“It’s not funny, man. That was thirty-three hours of pure hell. Trinity said things I haven’t even heard a drunken sailor say. By the time she agreed to the drugs, it was too late. And then when Petra was finally here, Trinity looked at me and told me that we weren’t having another one.”
“And yet, here you are.” Baily patted her belly. “She’s really forgotten what labor was like?”
“I don’t think it’s that. She wants a princess—a sweet little girl who wants to wear dresses and play make-up. Not toss mud pies and play alligator wrangler with Victor and Max. I keep reminding her that we could also be having a boy and in true Trinity fashion, she looks at me like I stabbed her in the belly.” Keaton sucked in a breath and sighed. “I love my wife. She’s the sweetest, kindest, most generous woman in the world. Once this kid is here, she’s not gonna care if it’s a boy, a girl, or an alien. She certainly won’t give a…” he glanced at Kendra, “… it won’t matter what the kid is into as long as he or she is happy and healthy. This weird thing during pregnancy is Trinity’s only flaw and it lasts nine freaking months.”
Buddy leaned against the far wall and tried to push the conversation into white noise. These people were more than his friends. They’d become family when he had no blood left.
But they were pumping out kids faster than the no-see-ums attacked his ankles at dusk.
“That’s true, and being a tomboy doesn’t mean Petra won’t be interested in girly things as she gets older,” Baily said. “Look at Audra. When Dawson takes her out on a romantic date night, she cleans up nice.”
“Petra is three and a half going on criminal—like her Aunt Audra,” Keaton said, taking a hush puppy like a grown-up closing on a deal. “She started a new class and the first thing she did was smuggle in a baby snake.”
“I might’ve done that once.” Baily chuckled. “On a dare by Audra.”
“Petra is a born leader and an independent thinker.” Fletcher shifted another box.
“She’s a born something,” Keaton said, but his prideful tone told its own story. “She’s certainly giving us a run for our money.”
It was in these moments that Buddy remembered one of the biggest reasons he’d walked away from meaningful relationships. Being a family man wasn’t anything that was going to happen to him. He’d given up that concept at… Jesus. Fallon’s age. Damn, that hit a little too hard in the chest.
“Sorry to change the subject,” Buddy said. “But any word on the girl?”
“Still sedated.” Keaton shifted his stance, no longer relaxed. “Vitals are steady. Lab’s backed up—but Dawson’s asked for a rush. We’ll see if he gets it. No ID. No one’s called looking.”
That was a sentence Buddy had heard too many times, in too many hallways that smelled like disinfectant and death. It didn’t land softer here.
“Alright,” Fletcher said after a beat, like he’d reached the end of a list and hadn’t found what he wanted on it. “We’ll feed people and string lights in the meantime.”
“Pie solves more fights than it starts,” Baily said.
Keaton lifted his hat and adjusted it. “Text me when your tech is set. Fallon’s my best officer. I need to know the vehicle has nothing to do with the text, and I have nothing to worry about.”
“You got it,” Buddy said.
Keaton left. The kitchen hummed louder, like the room had been holding its breath.
Fletcher clapped Buddy on the shoulder. “Dinner’s on the house. I’ll let the staff know.” He looked at Fallon. “And you need to take more than a ten-minute break, for once in your life.”
“You’re so freaking bossy,” Fallon said.
Kendra announced, “cookie,” again for emphasis and tried to drink from Fletcher’s tea when no one was looking. Baily caught her mid-slurp and redirected to the sippy cup with the ease of a woman who’d intercepted a thousand toddler crimes.
They finished three more boxes in the time it took the fan to click twenty times. Buddy liked the work—lift, stack, check the label, move to the next thing. The Tessa Project banners were folded in neat piles, white letters stenciled clean: HOPE STARTS HERE. Hope was an odd word for a man who’d spent a career measuring how much of it people had left. He didn’t hate it today.
“I’m going to stretch my legs.” Fallon pushed through the back door and the heat poured over him like a second shirt.
Buddy followed her out to the dock, knowing something triggered a response about Tessa. Boards gave slightly under his boots but held. The water beyond the pilings threw sunlight back in hard, white sheets. The channel markers were weathered from years of sun and rain, the numbers long faded. Ropes creaked. Someone out on the bay gunned a motor and then thought better of it—a pelican watched from a post like a man who’d seen every bad decision and expected another.
Fallon stopped halfway down the dock where the stretch between the Crab Shack and the marina opened up. From here, a person could see all the places a girl could walk off and disappear.
She stood and stared down the river. She didn’t move. She didn’t touch the rail. She just looked. “She took my shift. She covered for me so I could meet my boyfriend. My parents hated him, and for good reason. It was so stupid, because they were gonna find out anyway. Someone would’ve told them I wasn’t working.” Her voice didn’t hitch. It narrowed. “I still come stand here anytime I’m at the Crab Shack during planning. Or at the marina. It feels wrong not to. Even when the Crab Shack was a run-down piece of crap or had closed down because of the fire and the murder and the fundraiser was at the community center, I still came.”
Buddy set his hands on the railing because he needed to put them somewhere. “You built a thing that fills the space she left with people and noise and light. That isn’t nothing.”
She blew out a breath and stared out at the Glades as if they had the answers she so desperately needed. “I saw the twitch of your eye and your shoulders shift when Keaton said Blue Heron. That’s twice in two days.”
“Three,” Buddy said before he could stop himself. His voice stayed easy. He didn’t let the word snag. “Text yesterday. Blue on her wrist at the hospital. Now this.”
