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“Oh, shit,” Tean said.
“That’s a quarter in the swear jar.”
“It’s your swear jar because the girls made it for you, and anyway, it’s full. Jem, he’s got Kristin.”
Tean didn’t point, but he nodded again in Rod’s direction. He had emerged from a door farther down on the welcome center, and he was towing Kristin around the corner of the building. Away from the party. Away from the guests.
Jem moved after them, killing his beer as he walked and then tossing the can into a nearby recycling bin. His hands dipped into his pockets. The set of his shoulders was sloping, a kind of feigned easiness, and he smiled at someone in the distance. He was a liar, he had told Tean on many occasions, and his whole body was the lie. Tean hurried behind him.
As they reached the corner, Rod’s voice reached them: “—poking around in there, huh?”
Kristin said something too soft for Tean to hear.
Jem turned the corner first, and Tean was only a few feet behind him. The welcome center’s bulk plunged this side of the building into shadow, and although the heat only lessened marginally, the gloom reminded Tean that the day was ending quickly. Kristin, in a ruched, dusty-blue maxi dress, had her back to the wall, and although Rod wasn’t touching her, he stood close enough to bracket her, using proximity to pin her in place. The height difference between them was even more exaggerated, and there was no doubt Rod was using it to his advantage. He was wearing what Jem liked to call shit-kicker boots, dirty jeans, and a Death Angel t-shirt with the sleeves cut off. A silver belt buckle, about the size of a CD, weighed down the front of his pants.
“There you are, Kristin,” Jem said. His easygoing voice was part of the lie. “Don’t be mad; Tean drank your beer. God, we’ve been looking all over for you. Oh, hey, man. What’s up?”
Kristin stared at them, terror blanking her expression. Her glasses were askew, but if she noticed, she gave no sign of it.
Rod, on the other hand, took them in with a slow, calculating assessment. He didn’t step back, but he did shift his weight to his heels, altering the shape of the space between him and Kristin. “We’re having a private conversation.”
“I don’t think we met,” Jem said, moving forward again, hand outstretched. “Jem Berger.”
“Son, you need to go back to the party.”
“I’m his other half. Normally I’d say better, but—” Jem stepped into Rod’s space, hand still out for a shake.
Rod reached to grab Jem’s arm.
Tean hadn’t seen this particular move from Jem before, but it didn’t surprise him; his husband was a voracious learner, and YouTube and TikTok were bad influences. Jem’s hand, the one he’d stretched out for a shake, flattened. He drove the heel of his hand forward, into Rod’s solar plexus. Rod staggered back, a wheezing gasp escaping him. Tean had once heard a mule deer in breech make the same noise.
Hands on hips, Jem considered Rod for a moment. Then he hooked him by the heel and shoved, and Rod landed on his ass, his head cracking against the board-and-batten. He gave Kristin a considering look and said, “Tean?”
“Are you ok?” Tean asked.
Kristin blinked. She glanced down at Rod, and when Tean touched her elbow, she startled.
“Why don’t you come over here?” Tean asked.
“I’m not—I’m—” She seemed to become aware of her glasses at that moment and straightened them. “I’m fine. I’m sorry; I’m really fine.”
“I know,” Tean said.
Rod writhed on the ground, still trying to suck in air. Jem was watching him with the same bemused fascination on his face as when the girls had decided to give Scipio (and Tean) princess makeovers.
“He wasn’t—he didn’t do anything,” Kristin said, but she followed Tean a few feet away from Rod. “He wouldn’t have done anything.” Then the question followed: “Would he?”
“Kristin, what’s going on?”
“I went inside.” Color tinged her cheeks. “I know I shouldn’t have, but I thought—I don’t know.”
“Why did you go inside?”
Kristin shook her head.
“Kristin, what were you doing in there?”
“I went inside to look around.”
