Maybe it was all in her imagination, but Auri hadn’t seemed the same since she’d let her go to the supersecret New Year’s Eve gathering at the lake. The annual party parents and cops weren’t supposed to know about. The same parents and cops who began the tradition decades ago.
She’d only let Auri stay for a couple of hours. Could something have happened there? Auri hadn’t been the same since that night, and Sun knew what could happen when teens gathered. The atmosphere could change from crazy-fun to multiple-stab-wounds in a heartbeat.
“You know, you can stay home a few more days. Your asthma has been kicking up, hon. And your voice is a little raspy. And—”
“It’s okay. I don’t want to get behind,” she said.
“Do you have your inhaler?”
Auri reached into her coat pocket and pulled out the L-shaped contraption. “Yep.”
A woman called out to them then. A feisty woman with graying blond hair and an inhuman capacity for resilience. “Tallyho!”
They turned as Elaine Freyr lumbered through the snow toward them, followed by her very own partner in crime, a.k.a. her roughish husband of thirty-five years, Cyrus Freyr.
Sun leaned closer to Auri. “Did your grandmother just call me a ho?”
“Hey, Grandma. Hey, Grandpa,” Auri said, ignoring her.
It happened.
The girl angling for the Granddaughter of the Year award hurried toward the couple for a hug. “Mom’s worried you guys are going to prison.”
Elaine laughed and pulled the stool pigeon into her arms.
“Snitches get stitches!” Sun called out to her.
“Your mother’s been saying that for years,” Elaine said over Auri’s shoulder, “and we haven’t been to the big house yet.” She let her go so Auri could give her grandfather the same treatment.
“Hi, Grandpa.”
Cyrus took his turn and folded his granddaughter into his arms. “Hey, peanut. What are we going to prison for this time?”
Auri pulled back. “Election tampering.”
“Ah. Should’ve known.” Cyrus indicated the apartment with a nod. “What do you think of her?”
“She’s beautiful, Grandpa.”
His face glowed with appreciation as he looked at Sun. “And it’s better than paying fifteen hundred a month for a renovated garage, eh?”
He had a point. Santa Fe was nothing if not pricey. “You got me there, Dad.” She gave them both a quick hug, then headed toward her cruiser, the black one with the word sheriff written in gold letters across the side.
“Sunny, wait,” her mother said, fumbling in her coat pocket. “We have to take a picture. It’s Auri’s first day of school.”
Sun groaned out loud for her mother’s benefit, hiding the fact that she found the woman all kinds of adorable. She was still angry with them. Or trying to be. They’d entered her into the election for sheriff without her consent. And she’d won. It boggled the mind.
“We’re going to be late, Mom.”
“Nonsense.” She took out her phone and looked for the camera app. For, like, twenty minutes.
“Here.” Sun snatched the phone away, fighting a grin. It would only encourage her. She swiped to the home screen, clicked on the app, and held the phone up for a selfie. “Come in, everyone.”
“Oh!” Elaine said, ecstatic. She wrapped an arm into her husband’s. “Get closer, hon.”
The cold air had brightened all their faces. Sun snapped several shots of the pink-cheeked foursome, then herded her daughter toward the cruiser, her father quick on her heels.
When Auri went around to the passenger’s side, Sun turned to face him.
He offered her a knowing smile and asked, “You okay? With all of this?”
She put a hand on his arm. “I’m okay, Dad. It’s all good.” She hoped. “But don’t think for a second you’re off the hook.”
“I rarely am. It’s just, I know how much you enjoyed putting this place in your rearview.”
“I was seventeen. And one shade of nail polish away from becoming goth.” She thought back. “Nobody needed to see that.” After sliding him a cheeky grin, she stomped through the snow to the driver’s side.
He cleared his throat and followed again, apparently not finished with the conversation. “Well, good. Good,” he hedged before asking, “And how are you sleeping? Any, you know, nightmares?”
Ah. That’s what this was about. Sun turned back and offered him her most reassuring smile. “No nightmares, Dad.”
He nodded and opened the door as Elaine called out, “You and Auri have a good day. And don’t forget about the meeting!”
Sun looked over the hood of her SUV. “What meeting?”
Elaine sucked in a sharp breath. “Sunshine Blaze Vicram.”
She hopped inside the cruiser before her mother could get any further with that sentiment. Nothing good ever came after the words Sunshine Blaze Vicram.
She gave her eagle-eyed father one last smile of reassurance as he closed the door, then backed out of the snow-covered drive, confident she’d done the right thing. Telling him the truth would only exacerbate the guilt she could see gnawing at him every time he looked at her. There was no need for both of them to lose sleep over something that happened in Del Sol so very long ago.
2
There is simply no way everybody was kung fu fighting.
—SIGN AT DEL SOL MIXED MARTIAL ARTS AND DANCE STUDIO
Five minutes later—small-town perks—Sun pulled into the Del Sol High School parking lot. She put the cruiser in park and turned to her auburn-haired offspring. “It’s time.”
Auri gaped at her. “Oh, god. Mom, not again.”
“This is just a refresher.”
“It’s not really the first day of school. We already had this conversation in August.”
“Yes, but that was for the academy. This one is for Del Sol High School. Your new stomping ground.”
Auri propped an elbow onto the armrest and dropped her face into a hand.
“Okay, as we’ve previously discussed, boys are usually born with this little thing I like to call a penis.”
Auri groaned.
“And girls are often born with this little thing I like to call a vagina.”
“I’m moving in with Grandma and Grandpa.”
“But these two components, the penis and the vagina, need never meet.” Sun waved an index finger back and forth. “Not ever. In fact, being a lesbian is very avant-garde. So, you know, you could always go that direction.”
“Mom, being gay is not a choice.”
“Not if you don’t give it a chance.”
“Fine.” Auri looked around at the growing number of gawkers. “I’ll give it a try. Can you just turn off the emergency lights?”
Sun looked around at the faces reflecting the red lights from her cruiser. “They’re just jealous. How many kids your age get a police escort on her first day of school?”
“I’m going to have to change my name.”
“Now, normally, tab A fits rather nicely into slot B—”
“Mom!”