Chapter 8: Reading Glasses

Marilyn's den has a recliner, a gun cabinet full of porcelain angels, and a television the size of a door.

All twenty-two Carroways crowded in behind me, holding their plates.

Dani knelt at the back of the TV with a cable she'd pulled from her bag, because Dani Judd carries every adapter ever made.

"I've also got the raw feed," she said, quietly, so only I could hear. "Camera two. The hand shot. The mic."

"No."

"It's worse than what they saw."

"I know."

"Beth."

She hardly ever used my first name.

"Four thousand nine hundred people watched that," I said. "So can they. Just the one the park played."

Dani looked at me for a second and nodded.

She plugged in my phone.

The screen filled with a blue-and-gold Foxes logo.

Under it, in white letters, was the title the team had given the clip: KISS CAM, SECTION 112.

It said 2.4 million views.

I stood at the side of the television with my arms at my sides and I watched the room instead of the screen.

I had seen it enough.

Todd's brother figured it out first.

He folded his arms and then unfolded them, and he made a sound as if he'd been kicked.

A teenage cousin held up her phone to film the TV, caught her mother's eye, and put it away.

The little boy in the Cardinals shirt tugged at his father's sleeve and said, "Dad, is that Uncle Todd?"

"Shh."

"Is he allowed to kiss her?"

Nobody answered him.

When the camera pushed in on the hand, the whole den leaned forward, and a woman at the back said, "Oh, no."

The clip ended on the cartoon heart.