the bunkhouse after sticky hands, quick baths, and a round of complaints that earns three of them dish duty for whining.
August begs for Derby to see the dinosaur court before bed.
Derby goes.
Of course he goes.
He kneels in the dirt near the sandbox, listens to Princess Chomp’s appeal, and somehow ends up arguing that a goat figurine can’t be convicted without proper evidence. August beams like Derby has saved democracy.
I stand near the fire, arms wrapped around myself, watching.
Hot Mama stands beside me.
“He’s got the boy.”
I don’t pretend not to know she means Derby.
“Yes.”
“He got you?”
The question slides under my skin.
“I don’t know.”
“Liar.”
I look at her.
She smiles toward the fire. “You know. You’re just scared of saying it because saying it means you got something else to lose.”
I want to tell her she doesn’t know me well enough. But she knew my mother. She knows something.
Maybe enough.
When August finally goes to the bunkhouse, he hugs Derby first.
Not me.
Derby catches my eye over August’s head, clearly realizing it at the same time I do. His expression says he is sorry.
I shake my head.
I’m not hurt.
Not in the way he fears.