“Okay, five minutes.”
“Tammy…” There was a moment of silence as someone walked through the aisle. Once they were gone, Alejo continued, “You’re not happy we’re here—I get that.”
“Apparently you don’t. Otherwise you’d leave.” Ashley could hear her mother’s scowl from an aisle away. “What do you want?”
“You know we haven’t had it easy here.”
“Yes, I know the loss was hard on you. And I’m sorry, really.” Tammy was quiet for a moment. “But I thought you two leaving was more of a permanent thing.”
“I did, too,” Alejo said, “but the three of us have just as much a right to be here as anyone else.”
“Hmm,” Tammy said. “Her name is in really poor taste, by the way.”
Alejo was quiet. His quiet was a wounded thing, tense and cold all at once. “You can say whatever you want to me and Brandon—I really don’t care—but Logan doesn’t have anything to do with that.”
“You know how Snakebite is. Why bring her?”
“Because we’re a family,” Alejo said, voice bordering on desperate. “What’re we supposed to do—leave her home?”
“Alejo,” Tammy said, softer than before. “I’m serious. What are you doing back here?”
“We’re location scouting. For the show.”
“You’re going to make a joke out of us.”
And then neither of them said anything. Ashley leaned further into the candy bars, listening for more. Her head swam trying to keep up. It occurred to her how strange she’d look to anyone browsing the aisle, but she didn’t care. This was about more than what John had said to Logan at the store. She’d never heard her mother talk like this. She’d never heard her sound so unsettled. This was the same Tammy Barton who chased fast food chains and superstores out of Snakebite without batting an eye, who commanded the entirety of Barton Ranch with ease. She was Snakebite’s sole protector. Nothing rattled her. But something about Alejo apparently crawled under her skin.
He cleared his throat.
“It’s not a joke. You don’t think things have been weird? You don’t think there’s something off?” Alejo asked. “After … there was a lot of stuff happening here when we left. Problems we never got to resolve.”
Tammy’s heel clicked on the tile. “I’m one of these problems?”
“Real problems,” Alejo clarified.
Her mother said something else, but it was drowned out by an elderly couple making their way down Ashley’s aisle. Ashley eyed them with a scowl, but the couple didn’t notice, fixated instead on store-brand seltzer. The overhead lights buzzed and the frozen aisle groaned and under it all, her mother’s voice continued, soft and low as a hum. Ashley closed her eyes but she couldn’t make out the words.
Finally, a bit of the conversation filtered through.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Alejo said, “but you knew it was right.”
“And now what? You want me to pretend?”
Alejo was quiet. “Logan doesn’t know anything about her. Brandon and I decided it was best. We wouldn’t even know where to start.”
“Fine.”
“Thank you,” Alejo said, and he sounded like he meant it.
“And when you’re done, you’ll leave? For real this time.”
“Of course. As soon as we’ve figured it all out, you’ll never see us again.”