Page 57 of Hot Dad Summer

“That’s never stopped us before,” Poppy pointed out, which was a fair point.

We settled in with our own burgers and Poppy launched into the story of the hat.

“We made it with Aunt Daisy today. It took two tries because Charlie’s first one didn’t survive testing.”

“Testing?” Flynn looked at his son. “What kind of testing does a paper hat need?”

“I threw it off the dock to see if it could fly.” Charlie shrugged. “It couldn’t.”

“So we made this one with the good glue and Hazel did the measuring.” Poppy pointed a fry at the hat. “I did the glitter so Hank would be sparkly.”

Max turned Hank’s head gently with one finger under his chin, studying the hat from every angle while Hank sat gracious in his sparkly glory. “Good seams. Chin strap’s smart.”

“That was me.” There was no hiding how pleased Hazel was. “The first one kept sliding off when he shook, so I added the strap and reinforced the crown points with cereal box.”

“Structural integrity.” Wes nodded at his daughter with complete seriousness. “That’s how the Romans did it.”

“The Romans made dog hats?”

“The Romans made everything, Charlie.”

I sat in the middle of the noise with my feet up on the bench next to Flynn’s thigh and let my happy feelings wash over me.

Then the trouble started, the way trouble always started around here, with Flynn clapping his hands together. “Alright, it’s time for the main event.”

The main event was a slip and slide the length of a runway, purchased “for the kids,” a claim that fooled no one, seeing as Flynn called first turn before the hose was attached. His maiden voyage was one for the record books. He took a running start, hit the plastic at full speed, and a third of the way down, physics and his swim trunks came to a violent disagreement. The trunks lost and he emerged from the bottom of the slip and slide with the world’s biggest wedgie.

“Oh my God.“ I doubled over the table.

“Dad got eaten by his shorts!” Charlie was on the ground.

Flynn stood, extracted polyester from places polyester should never be, and took a full bow. “Someone had to test the speed. You’re welcome.”

After that it was chaos of the best kind. The kids went down in fits of giggles while Hank decided the slip and slide was a weapons delivery system and began launching his body at anyone within six feet of it.

I was not participating. I was at the edge of the grass in my sundress with my hair up, supervising, the way a responsible nanny does, when the back of my neck prickled. I turned around and Hank was already airborne.

Sixty pounds of overweight Basset Hound hit me at chest height and I went backwards into Wes, who caught me on instinct and lost the war when my momentum met his wet feet on wet grass. We went down the slide together, tangled up, water up my nose, his arm locked around my waist the whole way. We slid to a stop with me sprawled across his chest, both of us soaked, my careful hair flat against my head. I braced for the grumpy Wes routine and got something better. He was laughing hysterically and holding me against him. When I tried to climb off him, he tightened his arm and pulled me back down.

“You did that on purpose,” I accused.

“That was one hundred percent your dog.” He tucked a soaked curl behind my ear, his voice dropping low enough to be just mine. “But I’d pay him to do it again.”

Then more cold water hit us both in the face, because Hazel had found the water guns.

The war was immediate and it was ugly. Hazel commanded the kids’ army like a general who takes no prisoners. Poppy defected to whichever side had the fruit snacks, twice. Charlie soaked everyone, including his own troops, once shooting himself directly in the face in a move nobody could explain. Max claimed the high ground on the porch steps and picked people off one by one with terrifying accuracy, until Hazel sent Poppy up there to hug him, at which point he surrendered without a fight. Hank stole a water gun early and carried it around in his mouth for the rest of the battle, a warlord without allegiance.

And me? I spent the entire war being trafficked.

Flynn snatched me behind the porch post and used me as a human shield without an ounce of shame, whispering “stay still, sweetheart, they can smell fear” against my ear while Hazel advanced. When his position fell, Max hauled me over his shoulder and carried me to safety, which turned out to be a puddle, where he set me down with great care and shot me at point blank range. Wes traded two water guns and a solemn ceasefire for custody of me, then violated the treaty within thirty seconds.

At some point I stopped keeping track of whose hands were catching me and whose chest I was tucked against, because I belonged to all six hands and nobody in that yard thought a thing about it. Poppy’s only comment, delivered while reloading, was that I made a bad shield because I laughed too loud and gave away positions.

The war ended the way all wars end, with the losers eating cake. I went inside for towels, and when I came back to the door, I stopped. The three brothers were by the grill, wrung out and dripping, and they didn’t know I was there. Wes said something too low for me to catch and Max laughed, actually laughed. Flynn snapped his wet shirt at Wes’s leg and for one second, they weren’t wounded grown men anymore. They were just brothers having fun.

“Best summer we’ve had out here in years,” Flynn said, and he wasn’t saying it for my benefit, which is exactly why it went through my heart like an arrow. “Maybe ever.”

“Yeah.” Wes was quiet for a beat. “It feels like it used to. When Mom and Dad had us running this yard.” Then he flipped his spatula and pointed it at Flynn. “Except back then you cried when you got a wedgie.”