Page 57 of Wild and Wrangled

“How do you feel aboutMythbusters?” I asked as I scrolled.

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Pawn Stars?”

“I like stars.” Riley shrugged.

“Pawn Starsit is,” I said and pushed down on the enterbutton on the remote. After a few minutes, Riley asked, “What’s a pawn shop?”

“It’s a place where people go to sell their stuff, but normally, they don’t get as much money as they want or need.”

“Why?”

“Because the shops have to make a profit, and they’re usually kind of shady.”

“What’s a profit?”

“Um,” I said. “It’s how people make money on stuff—like your shirt probably costs a few dollars for someone to make and then they sell it for ten.”

“Like the clothes Teddy makes?” Riley asked.

“Yeah, so Teddy sells people clothes for more money than it cost her to make them.” There was a whole nuanced discussion in here about cost versus labor, but maybe we’d save that for when she was eight. “So she can get paid for making them. Make sense?”

Riley nodded. “Why are people selling their stuff?”

I shrugged. “Maybe they need some extra cash or maybe they just don’t need that thing anymore.”

“Like a garage sale?” I nodded. “Ada likes those. People in town have them sometimes.”

“They do.” I nodded.

“Do we have a pawn shop?” Riley looked up at me. Her eyebrows had knitted together, and she had bitten down on her bottom lip. When I blinked, it was like my vision was flashing between seeing her and Cam.

“We do,” I said after I found my footing again. “But you can only get to it from the alley behind the diner. It doesn’t have a front entrance.”

“I want to go there,” she said.

“I’ll take you,” I responded. Dahlia, the shop owner, would probably love a visit from Riley—especially if Wayne had been in with all of his scrap metal that day asking for a cool grand. “They’ve got a good vinyl collection.”

“My dad has vinyls. We could get him one.”

“We could. What do you think he would like?” I put my arm over the back of the couch.

“Conway Twitty or Billy Idol,” she said, and I grinned. This kid was getting raised right, that was for damn sure.

Riley scooted closer to me until she could lay her head on my chest. When she did, I froze. I wasn’t around a lot of kids. I didn’t really know what to do, so I just let her stay there. We watched a few episodes in a row ofPawn Stars.Riley asked a lot of questions. I had a good time trying to figure out how to answer them.

“Why doesn’t he pay them what they ask for?”

“Because he’s gotta negotiate,” I said. “What the person asks for is just a starting point.”

“Can I negotiate?”

“What do you want to negotiate?” I asked, amused.

“Bedtime,” she said.

“I bet you could,” I said. “You just gotta know what to ask for—like if you want to stay up thirty minutes later, ask for an hour.”

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