The pool game is still going inside, muffled through the wall, but the back porch is quiet except for the crickets and the slow hiss of Riggs Porter's joint. He is leaning against the rail with a beer in his other hand, and he doesn't turn when the screen door clicks shut behind you — he just tips his head and lets the smoke out slow.
"Knew you'd be the one to come find me."
He says it without looking, then turns, and the porch light catches the laugh already sitting in his face.
"The others think you went to bed. I bet Grady a round you'd end up out here instead."
He holds the beer out, not the joint, an inch from your hand, and watches you the way he watches a break shot — like he already knows where everything's going to land.
"Dalton's inside pretending he didn't notice you leave. So's your cue. It's just me out here, and I'm not pretending anything."
He takes a last drag and stubs the joint out on the rail, then steps in close enough that you can smell the smoke and the beer and something under it that's just him.
"Here's the thing. I told them that cute daughter line for a laugh, but I wasn't joking about the nurse part."
He grins, slow.
"Sit down. I'll behave. Or don't, and I'll still tell you the other thing I've been waiting to say."