Page 53 of Twins for Three Bad Boys

I nod toward the bonfire. “You want a better view? Less… noise in your ears?”

She hesitates, then she nods once. “Yeah. Okay.”

I lead her away from the densest part of the crowd, toward the edge of the celebration where the work lights thin out, and the song of the river grows louder. The dirt here is damp under our boots.

June wraps her arms around herself, but something tells me it isn’t from the chill.

I stop near a fallen log and gesture. “You can sit, if you want.”

I sit on the other end, keeping distance. Not because I don’t want to be closer, but because I want to be closer so badly that I could do something stupid.

June looks at the fire.

“I didn’t think I was a bonfire person,” she admits.

I glance at her. “Nobody thinks they are until they end up at one of these get-togethers.”

She hums a laugh. “Is that, like a town rule?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Redwood Run has a few. They just don’t write them down.”

“What are the rules?” she asks, turning toward me, eyes bright with real curiosity now, letting herself lean in.

I count on my fingers. “One: someone always brings a dog that doesn’t belong to them.”

June’s grin flashes. “I saw three dogs and none of them had leashes.”

“Exactly,” I say. “Two: kids will get sticky. No one knows how. Just accept it.”

June laughs. “That seems accurate.”

“Three,” I continue, watching her face as I say it, “if you’re new… someone’s going to decide you’re theirs.”

June swallows. “Does that happen a lot?”

“It’s a small town,” I say simply. “People attach easily.”

Doubt flickers in her eyes. “Is that a good thing?”

I hold her gaze. “Depends who you ask.”

“You’ve lived here forever?”

“Most of it,” I say. “Left for a while. Came back.”

“Why’d you come back?” she asks.

I should give her a safe answer. A casual one. Something easy.

But her eyes are too green in the firelight, and her expression is too open, offering me a space to be real in. And I don’t get offered that often enough to refuse it.

“Because,” I say slowly, “it’s hard to build something that lasts if you keep leaving the places you care about.”

June’s breath catches a fraction.

The wind shifts, and a ribbon of smoke rolls over us. June coughs once, scrunching her nose, waving a hand.

I chuckle. “Bonfire rule four: the smoke will always find you.”