Chapter 21

• Saturday broke slow and warm — a hush of sun spilling over the old Lawson fields like it had every summer since her mama used to stand on the porch and say look at that light, Sadie girl, that’s hope right there.
• Sadie didn’t care much for hope this morning.
• She’d slept too late, the stale memory of neon lights and cheap perfume still stuck to the inside of her skull like a hangover she couldn’t sweat out. Her brothers had kept their voices soft at breakfast — Cade’s hand on her shoulder when she poured coffee she didn’t drink, Beck cracking some dumb joke that earned him a swat from Colt. They didn’t ask about the bar. They didn’t have to. They’d seen it on her face when she slammed that truck door and left half her pride stuck to the floor under Rowdy’s flickering sign.