Page 31

Saturday morning Kia and Sullivan stood on the sidelines of the She-Pack game.

Kia took a selfie. In a few minutes, Georgie would start to deflate in the humidity, but for now, the mist caught in her hair, turning the tips white like a dandelion.

She was going to use the selfie as an excuse to put her arm around Sullivan and take another picture, but Sullivan looked exhausted.

She hadn’t come home until three. Kia had been simmering with curiosity verging on jealousy at the thought that Sullivan might be with someone.

Maybe Sullivan needed to blow off steam with a discreet friend with benefits.

But when Sullivan came home, Kia had wandered downstairs in her thin, low-cut striped nightgown, pretending to be half asleep and surprised to see Sullivan.

Sullivan had explained that she’d had to do extra prep to make time for the She-Pack game in the morning.

Then she’d invited Kia, and only on her way up the stairs had Sullivan added, It’ll be good stuff for your socials .

Now Kia held out her coffee with marshmallow.

“Want some?”

Sullivan took it gratefully. She put her lips on Kia’s travel mug. She smiled over the rim. Kia felt like she was going to swoon.

“I will never admit that coffee is good,” Sullivan said.

“But you know it is.”

Sullivan stared at the field while the players, unexplainably, bunched together and lifted a teammate over their heads so the player could throw the ball.

“Everything you do is good.”

Kia wasn’t sure she’d heard Sullivan right. Could a person’s desire for their crush to like them cause auditory hallucinations?

Sullivan glanced at her. “I don’t mind that you’re here.

Minus the lawsuit and all that. It’s nice to have company.

” Her gesture took in the damp grass and cool, gray sky.

“The Tennis Skort was fun. Maybe we should cook together again. People are always asking me to do fundraisers. I don’t want to always tap Opal for that stuff. ”

“I’d love that.” Kia’s heart glowed, and for a few minutes, passing the coffee back and forth with Sullivan and watching the most inexplicable game known to humankind, Kia felt perfectly happy.

After the game, which the She-Pack lost for reasons Sullivan tried to explain but Kia did not understand, they went to the Tennis Skort. The team piled into the bar, and soon the whole bar was chanting a call-and-response.

Opal started them off. “If I were the marrying kind, and thank the Lord I’m not, sir, the kind of rugger I would be would be a rugby…”

“Flanker, sir!” one player called out.

The team answered, “Flanker, sir, why is that, sir?”

“’Cause I’d get off quick,” the player sang out.

The team answered, “And you’d get off quick, we’d all get off quick together. It’ll be all right in the middle of the night if we all get off quick together.”

Opal conducted them as if they were an orchestra.

“If I were the marrying kind, and thank the Lord I’m not, sir, the kind of rugger I would be would be a rugby…” She pointed to Sullivan, who blurted out, “Wing, sir.”

The team answered, “Wing, sir, why is that, sir?”

Sullivan said, “I’d spread it wide.” And immediately blushed.

The team answered, “And you’d spread it wide, we’d all spread it wide together. It’ll be all right in the middle of the night if we all spread it wide together.”

Kia and the rest of the bar patrons were bent over in stitches.

Sullivan finished her verse and shrugged.

“When in Rome…” she said.

“Do I get a verse?”

“Absolutely. You could be a fan from far away.”

“And I’d…?”

“Come for hours or eat out. There’re options.”

Sullivan shot her a teasing grin, and a realization slammed Kia like a rugger.

I love her. She’d thought those words on the graduation stage, but that had just been a metaphor for the overflowing excitement she’d felt.

The words I love you felt solid now, a statement, not a question.

But she couldn’t be in love… with the way Sullivan grinned, the way she talked to her cooking, the way she had been kind to Kia every day of their marriage when she could have made Kia’s life miserable.

Love would make everything so, so, so much harder.

Am I really in love? She stared at Sullivan.

Sullivan, missing Kia’s existential crisis, looked over her shoulder to see what Kia might be looking at. Nina had just walked in the door, and Sullivan waved. Nina hurried over. She didn’t look enthusiastic about the song.

“Slight complication.” Nina’s expression said she was bringing more than a slight complication.

“To our case.” Sullivan didn’t pose it as a question.

“This can work to our advantage,” Nina said, “but I still don’t like it.”

They waited.

“So I was doing some research,” Nina said.

“Follow the money. There’s a company called Perfect Foods Distribution.

