Grace, I thought. This was it, right here. Not the prayer, not the silence, but the noise that came after—the part where nobody pretended to be anything other than exactly who they were.
I squeezed Floyd’s hand. He squeezed back, easy as breathing. Yeah. This was home. And it was finally big enough for both of us.
The party moved outside, as it always did. Somebody—probably Ma—declared the air too nice to waste indoors, andwithin five minutes the kitchen was a ghost town and the backyard had turned into a full-scale encampment.
Pa had been working on the bonfire since dusk, laying out a mountain of orchard trimmings and scrap wood in the burn ring behind the barn. The flames shot up fast, licking at the evening sky, and the heat drove us all back in a widening ring. The whole yard smelled like apple blossoms and wood-smoke, with an undertone of charred sausage from the failed attempt to toast leftovers on a stick.
Floyd claimed a blanket near the fire, tugging me down with him, and when I sat he wedged himself between my legs with the ease of a man who had given up on pretending to need personal space. He leaned back into my chest, arms folded over my shins, and exhaled with a contentment that buzzed through me.
For a guy whose job was basically being the last line of defense against human stupidity, he’d gotten real soft, real quick.
The rest of the family fanned out in concentric circles. Harlow manned the perimeter, keeping a watchful eye on the younger kids as they played tag in the orchard. Knox nursed a beer and played poker with Dan and two of the cousins, his laugh low and lazy. At the center, Ma and the aunts swapped stories, their voices rising and falling in a cadence older than any of us.
Levi, predictably, had made a beeline for the guitar someone left propped against the back porch. He fumbled a little, but you could see the focus in his face.
Knox had been giving him lessons, and even though the kid’s fingers were still awkward, he picked out the chords to “House of the Rising Sun” with a determination that made me want to buy him a thousand-dollar Stratocaster just to see what he’d do with it. He sang, too. Not well, but with heart.
Floyd nudged me with his head. “That’s your fault, you know.”
“What is?”
“The guitar. The singing. The fact that he’s not sulking in the barn or plotting to hotwire the sheriff’s truck.”
I snorted. “Credit where it’s due. You and Ma did the heavy lifting. I just set a bad example.”
He reached up, tracing the line of my jaw with one finger, casual and intimate. “You gave him a place. That’s what he needed.”
We watched Levi for a minute. He caught me looking and grinned, then deliberately hit a sour note to make the younger kids groan. There was a lightness to him that hadn’t been there before, as if the old skin was finally starting to slough off and make room for something better.
Floyd’s voice, when it came, was soft enough that I almost missed it. “I never knew it could be like this.”
“Like what?” I asked, even though I already knew.
He shrugged, and I felt the movement through my ribs. “A family that just... accepts. No conditions, no pretending. You fuck up, they tell you, but they still pull you in at the end of the night.”
“That’s what love is supposed to be,” I said, and for once it didn’t sound cheesy in my mouth. “Otherwise it’s just paperwork and genetics.”
He twisted, looked at me, and I caught the shine in his eyes. “I want to be good at it,” he said, and I realized he didn’t just mean us. He meant all of it—the mess, the noise, the whole sprawling tribe.
I tightened my arms around his chest. “You’re doing fine. Better than me, half the time.”
He huffed a laugh. “I doubt that. You’re the glue, Ransom.”
“Bullshit. I’m the gasoline. You’re the one keeping everyone from burning the place down.”
“Match made in hell, then,” he said, and I kissed the crown of his head.
The fire died down to embers as the sky tipped fully into darkness. Stars punched through the night, indifferent and cold, but down here it was nothing but warmth and noise. Conversation faded to a murmur, the little ones crashed out on lawn chairs or sprawled across their parents’ laps.
Levi drifted over, the guitar slung across his back. He hesitated at the edge of the blanket, looking everywhere but at us.
“Hey, kid,” Floyd said, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Levi shoved his hands in his pockets, then ducked his head. “I wanted to, uh. Say thanks. For...” He shrugged, mouth twisting in the effort to find the words. “Just. Thanks. For giving me a chance. For not giving up, even when I was a little shit.”
“You’re still a little shit,” I said, but I smiled.
He kicked at the grass. “Yeah, well. Just... thanks. Both of you.”
