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Ray loves gossip, when it’s about people he otherwise never gives an iota of thought to, when it’s about himself, even. Well, not so much lately, when it’s about himself.

“I heard she’ll be on the next boat,” I tell him, not taking the bait. Like I said, I find Mona more sad than annoying, more worthy of sympathy than scorn.

“Nah, she’d be here by now. Something’s up, I’m telling you. Do you think this whole trip was orchestrated to get Brady away so she could meet her lover? No, she wouldn’t be so uptight if she was getting laid.”

I shake my head at him in mock disbelief.

“Whatever it is, color me intrigued.” Ray kisses my cheek before heading back to the extensive kitchen he and the guys have set up.

“You know, you could serve them Costco hot dogs, tell ’em it’s wagyu, and they’d think it was the best thing they’d ever eaten,” I call to him. “Then spend the afternoon kayaking with us instead?”

“Don’t you dare disparage Costco,” Ray teases, but the smile quickly falls from his face, leaving the legacy of the strain it so often wears these days. All the effort he’s going to with the haute camping cuisine, it’s more than trying to awe the parents or to outdo Cassie and her extremely soft fleece jackets.

I step toward him, close enough that he can hear me when I say under my breath, “You heard from the studio?”

Yesterday, the studio execs met to decide what they were going to do about this season, if they were planning to air it and cut Ray out or if they’d have to reshoot. Either way, Ray’s days on Knives Up are over.

Ray shakes his head no. “I’d like to see them run the show without me.” Ray tries to say this defiantly, but I can sense the hurt lurking beneath his tone. I pull him to me, and he resists at first. I keep holding him until I feel him surrender.

As I continue to hug my husband, there’s a rustle. Over his shoulder, I hunt the noise across the hillside surrounding the upper loop until my eyes land on something in the bushes behind Stella’s tent. In the midst of the tall, thin grasses, I spot two black orbs that look an awful lot like a pair of binoculars.

“Ray,” I whisper, focusing on the black circles disrupting the blades. “Someone’s watching us.”

As Ray starts to turn, I squeeze him to me. “Not so obvious.”

He revolves ninety degrees so he’s facing the slope behind Stella’s tent. “Where?”

I stare again, more overtly. It’s all green-brown shrubbery. No black orbs like alien eyes.

“Daddy?” Lei says, sprinting over to where we continue to survey the hillside. I hunt for whatever branch or boulder tricked me. There’s nothing in the brush that looks like binoculars. “Kai’s hurt.”

This gets our attention. A howl echoes across the open land. I trace the sound to Kai, who is seated in Cassie’s lap as she clamps his nostrils shut.

“What happened?” I ask when we reach our son. Blood congeals in a line down his chin, and I follow it to Cassie’s green pants, now stained red.

“Frisbee,” Cassie says.

I’m ready to scream at the little shits who catapulted a Frisbee at my five-year-old son.

Before I can, they come sprinting over.

“Is he okay?” one of them asks, reminding me that even the wild, too-cool-for-school boys are still sweet at this age.

Their bro dads jog over to appraise the situation.

“He took one right to the nose,” Karthik, a doctor-bro dad, says. I’m tempted to say Really, is that your professional opinion? But they’re trying to be nice. They are being nice. It just doesn’t land with me.

Cassie pulls her hand away from Kai’s nose and tilts his face up, assessing the damage.

“Looks like it stopped.”

She stands, and I take her place beside my son. “You okay, buddy?” I ask him as he crawls into my lap.

“No,” Kai wails, elongating the syllable until he’s run out of air.

The older boys watch in disbelief, including Lei, who’s visibly ashamed of his brother’s uninhibited outburst. Kai’s not old enough to be embarrassed. I wish Lei wasn’t either. Despite the sweetness, these third-grade boys are already learning how to be men.

Ray leans over my shoulder to kiss the top of our son’s head. I can feel everyone watching us, particularly Cassie.

“Thanks, Cassie,” I say because I have to say something.

“We have some club soda,” Ray adds. “For your pants.”

Cassie glances down and realizes they’re stained. She follows him toward the kitchen.

I hold my son, watching as they walk away together. Cassie lets out a little laugh that I know is genuine. It’s surreal that they’re getting along. More than that, it’s dangerous. I need to tell Cassie we’re over, the first chance I get.