Levi stays beside me, which I appreciate without saying so. We don't talk much. We don't need to. That's the thing about men who've been through anything real. They knowhow to just stand somewhere with you while the adrenaline works its way out.
"He's had it in for you since you moved back home," Levi says after a while. Not an accusation. Just a fact, filed.
"I know."
"Falon shut him down this week. Parking lot outside the grocery." He pauses.
"I know that too."
He nods once. That's the end of it.
I'm still staring at the bar top, running through the night in my head, when the door opens again.
I know before I turn around.
Falon.
She's scanning the room before she's fully through the door, taking inventory. Her eyes move from Mason to Levi to Burl, sweeping up glass near the bar and then, finally, to me.
She crosses the floor toward me, certain about where she's going. My heartbeat picks up. She came for me. Late for girls' night, walked into whatever this was, and went straight to me.
"Are you okay?" she asks.
"Fine." I turn on the stool to face her. "Nobody got hurt."
She nods once, processing. Her eyes do a quick check of my hands, face, the set of my shoulders, and I watch her decide whether she believes me. That careful, practiced read. A look I've seen before. She's been cataloging the difference between fine and fine for long enough to know which one she's looking at.
Then she steps closer.
It's a small thing that has a bigger meaning.
"Kevin?" she asks, voice low.
"Palmer took him."
"Yeah, Daisy texted me." She glances over her shoulder at Mason, who gives her the world's most neutral nod, and then she looks back at me. "You okay?"
"Yeah." She looks me straight in the eyes for a second, then nods. She knows I'm somewhere between fine and not-so-good.
"I know." And there's something in the way she says it. "You didn't escalate."
"No."
"I know you wouldn't."
Outside, Palmer's voice carries low and official through the parking lot. Inside, the jukebox is running something slow with a steel guitar. Levi's laughing at something Austin said, and the bar has mostly returned to normal.
Falon is still standing close. Not touching. Not making a speech. Just there. On my side. In front of whoever's watching.
I breathe in once, slow, and the tight thing that's been coiled in my chest since Mason's call finally goes quiet.
It takes me back to the county fair. Eighth grade.
Falon had entered the junior barrel racing finals on a horse named Copper, who had the attention span of a caffeinated squirrel. Tyler had thought it was a great idea. I had my doubts, but nobody asked me.
She didn't place. Right at the last barrel, Copper spooked at something. Could have been a flag, a noise, nobody ever figured out what, but Copper launched her clean off the saddle.
I was moving before she hit the ground.
