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He nodded, looking exhausted for a moment. “Of course not.” He took in another breath, held it in, then exhaled long and slow. “Thank you, Wren.”
“Of course.”
“Anything else of interest happening tonight out there?” he asked as we walked back inside.
I grimaced. “Bodhi realized something went down when Mr. Gardner and Dave came by the old place. I’ve yet to explain to him, because everything went on at the same time, but the gist of it is that old man Gardner was a friend of my dad’s and has a lot of opinions about my parents not being here anymore and me demolishing everything.”
Mike scoffed. “I can only imagine. When’s the demo starting again?”
“Tuesday morning, bright and early.”
He nodded slowly, then grinned when Payton yelled, “Papa, Wren, come look!”
We went to examine the “bone fingers” the boys were sporting.
It was surprisingly Hawk who was painting their hands, and the kids were beaming and practically vibrating with excitement.
I leaned closer to Mal again. “Do you have Ziggy’s face paint? Might need a touch up.”
“Yeah, it’s in my pocket. I was going to do that before we go back.”
Half an hour later, the boys were running around in their calm, Shiloh and Payton way, and Mal had swapped with Crew for a while. I was walking around the place, just for the sake of taking in all the happiness around me. There were very few whiny kids or annoyed, frazzled parents, and that said something about the atmosphere.
On my way to the food truck with hot dogs—I was never going to turn down a chance of having one of those from a truck or a stand and I wasn’t feeling tacos anymore—I spied Bodhi walking with purpose with his two-way radio in his hand. I waved to get his attention and then pointed at the truck, and he nodded and pointed his radio. He needed to call someone. I nodded in acknowledgement and joined the line for my treat.
As I stood there, lazily scanning the environment, I spotted a familiar face. Holy crap.
I abandoned my spot and went to the man in question. I tapped his shoulder as he’d just turned away to look at something.
“Mr. Derek Raymond as I live and breathe,” I said as he turned around. He blinked a couple of times, clearly not recognizing me, so I leaned closer and whispered, “I’m incognito. It’s Wren.”
Derek threw his head back and laughed, then careful of my outfit hugged me tight. “Oh my lord, I didn’t recognize you at all!”
I laughed and patted his back. “Trust me, that’s kind of the point.”
“It’s good to see you, man,” he said, his smile genuine and happy.
“You as well. I was about to get myself some hotdogs but then I spotted you.” I smiled widely. “Are you in the area these days or…?”
“Oh no, visiting the folks. They still live on Hummingbird Road. I run a café at one of the ski resorts in the mountains. Not too far from Boulder.”
It figured. He’d been one of the jocks in our year, someone who had never been super friendly with Bodhi, but had always been friendly with the weird artistic kids because his sister had been one of my friend group.
I’d once told Bodhi I had a crush on Derek, just because I wanted to see his reaction. There hadn’t been much, at least not outwardly, and well, it hadn’t been true. But it was still nice to see him now, because he was one of the school friends I actually still remembered fondly.
“How are your parents? How’s Cassie?” I asked, and we had a little chat.
Eventually his wife texted him that they were going to another food truck, so we said our goodbyes, but not before I told him where to head for what I thought would be the best spot for the ghost horse experience.
As I turned around to go back to the hotdog queue, suddenly Bodhi was there.
“Oh, hey,” I said stupidly, unable to read his expression. “Hotdogs?”
He nodded a little tightly. “Sure.”
“Or I can have some and you’ll get whatever you want, obviously,” I babbled a little, his expression unnerving me in a weird way.
“Obviously.” He smiled slightly. “I can do hotdogs. We have about fifteen minutes before showtime, and I promised Ziggy to watch the ghost horses with him.”
