“People ever find it strange a single grown man was running a non-profit kids’ center?” Ford said, matching our pace as Boone and I moved away from the food tables.
I held the back of Boone’s arm, steering him toward an empty table. I felt it stiffen, and just when I thought he was going to break to a stop and take a swing in Ford’s direction, he kept moving.
“What are you implying?” Boone said stiffly, dropping his plate on the table when we paused behind a couple of empty chairs.
Ford came around the other side of the table, just smart enough to realize that at this point in his goading-Boone-Cavanaugh agenda, he wanted something big and solid between him and Boone. “Nothing,” he said with a lazy shrug. “Just that with the way your sister’s let every cock in town take a dip and you prefer to spend your days playing with minors . . . something had to have gone down in that trailer of your mama’s.”
A gasp rushed out of me while beside me, Boone became a statue. One that could just as easily have been at peace on the inside as he could have been about to explode.
Going with the theme of this visit home so far—unthinking—I snatched an extra ripe strawberry from Boone’s plate and hurled it across the table.
It landed square in the center of Ford’s forehead. I’d been aiming for his mouth, but his forehead worked. Especially when the juice from it dripped down the sides of his nose, and when the strawberry fell, it managed to leave a few blobs of red behind on his sky-blue polo.
“What the hell was that for, Clara Belle?” Ford grabbed a white linen napkin from the table and rubbed at his crotch, where the strawberry had last touched before falling to the grass.
“Solid throw.” Boone nudged me, his voice as even as his expression, despite what Ford had just said. “Nice aim.”
“Why thank you,” I replied, trying not to laugh as Ford’s scrubbing efforts only smeared the strawberry juice, making even more of a stain.
“Just because you’re running around with an animal doesn’t mean you have to start behaving like one, Clara Belle.” Ford wiped his forehead with the napkin, streaking strawberry juice across his eyebrows more than actually removing it.
“And if you don’t have anything nice to say, then brace yourself for flying fruit.” I crossed my arms. I felt the seam across my back pulling, so close to ripping open I could practically feel cool air trickling in.
Ford threw the napkin on the table and shook his head at me.
“You better stop shaking your head like that at her, or I will remove it from the rest of your body.” Boone didn’t blink as he stared down Ford.
“Oh, give it a rest, Cavanaugh.” Ford snorted, but his head stopped shaking. “You got the girl in the end. Clearly.” He made it a point to look between us a few times, not trying to disguise his disgust. “But it wasn’t because you beat me. It was because I bowed out. I decided to stop wasting my time chasing one sister and moved on to a different one. One who’s a little more discerning. One who didn’t spread her legs for any piece of trash that came her way.”
Before Boone could make it a step in Ford’s direction, another strawberry splattered across Ford’s face, exploding on his cheek and splashing juice all the way up his temple and down his neck. Boone froze in the middle of his journey around the table, giving me a chance to grab his hand and pull him back toward me.
“Goddammit, Clara Belle.” Ford wiped at the strawberry carnage, blinking at me in disbelief.
“You still weren’t saying anything nice. I thought you would have learned your lesson from the first one, but clearly not.” When Boone tugged against me, I tightened my grip on his hand until it hurt. I wasn’t going to let him take a swing at Ford in the name of “defending my honor.” My honor was just fine, no matter what Ford wanted to spew this morning.
“Yeah, but you’re out of strawberries now.” Ford settled his hands on his hips.
“And I wouldn’t underestimate the power of pineapple.” I pinched a slice of it from Boone’s plate and lifted it. “Especially when the spiny, prickly outside hasn’t been removed.”
Ford didn’t look all that impressed by my pineapple threat, but it looked like he was just about to back away—and hopefully go in search of a change of clothes—when a familiar shriek sounded from a couple tables over. Charlotte had mastered the art of shrieking as a child, and she’d really perfected it in her teens.
As she charged toward Ford, appraising him like he was the center of a crime scene, she didn’t miss what I was clutching. “Nice, Clara Belle. Way to really set the tone of the day. How immature can you be?”