Page 66 of Inseverable (Carolina Beach)

Trin nods and herds everyone forward. She’s still smiling as her family gathers in front of me. “Everyone,” she says. “I’d like you to meet Callahan. . .”

Chapter Twenty-one

Callahan

I’m not mad at Trinity. Really I’m not. The best way I can describe what I’m feeling is ill-prepared. Upon learning her folks were here, Jed offered to have his friend cover my shift.

Next thing I know, we’re having a late supper at her parents’ home.

I’m not sure how the hell I ended up here. I was lured to Kiawah by the desolate silence and peace I thought it promised, wanting nothing more than to be by myself. Instead I fell head over heels for the loudest, craziest, most in-your-face human being on this Godforsaken planet. And here I sit now with her family.Family. Eating pot roast, potatoes, and fried okra while she and her kin go at it to see who could out-yell the other.

Trinity wins.

Of course.

She points to her brother. “Oh. The fertility dance. Nowthatwas all sorts of ego crippling. Goodness, Daddy, how did Landon not land straight into therapy after that debacle?”

Owen, her father, pretends to narrow his eyes in anger as he points at her with his fork. “Your brother was inducted into that tribe by those men. That there is an honor, and he knows it.”

Landon shakes his head. “No, he doesn’t,” he mutters.

Trinity laughs and pats my arm excitedly. “Picture my brother in a grass skirt,” she says.

Landon groans and rubs his face. “No, please don’t.”

“With a giant wooden penis strapped to the front.”

My head turns in Landon’s direction, my neck so stiff and tense from the words that just spewed out of my girl’s mouth, I swear everyone here can hear it creak. I don’t think I want to know, and I’m pretty sure Trin knows as much, but of course it doesn’t stop her from explaining.

“It’s a dance they do in this one tribe,” she begins. “A ceremony to celebrate the boys in the village becoming men by?”

“Dancing with giant dildos strapped to their fronts?yeah, yeah, he gets it, Trin,” Landon says.

Their momma, Miss Silvie, shakes her head in what I initially mistake for disapproval. “Those weren’t dildos,” she corrects. “They were wooden phalluses. Huge difference.Huge.”

Jesus Christ, help me.

“Did you feel more like a man after it was done?” Trin asks, unable to stop laughing.

“Bout as much as you felt like a woman after that fertility circle bullshit you took part in,” Landon says before taking a long pull of his beer.

“Watch your mouth in front of your momma, boy,” Owen says.

“Sorry, Momma,” Landon says, with a smirk.

Trin turns back to me. To her credit, she’s not any less affectionate around her folks than she is around her friends. I should be relieved that she’s not shy about showing her family who I am to her. Instead, here I am feeling ill-prepared again. She winds her puny arms around one of mine, and rests her chin on my shoulder. I glance over at her daddy and brother. They’re watching me closely. And totheircredit no one’s reaching for a gun. Now if roles were reversed, and this was my little girl, I would’ve shot me.

She giggles as heat pricks my skin. “Did I ever tell you about the time Momma and I had to help that woman give birth in a field?” she asks me. “And Momma had to break that poor woman’s pelvis with a rock to get the baby out?”

“Yes. And please don’t remind me,” I mutter. That little story came out over a crab dinner I took her to a few weeks back. I was cracking one those little bastards open when she spilled the details like most talked about the weather. Let’s just say I couldn’t finish my meal.

To my relief, Owen and Landon groan along with me. “Yes, please don’t,” they both mumble.

“But my quick thinking saved them both,” Silvie says casually. “It was either that or cut open her belly with that hunting knife?”

“Silvie, baby, don’t,” Owen says, waving his hands in surrender. “I can’t go through that story again, sugar. I just can’t.”

“All right,” she says. “But there’s no miracle like the miracle of life.”

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