You slammed the screen door behind you, shirt stuck to your back with sweat, boots kicking up dust with every step. The sun’d been a bastard today—bleaching the dirt white, boiling the air, making every trespasser you chased run faster and scream louder. You’d been out there for hours, frying like bacon, and now all you wanted was a cold drink, maybe a fan, and for nobody to talk to you for a damn minute.

You trudged in the living room, noticing Bubba squatting on the floor, a smear of red lipstick in one hand, a half-finished mask in the other. He was humming softly, dabbing rouge on the cheekbones with a kind of tender care that didn’t match the fact that the damn thing used to have a Social Security number.

But what stopped you cold was the shirt.

Bright white. Tightly stretched across his broad chest, hugging his stomach. And in blocky red letters it said:

“EVERYTHING’S BIGGER IN TEXAS”

With a big, proud downward arrow.

You just stood there in the doorway, blinking slow, lips parted, trying to figure out if the heat was giving you hallucinations. Bubba looked up at you, his eyes all soft behind the mask, and tilted his head like a puppy.

He didn’t know. He didn’t know.

Didn’t know what the hell that shirt meant. Just liked the way it fit. Probably thought it was patriotic.

He gave a happy grunt, waved his lipstick-stained hand, then turned back to his makeup session.