“Everybody knew he’d been drinking at the bar. He wasn’t a local, and he wasn’t liked. So nobody looked too hard for him.

“Meanwhile my mother stayed where she was. She fell in love with Waya, or fell in love with him all over again. They’d always cared about each other, growing up.

“Uncle Earl came to live with her, so did a couple of her youngest siblings. She got pregnant with Grady. Married Waya. Then a couple years later, she had Bo.

“Ellis stayed a missing person for several years. Then eventually, his work wanted to claim their insurance policy on him, so they did the necessary footwork to get him declared dead.

“When they did, my mother found out that she was the beneficiary of a pretty hefty insurance policy herself. Plus Ellis’s estate. He had no will, so it all went to her.

“She sold the house they’d lived in together without ever stepping foot inside it again. She used the money to buy the ranch. We all moved here.

“Of course, none of us kids knew anything about what had happened, or where the money had come from. Kids don’t think about things like that. We were all just excited to have such a big house. Except for Bo—she was pissed that we were leaving. She loved living on Cherokee land, with all our dad’s family around us.

“He used to take us back all the time. That’s how Bo and Duke stayed so close. They were cradle mates—born the same week in August. My mother and Duke’s mother became close friends during their pregnancies, and they’d put the babies in the same hammock together to nap.

“Bo and Duke used to fight like wild animals as they got older. But they were best friends, too.”

“They got in a fight at the dance,” Riona tells me. “Duke was dancing with another girl.”

I roll my eyes. “I guess he’s desperate. Trying to make Bo realize that she’s jealous.”

“You think they have romantic feelings for each other?”

“I know they do. You can’t have a best friend that you’re attracted to. That’s what being in love is. It’s wanting to fuck your best friend.”

Riona laughs. “That’s all love is?”

“That’s what it should be.”

She looks up at me with those sea-glass eyes, then drops them again just as quick.

“What?” I say. “What is it?”

“I was just thinking . . . there’s a third part.”

“What?”

“You can fuck a lot of people. And anyone can be a friend. But there’s a third part to love . . . admiring the person.”

“Admiring them?”

“Yes. That’s a lot more rare. There’s only a few people I really respect.”

In this moment, I want more than anything to be one of those people. To be respected and admired by a woman like Riona is a real accomplishment. I know she doesn’t give her approval easily.

“Do you count me in that favored few?” I say, trying to keep my tone casual.