She gave us a wave, a wiggle of her fingers to Brooklyn, then she took off.

Toby again claimed me.

“How do you know her?” he asked after he set us on our way again.

“Customer at the store.”

“You friends?”

“She asked me to hang with her posse, but I haven’t had time to do that yet.”

“Far’s I know, good people,” he murmured.

Well, that was cool to know.

“Babe, caramel nut clusters?’ he said.

I looked up at him. “Did I forget to mention the caramel?”

He was grinning down at me. “Uh . . . yeah.”

“Did I share the nuts were cashews?”

“I would definitely remember that. So . . . no.”

“Are we gonna run the rest of the way?”

He pulled me close to his side. “I’ll control myself.”

He did but mostly because we didn’t have a choice.

This was because, apparently Toby knew everyone in town. He said, “Hey,” “Yo,” or jerked up his chin constantly as we made our way, and twice we had to stop when someone engaged us in conversation.

Toby introduced me and Brooks and didn’t chat forever with folks I’d seen at the store but hadn’t formally met, but he chatted.

Through this, I realized two things.

One, I’d made the right decision, not working half a shift that day, and not just doing that for Toby, but for me and Brooks.

The place was crowded. The vibe was rad. I was looking forward to perusing (or consuming) the wares in the tents. And if I’d worked, I might not have had this or I would have been tired, and I wouldn’t have had the time to get all gussied up and go out feeling fine.

Feeling me.

I’d forgotten an important lesson my mother taught me.

Shit worked out and you lived while it did.

I wasn’t beating myself up that I got stuck where I was. I’d taken a hit from life, I had responsibilities and I was caught up in seeing to them.

But it was an awakening as well as a reminder.

I had to have this for me, but I had to teach this to Brooks.

And now, give it to Toby.

This was a day that would eventually be just a trace in our lives.

While we had it, we had to be all in. Cherish it.

It was important.

Two, with us going out all together, it wasn’t just Toby claiming me and Brooks.

It was me and Brooklyn claiming Toby.

I loved it after all the time we spent dancing around each other he wanted to execute a very public act that we were now official. That said everything about where he was at with my son and me, and what it said meant the world to me.

I just hadn’t realized that while he did that, I got to do it too.

I was in the best mood I’d been in since well before I left Tennessee when we finally made it to the nut clusters tent.

I noted right off that Deanna and Charlie were there.

I also noted right off that the line for the clusters was long.

Fortunately, Deanna and Charlie were standing right in the middle of it.

“Hey!” I called in greeting as they both smiled when they caught sight of us.

“Hey,” Deanna called back.

“Hiya, sweetheart,” Charlie replied. “Hey, kid,” he said, looking down to Brooklyn.

“Deedee! Chacha!” Toby squealed.

“Hiya, Tobe,” Deanna greeted as we stopped at them. She bent right into Brooks’s stroller and muttered, “I need my hands on this bundle o’ goodness.”

“Tobe,” Charlie nodded to Toby. “How’s things?”

“Good, man. You?” Toby responded.

“We got four pounds of cashew nut clusters, I’m set,” Charlie told him.

“Since we already got ours,” Deanna said to me, lifting Brooklyn up into her arms, “and the line was long, we got in it again for you.”

“Thanks, Deanna,” I murmured, watching Brooklyn give her a baby hug around her neck while she gave him a big smackeroo on his check, after which Brooks totally dismissed her, grunting and pushing off with his work boots in her stomach to launch himself at Charlie.

Charlie caught him, and the minute he did, Brooklyn looked in his face and shared earnestly, “Chacha, sissis, leepy, loona, Dodo.”

“Well, heck, boy, that’s serious,” Charlie replied somberly.

Brooklyn nodded then dug his boots in and launched himself back toward Deanna.

Charlie chuckled and gave him up to his wife.

“Izzy and Johnny here yet?” Deanna asked, attaching my son to her hip.

“They’re coming later,” I told her and felt Toby’s beard on my chin.

“Saturday morning fuck-a-thon,” he whispered.

I turned my head and grinned at him because my sister was a prude, but when Johnny was done with her, even she couldn’t hide the glow.

And she glowed often.

“Dodo!” Brooklyn yelled, reaching to him.

“He’s feelin’ antsy,” Toby declared, pulling out his wallet. “We’ll go somewhere he can motor around,” he went on, yanking some bills out and handing them to me. “Get four pounds, babe.”

I took the bills.

He shoved his wallet back in his pocket and took my son.

“I’ll grab the stroller and go with you,” Charlie muttered.

He did that, and they took off.

Deanna and I shuffled forward in line.

“So how’s that going?” she asked, her gaze on Toby and Charlie strolling away.

“We fit. We match. We have our shit tight,” I answered, and her attention turned to me. “He’s open. Honest. Communicative. Wise. Protective. He loves my kid. He’s totally into me and doesn’t hide it. And he’s mind-bogglingly good in bed. Macho-man lunacy raises its head on occasion, but I’ve decided if I didn’t have that, I wouldn’t have caveman sex that is out . . . of . . . this . . . world. But also, it seems like when he gets like that, it’s about something that runs deep with him, so I shouldn’t push it. To sum up, it’s going great.”

“Well, damn, baby girl,” she hooted, “Sounds like it is.”

We shuffled forward in line.

“Caveman sex?” she asked.

“If he dragged me by my hair to bed I one, would not care because two, it’d rock my world what he did to me there.”

She smiled and repeated with added emphasis, “Well, damn, baby girl.”

I smiled back. “Unh-hunh.”

She tipped her head to the side. “Macho-man lunacy?”

“He refuses to ride in a car driven by a woman,” I explained.

Her eyes got big.

“Now, he also isn’t a fan of riding shotgun with another dude,” I continued. “But he puts his foot down if it’s a woman.”

“You been in a car with Margot?” she asked.

I shook my head.

“I have . . . once,” she told me as we shuffled forward in line. “The woman is a menace.”

I turned to face the line, murmuring, “This could explain things.”

“Trust me, you ride with her, it would. A kid rode with her often, he might swear off women drivers for life.”

Hmm . . .

Maybe this did explain things.