I found out that a majority shareholder gave a large amount of money to a PAC.

” Nina must have read Kia’s confusion. “That’s an independent-expenditure-only political committee,” she added, clearing up nothing.

The part of Kia that wasn’t floating away on a tide of renewed panic got stuck on why independent-expenditure-only political committee spelled PAC not IEOPC.

But the point was, PACs were set up to gather money for political candidates and causes.

This PAC was set up to give money to Judge Harper for his next campaign.

And the majority shareholder was Harper’s daughter-in-law.

“That’s not so weird, is it?” Sullivan asked. “Families give politicians money.”

“It’s not, except Perfect Foods Distribution is Mega Eats’ primary supplier.

Judge Harper’s daughter-in-law practically owns Mega Eats’ biggest business partner, and that big business partner gave a shit-ton of money to Harper.

If Harper pisses off Mega Eats, he pisses off their business partner and his daughter-in-law.

I know family dysfunction, and I know money. ”

“Harper is in Mega Eats’ pocket?” Kia didn’t have to ask.

“Big facts,” Nina agreed. “Perfect world: Harper would recuse himself without our even asking. He hasn’t.

So I’m going to use this to destroy Harper with the Judicial Fitness Committee.

His career is over, it’s just that I don’t know if I can end him before your case.

So standard procedure would be to ask for another judge. ”

Kia didn’t like the rawness in Nina’s voice. She might be all flash and sass, but she cared about Sullivan. Kia could see it in her eyes. And she was worried.

“Did we get a good judge?” Sullivan asked.

“That’s the complication,” Nina said. “I asked for a new judge, and the court denied the request. They say the connection between Perfect Foods and Mega Eats is too tangential.”

“What do we do?” Sullivan’s eyes were wide.

“Don’t worry.”

“Don’t worry?” Sullivan’s voice soared with the same panic Kia felt.

“I’m going to keep working on getting a new judge. And you and Kia are going to do more of the same. I want to see you in love . We might do bus ads?”

“Bus ads?” Sullivan looked perplexed.

“To advertise Kia’s channel, but you just happen to be in the picture, kissing or something.”

“I’m kissing Kia on a bus ad so Mega Eats doesn’t win a lawsuit?”

“You’re right. Not worth the cost. Just get all up in her—” Nina took a sip of Sullivan’s drink. “All up in her socials.”

To make the moment a little more surreal, Opal had started leading the ruggers in chanting, “What’s long and firm and full of sperm? Dick da dick dick.”

“Why is a women’s rugby team singing about dick?” Nina asked. “Aren’t half of them gay?”

“It’s a rugby thing,” Sullivan said.

Opal waved her arms in front of her muddy choir.

“I don’t understand her,” Nina said absently.

“But you love her,” Sullivan said.

“Yeah.” A sweet look crossed Nina’s face, quickly replaced by her sharp, professional smile. “And you love Kia. Got it?”

With Nina’s warning fresh in their minds, Sullivan and Kia planned their next date.

Kia was working a fair, but that was a perfect opportunity to promote Kia Gourmazing and their love story.

Sullivan would “surprise” Kia at work. Kia would feed her, and then they’d explore the fair.

Kia always hired local chefs to help in her food truck, so it’d be easy for her to get away.

Around nine p.m. on date night, Sullivan was walking across the grass parking area toward the county fair.

It was a waste to crush a grass field to make a temporary parking lot.

She’d made that point when her grandfather had brought her to the fair as a teenager.

In his slow, thoughtful way, he’d said, That’s true .

Then he’d pointed to the roller coaster bedazzling the dark horizon.

But that doesn’t make it any less beautiful.

It could have been the same roller coaster swirling across the horizon tonight, the moon hanging high above it like a creamy dinner mint.

Everything was complicated. Beautiful things hurt the world and were still beautiful.

The thrill of seeing Kia in her element cooking in the Diva kept pushing panic about Judge Harper’s conflict of interest to the back of Sullivan’s mind.

Was this what it was like to be in the right relationship?

Even the hard times glittered when you were with your person?

Of course, their relationship was a tangled mess of history, feelings, and impending doom.

It was just hard to remember that with carnival music twinkling from invisible speakers. Inside the gates, people meandered between stalls, their faces hidden behind clouds of cotton candy. No one’s sticky child was screaming yet.