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Her soft chuckle was what I wanted to hear.
Vehicles were constantly coming and going from the campground, but a pickup pulled up behind her dad’s pickup and trailer. Liam waved from behind the wheel. Excitement I hadn’t felt in a long time welled up, like I was a kid and friends had stopped over. I hadn’t known what that was like, but I did now.
“Kennedy!” Delaney trotted to them, her ponytail swinging and her hips swaying. I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
Liam slipped out of the pickup the same time both back doors opened and two little boys shot out.
“Target!” one cried. “Eli, it’s Target.”
“Bolt!” Eli chased the other boy, who must be Owen. “I get to pet Bolt first.”
Liam was grinning when he caught my eye. “Did she warn you she invited all of us?”
“The more the merrier.” I meant it. How much I meant it surprised me. Until I’d come to Coal Haven, my social time functioned as casual business. Forget jeans or cookies and chips. And definitely not kids.
Ansen and I would’ve lived for a camping trip with friends like this.
Yeah, I needed to give my brother a call.
Delaney and Kennedy were chatting and digging chairs out of the back of the pickup. Liam and I jumped in to help them arrange the chairs around the firepit that would stay unlit for the season.
Kennedy pushed a few stray strands of dark hair off her face. “I made a bunch of summer sausage sandwiches.”
I clapped my hands together. “Sounds perfect. Y’all hungry? I brought supplies too.”
“We can pool our stuff,” Delaney said, “and make a potluck.” Her gaze strayed to another car pulling in behind Liam’s truck, and a gorgeous grin spread across her face. She was even more unreserved around her own group of carefully cultivated friends.
My wife whooped when two women got out of the car. One had her hair pulled back; it could have been the sun, but parts of it looked red. She wore jeans faded from use and work outside rather than as a fashion choice and a pink T-shirt that said, “Titrate or Die.” Delaney had said Lyric was the one who worked in a lab. Titrate sounded labby. That must mean the other woman in jean shorts and a baby-blue tank top with thin straps was Aspen. She was frowning at her choice of sandals as footwear.
Delaney noticed. “Don’t step in horse shit and you’ll be fine. It’s not as if we’re going for a night hike.”
The woman broke out in a grin. “I’ve never felt so city in my life.”
Delaney gestured to her as she grinned at me. “Ms. Kansas City there is Aspen. She teaches at the elementary school with Kennedy. And this is our hometown girl, returned to work her science magic in the lab at the clinic, Lyric.”
I shook both their hands. Each met my handshake with a sturdy grip and a cursory inspection. I hadn’t won them over by just being here. Good. Delaney needed friends like this.
I knew where I stood with everyone in Coal Haven. Delaney’s mother. Her friends. My family. There wasn’t a deal hanging off this social interaction like there often were with Mr. Truitt’s dinner parties. The only reason I had to impress anyone here was because they mattered to Delaney; therefore, they mattered to me.
“Full disclosure,” Lyric said as she rounded to the trunk and took out folding camp chairs. “I’m best friends with your cousin Isla, and I am obligated to gossip with her about you.”
She wasn’t kidding. Her frankness was refreshing.
“I’ll try to give you plenty of good things to say.”
She quirked a brow as if to saywe’ll see.
Aspen lifted one of the chairs from Lyric’s fingers. “And as a teacher, I’m obligated to play coy when parents try to get gossip out of me. I’ll forever act clueless.” She tipped her head to where Liam stood with his arm draped over Kennedy’s shoulders. “Those two gave me a lot of practice.”
Kennedy chuckled. “That was mostly with the other teachers.”
We surrounded the cold firepit and pulled the coolers together. The rest of us helped Liam and Kennedy juggle paper plates, juice boxes, and sandwich-making supplies for the boys.
“Aunt Laney, can we ride Target?” The boy I thought was Owen bounced up and down, with liquid squirting from the straw of the juice box he held.
This was the first I’d heard she was close enough to Kennedy to be called aunt.
Delaney balanced her plate on her lap and stacked lunchmeat on her bun. “I can lead you around on her after we eat.”
