“You really gonna wear that with jeans?” he said, one eyebrow up.
“You’re wearing jeans,” I shot back.
“I look good in anything,” he said, stone-faced, then winked. “You, not so much.”
He handed me the clothes he’d set out the night before: pressed white shirt from the feed store, tag still attached, dark jeans with no visible stains, and a pair of boots polished to the point where I could see my own face in the toes. I’d never worn anything so clean in my life.
He dressed in front of me, methodical as always—shirt tucked, cuffs rolled, beard combed, boots tied tight enough to cut off the circulation. I got up and tried to do the same, but the buttons on the shirt kept slipping out of my hands. My stomach was a knot, equal parts nerves and hunger.
Quiad caught me struggling, crossed the room, and buttoned me up himself, slow and deliberate. He didn’t say anything about the tremor in my hands, just straightened my collar and kissed the tip of my nose.
“You ready?” he asked.
I nodded, even though I wasn’t.
Not even close.
* * * *
The courthouse in McKenzie River looked like every other building in town—red brick, white trim, a flag flapping in the morning breeze. The inside was pure small-town minimalism: concrete floors, industrial carpet, and chairs hard enough to realign your spine.
We parked in the side lot, the engine still ticking when the rest of the clan rolled up behind us, five cars deep.
The moment we stepped out, the McKenzie horde descended. Ma and Pa were at the front, Ma in a blue dress and pearls, Pa in the same suit he’d worn to every wedding and funeral for the past thirty years.
Behind them came Knox, solemn and broad-shouldered, with Newt hanging off his arm; Harlow and Daniel, both in flannels and matching bolo ties; Bodean, loud as ever, in boots with hand-tooled flames on the sides. Even Grandma Minnie and Gramps shuffled up the walk, moving slower, but more determined than anyone else. Every single one of them wore clean jeans and a white button-down shirt.
The effect was less wedding party, more cult, but nobody in town seemed surprised. We herded into the lobby like cattle, taking up half the benches, the rest of the crowd made up of people waiting for traffic court or to pay parking tickets.
I felt their eyes on us—on me, specifically. The orphan, the stray, the one who didn’t quite match the rest of the set.
Quiad must’ve felt it too. He slid his arm around my waist and pulled me close, then whispered in my ear: “You’re gonna be fine, Sunshine. Nobody’s here but us.”
Bodean found us seats near the door to the main courtroom. He bounced on his heels, grinning like an idiot, and kept elbowing me in the ribs. “You nervous?” he asked.
“Nope,” I lied.
“Liar,” he said. “You look like you’re about to puke. Want a mint?”
I took the mint, because my mouth was dry as sand. “Aren’t you supposed to be my best man or something?”
He winked. “I brought the rings. Just try not to pass out before you need ’em.”
Across the aisle, I spotted Knox, who nodded at me in that solemn, old-west-lawman way, like he was already plottingwhich side to stand on if the vows turned into a gunfight. Newt gave me a little wave, then ducked his head, cheeks pink.
Ma flitted from person to person, dispensing hand sanitizer and Kleenex, while Pa sat rigid and silent, staring straight ahead. When he caught my eye, he gave me a thumb’s up, which was the emotional equivalent of a standing ovation from him.
The door opened, and a clerk called us in.
The courtroom was smaller than I’d imagined. Instead of towering oak walls and polished marble, it was drywall and tired wood paneling, the judge’s bench decorated with a faded American flag and a potted fern that had seen better days. The only other people there were the judge herself—mid-sixties, iron perm, reading glasses on a chain—a sleepy bailiff, and the clerk who’d buzzed us in.
We lined up in the front row—Quiad, me, Bodean, Knox. Everyone else packed in behind. It wasn’t lost on me that the witness box was empty. There was nobody from my old life here.
The judge looked us over, then smiled, her lips thin but kind. “I see we’ve got the whole family this morning.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Ma replied, and a ripple of nervous laughter went through the room.
She banged her gavel—not to start the ceremony, but to get the McKenzies to quiet down. “Now, which one of you is Levi?” she asked.
