Bear let it go. He’d learned to pick his battles, and there were worse things his son could be doing.
“He gave me tomorrow off, too,” Logan said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Said he might not be back until Saturday.”
“Lucky you.” Bear closed the textbook. He wasn’t absorbing anything anyway. “What are you going to do with your afternoon?”
Logan set the milk back and shut the fridge. He leaned against the counter, trying for casual the way teenagers did when they wanted something but didn’t want to ask directly. “X is riding in the rodeo tonight at the fair, and some kids from school are going.”
Bear looked at him.
Logan looked back. Carefully neutral.
“Kids from school? You mean girls.”
His face flushed. “No. Not only. Just… some kids.”
“And you want to go.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.”
Logan’s shoulders dropped. “Really?”
“X is good. Worth watching. And you’ve been working hard. You’re allowed to do things with your friends.” The fact that Logan even had friends now thrilled him, but he kept it off his face and out of his voice.
Logan nodded. He pushed off the counter, picked up his backpack, and headed for the stairs. Halfway up he stopped and turned. “You should come. You and Greta. It’d be good.”
Bear considered it. A fair meant crowds. Music. Motion. It meant people who would want to talk to Greta, who would offer condolences she didn’t want.
But it had been a week since the funeral. Maybe it was time to break her out of her grief for a bit.
“I’ll ask her.”
Logan nodded again and continued up the stairs. A second later his bedroom door closed.
The shower sounds had stopped. Bear stood and moved to the base of the stairs, listening. No movement. He climbed to the second floor and found Greta in his room, sitting on the edge of the bed in clean jeans and one of his flannels. Her hair was damp and loose on her shoulders. She was staring at her phone, expression unreadable.
“Logan’s home early,” he said from the doorway.
She looked up. “I heard.”
“Cody closed the store. Needed to check on his cabin.”
“Okay.”
“There’s a fair tonight. X is riding. Logan wants to go.” He paused. “Wants us to come with him.”
Her face did something complicated. She looked back at her phone, at the dark screen, then set it on the nightstand. “You should go.”
“I asked if you wanted to.”
“I know what you asked.” Her voice was flat. Not angry, not defensive. Empty the way it had been since the funeral. “I don’t.”
Bear stayed in the doorway. He could push. Could tell her it would be good to get out, to be around people, to do something normal. Could make the argument that staying in the house wasn’t helping, that grief didn’t get lighter by sitting with it in the dark. But he’d watched Lila try that approach three days ago and watched Greta go hard and closed, and he wasn’t going to make that mistake.
“Okay,” he said.
She looked at him. Her eyes were the pale, washed-out green they’d been since the cemetery, and there were shadows under them that makeup wasn’t covering anymore. “You’re not going to argue.”
