I jog over and snatch the other part of the zip line out of his hands. “Shh. I’m here. I’ve got it. You can relax.”

“I hate you.”

“You’re my best friend, Beau Rochester.”

It takes a good fifteen minutes to satisfy Beau that the zip line is securely attached to the trees. When we’re done, he tosses me the handle. “Test it.”

Paige is watching, blue eyes wide. “Test it for me?”

“Paige says I can’t.”

“Test it,” Beau insists.

“What if I fall off? Will you catch me?”

He rolls his eyes. “Yes, Mateo. I will run alongside and spot you if that’s what gives you the courage.”

I look Paige in the eye. “One time,” I promise. “For safety.”

She narrows her eyes, considering. “One time,” she agrees.

We’ve set it up for Paige to be able to use, so it’s maybe not the best ride I’ll ever take. All I know is that you don’t waste permission once it’s given. I hop on the zip line and soar down it, then ditch at the end and roll into the ground, then pop up with a smile on my face.

“You didn’t really fall,” Paige laughs. “You did that on purpose.”

“It was a test to see if it worked.”

“To see if you could fall? You don’t know how to fall?”

“Of course I know how to fall. I’ve done stunt work.” I send the seat zipping back toward Beau, who is still shaking his head as he catches it. “Your turn.”

I thought Paige got all her shrieking out on Big Thunder Mountain. Turns out she has plenty left for the zip line. She grips it tight, and Beau and I send her back and forth while Emily takes pictures.

It’s so goddamn wholesome that eventually I have to take a break. It reminds me of all the best parts of my childhood. It illustrates in living color that I could have this too, if I was willing to give up LA. But LA is more than a city. It’s a career. It’s an entire life I’ve built there. An image of me as more than the small-town boy from Maine.

“Beer,” I call, sending Paige back to Beau to be my delivery person.

“This is a child,” he says, catching her.

The cool air in Emily’s kitchen balances out the heat from the sun and from all that nostalgia over childhood and fatherhood and everything else I have no business being nostalgic for. I take a chilled beer out of the fridge and open it. Needing a minute to lean against the countertop before I go back out there.