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When I handed one to her, she smiled, cracked it open, and took a long drink. Drops of water dribbled down her chin, and she swallowed and laughed, so I swiped them away with my fingers, looking at the wet spot on her T-shirt where they’d dripped.

“That was fun,” she said.

“Yeah. I love it. I’ve been so busy with work, I haven’t had a lot of time to get out here, but this is my happy place.”

She nodded toward Athena, taking another sip. “She’s a spitfire, huh?”

“She is. Takes after her auntie.” I winked. “C’mon. You hungry?”

“Yeah. Starvin’. What’s for lunch?”

The only time I could find to take Devo out was on this impromptu lunch date. It wasn’t ideal, but any time I could spend with her made me feel happy, and she seemed to be having a good time.

“Mama made ham sandwiches, but we have PB&J if you don’t eat meat.”

“Why wouldn’t I eat meat? Ham and cheese is my fave. Is it American cheese, or are you one of those fancy cheddar cheese people?” She bumped her shoulder against my arm.

Smiling big, I said, “Girl, American cheese every day of the week and twice on Sundays.”

“Score!” She giggled. “When we were really broke, we’d eat cheese and generic white bread sandwiches every day for lunch and dinner, unless my mom had time to make fry bread. Then, we’d eat cheese and fry bread tacos ’cause we couldn’t afford meat. We had a lot of those days after we moved here. Then my dad died, and things got even harder financially. My mom worked more jobs than I can remember to try to pay the bills.”

“Ooo, I love fry bread with a little cinnamon and honey. So good. You ever had mutton?” Devo made a face, and I breathed a laugh. “When things got tight around here, that’s what we had to look forward to for dinner every night. Used to cry myself to sleep ’cause my daddy slaughtered my favorite sheep for us to eat. Pistachio was his name. God, I still miss that stupid animal.”

Devo took hold of my hand as we headed back toward the others. I’d never brought a date home before—I couldn’t even have imagined doing it five years ago—so having her here felt kind of foreign, but it also felt nice. I loved my family, and Devo was the kind of woman I would’ve been proud to show off to my daddy, had things been different.

If I was different. If he had been. If the world was different.

My brother’s eyes flicked to our joined hands. He looked at Mama quickly, but she was still busy opening a bag of sour cream and onion potato chips and setting paper towels out for us on the picnic blanket Bax had set down.

We sat, and Athena started in on her investigation after she noticed Devo holding my hand, but I let go before Mama noticed. “How’d you and Aunt Abey meet?”

“Oh, well, how did we meet?” Devo asked me with a hint of a smile on her lips.

I smiled back. I didn’t think anyone on the planet could keep a straight face when her lips lifted and her face lit up like that. She looked beautiful out here in my favorite place. “At Ace’s House.”

“Oh, right,” she said. “That’s where I work. When my boss was renovatin’ the place, I heard about it, and I went there to beg for a job.”

“It’s next door to the station, right?” Bax asked. “I don’t get to town much.”

Devo nodded. “Yeah.”

Mama handed me two ham sandwiches, and I passed one to Devo and bent my knees so I could angle my body in her direction as she talked.

She took the sandwich and wrapped her napkin around it like a holder, then took a huge bite. “Thank you for this,” she said with a full mouth.

“You’re welcome,” Mama said, like she was surprised at being thanked, though I knew I’d thanked her more than once for making lunch. But what could it hurt to tell her again?

“Thanks, Mama.”

She smirked at me and shrugged a little.

“Thanks, Granny,” Athena said.

“Yeah, Mama. What would we do without ya?” Bax flashed her his most ass-kissing grin. He ate half his sandwich in one bite, then mumbled, “I’ll take that PB&J unless somebody else wants it.”

She didn’t even wait for us to answer. “Here you go, son,” she said, handing it to him and then patting his hand like he was seven instead of thirty-seven. What a suck-up.

He took it from her with a grin, shoved the rest of his ham sammy in his mouth, then unwrapped the PB&J from its plastic covering and didn’t even wait till he finished chewing before he ate half of that.