Page 38 of Nash
"What thing?"
"The thing where you pretend you're just looking at trees but you're actually calculating how fast you could get all of us into the Lincoln if something came out of them. You did it at my high school graduation. My prom. You made my prom date show you his driver's license."
Raine snorts.
"He had an out-of-state license," Lawrence says. "That's a red flag."
"It was a Florida license, Dad. He was from Florida."
"I rest my case."
Raine shakes her head. "I have the prom photos on my phone, Nash. She was stunning. This emerald green dress, her hair pinned up. She looked like a movie star."
Ruby groans. "Mom. No."
"I'm just saying." Raine is already scrolling.
Raine holds her phone out. Ruby in emerald green, her hair up, her shoulders bare, grinning at the camera. A tall kid in a rented tux standing next to her with his hand on her waist.
My jaw tightens.
"Cute," I say. I hand the phone back.
"Cute?" Ruby stares at me. "I looked incredible, and you know it."
She did.
"Situational awareness is a reasonable habit," Lawrence says, already walking toward the picnic table.
"Nash does it too."
She says it lightly, tossing it over her shoulder as she walks ahead. Lawrence looks at me. I hold his gaze for one second. His shoulders square a fraction.
They settle at the picnic table. Raine sets the cooler on the bench, then unpacks containers of her homemade banana pudding and a pasta salad with a handwritten label taped to the lid. Ruby sits beside her mother, their shoulders touching. Lawrence takes the opposite bench, the end closest to the fence, angled outward with a sightline to the gate and the tree line. Rider takes the wall by the clubhouse door without being asked.
I sit at the other end of Lawrence's bench. Same angle. Same orientation. Two men flanking the table, both facing out.
Ruby clocks the mirrored posture. Her eyes narrow for a fraction of a second.
"Two human guard towers and a cookout. All we need is a watchtower, and we could charge admission."
The afternoon settles. Raine's laugh carries across the yard as she talks with Maggie and Candace. She asks Ruby about Amaranth, about the design work. She wants to see the compass rose sketch. Ruby deflects with a joke about how it's "just flash concepts." Lawrence talks with Malachi and James, phrasing each question as casual interest while his eyes continue their periodic sweep.
Ruby is next to her mother, their heads tipped together, and across the table Candace is watching them with a soft, quietsmile on her face. Ruby sees it. Her smile tightens. Her hand finds Raine's arm and holds.
The conversation drifts to Malachi's fighting. Lawrence's eyebrows rise when Candace mentions the circuit.
"You go to these?" Lawrence asks Candace.
"Sometimes." Candace shrugs. "Ruby comes with me."
"It's fun," Ruby says. "Very violent. Very sweaty. Very much something Dad would hate."
"I do hate it," Lawrence says.
"There's a woman who fights there," Ruby says, leaning back in her seat, her eyes shifting to me. "Naya. She's incredible. Nash goes to check on her sometimes." Her gaze stays on my face. "Don't you, Nash?"
She's watching me. Studying my reaction, building a case with whatever my face gives her.
