He kissed my cheek, rough and sudden. “Damn right you are.”
The market was winding down. People were packing up, heading home, making plans for the rest of the weekend. The sun was lower now, the light thick and gold, painting everything in the kind of glow that made even the most ordinary things seem magical.
I thought about the ritual again. About what it would mean, officially, to be one of them. “I don’t need a ceremony,” I said, softly.
Knox squeezed me. “Didn’t think you did.”
“But if you ever want to throw me over your shoulder and parade me around the farm, I wouldn’t object.”
His laughter was the best sound in the world.
“I’ll do that,” he said. “Maybe tomorrow.”
“Maybe every day,” I countered.
He smiled, eyes full of something I didn’t have a name for. “Deal.”
And just like that, I was home.
The market had reached that magic hour when the sun hit the tables just right, turning jars of jelly into stained glass and all the kids sticky and wild with sugar.
I was so relaxed I’d practically melted into the curve of Knox’s chest, his hand heavy on my thigh, when the first ripple of unease swept the clearing.
I felt it before I saw it—a tightening, a hush, the sensation of one collective inhale, like everyone was waiting for a punch-line that never arrived.
At first, I didn’t recognize the man. I thought it was just some lost traveler, one of those chain-smoking retirees who haunted the tourist traps up by the river.
He wore a suit that could have been tailored, once—now it was crumpled, the tie slack, shirt untucked, shoes covered in enough dust to grow a new crop. His hair stuck out in wild cowlicks, and even from a distance you could see the dark crescent moons under his eyes.
He cut a swath straight through the vendor stalls, knocking over a display of rhubarb and sending a fistful of strawberries rolling into the grass. His gait was urgent, a fast stagger, but every step radiated instability. The closer he got, the more I realized what I was seeing.
James Bridger, father of the year. Living proof that blood could congeal into poison. He stopped just short of the picnicbenches and scanned the crowd, wild-eyed and twitching. His gaze landed on me with a force that almost knocked the air out of my lungs.
There was a second—a single, heart-stopping beat—when I wanted to run. Instead, I locked my jaw, squared my shoulders, and tried to channel Knox’s favorite emotion—stubborn defiance.
James took a drunken, half-lunging step toward us, and that’s when the shouting started. “You!” he bellowed, voice slurred but loud enough to reach the furthest edge of the market. “You little fucking traitor! You’re proud of yourself, aren’t you? Parade yourself around town—destroy everything your family built—” The words came out as a bark, torn and frayed at the ends. “You ruined me!”
Every conversation in the clearing stopped dead. The only sound was a toddler somewhere, shrieking with glee as she made off with an unauthorized scone.
James drew himself up, clutching the lapels of his jacket like it was the only thing holding his organs in place. He glared at Knox, then back at me, face mottled with rage and something sadder, darker, maybe even fear.
“Thought you could win? Is that it?” he spat. “Thought you could run off, hide behind this—this garbage family—like I wouldn’t find you?”
Knox’s hand tightened at my waist, every finger a separate, calibrated vise. He didn’t stand, but I could feel the tension rolling through him, kinetic, ready to snap.
James’s voice cracked. “You humiliated me. You—” He stopped, swallowing, as if the taste of the next words might kill him. “You ruined the Bridger name. You cost me my goddamn job. Thirty years at that bank, and now it’s gone. Gone because you dragged the feds in, and then the whole fucking world finds out—”
He wavered, and for a moment I thought he might collapse. Instead, he turned on the crowd, flinging out his arms like a carnival preacher.
“You all know, don’t you? You know what he did? My own son! Throws me to the wolves, then stands here, gloating—” He stopped, out of breath, chest heaving. “And now Francine—she’s gone, too. Gone, thanks to this little worm. She took the car. She took the money. Left me for dead, and that’s all on you, Newton. All on you.”
No one moved. Not even the wind. The entire market had folded itself around this display, every vendor and customer a rapt, silent witness to the world’s least dignified Shakespearean meltdown.
I wanted to disappear. I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me whole, or at least create a small, tasteful sinkhole under my father’s feet. Failing that, I just wanted to survive the next ten seconds without letting him see me flinch.
James pointed at me, finger trembling, the tip so white I wondered if he was cutting off his own circulation. “You are nothing. You’re less than nothing. You’re a—”
Knox stood.
