"Gage Holt," he said. "Sir."
My dad looked him in the eye the way he'd said he wanted to. Gage looked back, steady and unhurried. Something passed between them—the specific male communication of a handshake that is actually an assessment—and then my dad nodded once, a small thing, and let go.
"Robert Calloway," he said. "Good to meet you."
My mom stepped forward before my dad could say anything else. "Elena," she said, with the warmth she deployed like a force of nature, taking his hand in both of hers the way she did with everyone she'd already decided she liked. "We're so glad to meet you."
"Yes ma'am," Gage said. "Thank you for raising her right."
My mom looked at me over his shoulder.
I looked at the ceiling.
Behind Gage, slightly to the left, was a man about his height. He took his baseball cap off when he came through the door.
"This is my cousin Sawyer," Gage said.
"Hi," I said, extending my hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”
"Ma'am," Sawyer said.
He looked around the apartment the way someone looks at a job—taking inventory, already planning the order. Something else registered too, something I hadn't been consciously waiting for but felt immediately when I saw it: Sawyer had light brown skin and tight curls, clearly mixed.
Something in my chest quietly unclenched.
Daniela had put the cereal box down and was looking at Sawyer with the slightly narrowed eyes she used when she was trying to place someone.
"You look familiar," she said.
Sawyer looked at her, and I saw the recognition when he figured it out. "Horse picture," he said. "Baton Rouge. Last fall."
She pointed at him, nodding and smiling. "Background holding."
"Wrangler."
"Riiiight." She nodded again. "The bay that kept spooking at the craft services tent."
"Every single time," he chuckled.
"Every single time," she agreed.
Gage was already moving, scanning the stack, lifting a box and testing the weight.
"This all of it?" he asked.
"That's all of it."
He looked at the twelve boxes and the two duffel bags and the lamp and didn't say anything, just picked up two boxes like they weighed nothing. Sawyer politely ended his conversation with Daniela, then followed suit.
My mom watched him go.
Then she turned to me.
"Mija." Low, while my dad was occupied asking Sawyer something about the trailer hitch. "He's older."
"I know, Mamá."
"How much older?”
