After telling Kunta to stay put and wait inside, and getting a sharp, offended, "I'm not a kid. I know what to do," in return, I left feeling more relieved than I probably should have. Daisy stayed behind with her, and Rebecca too, which at least meant Kunta would have people around during our absence.
The hours until evening went by faster than I expected.
For most of it, I stayed with the others. We talked, rested, killed time.
Nobody said it out loud, but all of us were doing the same thing. Stretching out the last calm hours before midnight turned them into something else.
We had more to talk about than usual too.
A whole week had passed with me staying around the Boardwalk, and that meant a week of things I hadn't told them properly yet. Small things. Useful things. Things about Marlon, Summer, Shannon, Carmen, the way the place worked, the way people moved around there, the tension that always sat under everything even when nobody mentioned Callighan's name.
