"Good morning to you too, sunshine," Rayna called gaily, sounding a little out of breath. She rolled her eyes back, trying to see Aden without moving from where she'd collaped, but the angle was bad, and she was forced eventually, with a groan, to roll over onto her stomach. Propping her chin on her fists, she said, "Well don't stand there gawking; come here and have a piece of melon. Hell, have a whole melon; they're fine now."
Despite the easy familiarity of her conversation, Aden was still a relative stranger to her. Rayna knew he'd been with the carnival about a year, but as she'd gotten pregnant shortly after his arrival, and the family she was acting as a surrogate for lived in California, she'd been away from home so much that they'd never had much occasion to talk. Still, no time like the present, now that she was baby free and back for good (or at least the foreseeable future).