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She shook her head, and little pieces of her hair stuck to the side of her mouth. She hooked a finger beneath them and swiped them away. “I’d like to take you to do somethin’ fun. And Rye’s got me thinkin’ about my niece. I haven’t had a lot of time off work lately, but she’s been buggin’ me to go four-wheelin’. I mean, if you don’t mind her taggin’ along? Well, actually, it would be more like we were invitin’ ourselves since my four-wheeler’s out at my brother’s place, but it’s the property we all grew up on. Bax took it over when my dad passed. He’s been tryin’ to run it, but then Candy died. Anyway, it’s my favorite thing to do, four-wheelin’, so I thought you might like to come with me, and I’d love for you to meet Athena. She’s my favorite human.” She puffed her cheeks out with a breath, then released it. “That was a really long sentence, huh?”

“Yes.” But she’d just asked me out, and she’d forgiven me for being such a judgmental jerk. I couldn’t stop grinning.

“Yeah, it was a long sentence, or yeah, you’ll go with me?” Her pink lips pursed into a smirk. “The type of ridin’ we like to do can get pretty muddy.”

“Both.”

“Really? You don’t mind gettin’ dirty?”

“With you?” Didn’t she know? “Dirty’s all I wanna be.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

ABEY

“You better be on your best behavior, Mama. You hear me?”

Mama rolled her eyes as she closed her fridge, and the compressor started its telltale whine. It was the same old beast that had sat lonely in our garage out at the farm since I was fifteen years old, until Mama made Bax drag it to her trailer.

“I’m serious. This is serious. I really like this woman.” Under my breath, I mumbled, “The one time you wanna venture out into society in seven years, and it’s on my freakin’ date?”

“What kinda name is Devo anyway?”

“It’s short for Devona.”

I stopped her from packing the ham sandwiches she’d made into my little plastic cooler with my hand on her shoulder, and she turned to look at me. “Please, Mama? And would you mind packin’ a PB&J too? In case she doesn’t eat meat.”

“Fine.”

“Thank you.”

My brother had agreed to let Athena come with Devo and me out on the four-wheelers, but his permission came on the condition that he would come too. And of course he’d told Mama what we were doing, so she’d invited herself. Bax must really have been in the slop not to realize what a mess he’d made for me.

Bringing my churchy, homophobic mother on a date with two lesbians, my brother, and a preteen was just about the furthest thing from fun I could’ve conjured up. I was already trying to think of ways to shut her up in case she started talking about brimstone and hellfire or how Athena should abstain from sexual intercourse or even kissing a boy until she was thirty and married with three kids.

But here we were. And Devo was on her way over to pick us up. She had actually been excited when I told her Mama wanted to come with us. She said if there was a better way for her to get to know me, she’d love for me to tell her one.

I’d already met Devo’s mama when she’d been at the center one day, helping the latchkey kids after school in the craft room, although that was back when Devo had still been angry at me for arresting her the first time. But her mama was a beautiful woman, and it had been easy to see where all Devo’s spunk had come from, not to mention her shiny, gorgeous black hair and her lose-yourself-in-’em dark brown eyes.

I heard Devo’s truck as she turned onto the short gravel drive outside Mama’s trailer. Way to make an impression, Abey. Ask your date to pick you and your mom up at the trailer park. I rolled my eyes at myself, feeling my heart speed up and my cheeks turn an embarrassing shade of red.

“You gonna get the door for her or just stand there like an imbecile?”

I huffed an exasperated breath at Mama and then breathed in loudly through my nose, smoothing my hands down my tank and shorts. Devo hadn’t seen me in anything other than the deputy-brown puke color I had to wear for work since that one night—the night she’d blown my mind.

Mama turned away to finish packing the cooler. “You look fine.”

“Gee, thanks.” What a ringing endorsement.

I’d given up on the hope that the trailer didn’t smell like stale cigarettes, but I knew Devo wouldn’t judge me for my mama’s vices. I’d tried to cover it up with heather-scented air freshener, but that just made the stench smell like a flowery ashtray, which might’ve been worse.

When I finally opened the door, Devo gasped. “Oh! You look like America.”

I laughed. Couldn’t have stopped myself for anything. “What?”

Her eyes traveled down to my bare legs. “Blue jean shorts, a red tank top, and white high-tops?”

“Oh, well, I…” Looking down at myself, too, I realized I must’ve looked like a Fourth of July pinup girl, though my Converse tennies were beat up, dirt stained, and probably ten years old. Mama had even French braided my hair on both sides of my head like I was six, but it was better this way. Kept it out of my eyes while I was riding. “Thanks?”