Clay Hargrove shoves through the Rusty Spur’s screen door at 6:17 p.m. sharp, same as every Thursday. The heavy wood slams shut behind him, cutting off the hum of crickets and the distant roll of thunder off the Cumberland Plateau. The air inside reeks of fried hot sauce, stale Pabst, and the sweet, burnt smell of the peanut roaster by the front door, and his left knee twinges when he steps over the warped threshold, a leftover souvenir from the 2019 tornado that took down three transmission poles he’d helped install back in the 90s. He’s 58, retired three years from the TVA after 32 years climbing lines, and the only thing he’s reliably shown up for since his divorce 12 years prior is 75-cent wing night.
The place is packed, way busier than usual, folding tables crammed between the pool tables stacked with homemade pies, printed gift certificates, and a beat-up old Yeti cooler for the silent auction, a handwritten sign taped to the wall advertising flood relief for the families that lost their homes down by the Sequatchie River two weeks prior. Clay almost turns right back around. He avoids community events like the plague, mostly because they’re always crawling with his ex-wife’s extended family, and he’s held a petty, stupid grudge against every last one of them since she left him for a HR middle manager who’d never lifted a tool heavier than a laptop in his life. Jake, the bartender who’s known him since he was 18, waves him over to his usual spot at the far end of the bar, already sliding a draft beer across the sticky wood, so he sighs and pushes through the crowd.
He’s three wings deep when she leans against the bar next to him, close enough that her flannel sleeve brushes his bicep. He recognizes her before he even looks up: Lila Mae Carter, his ex’s niece, 38, runs the county’s emergency management team, the one who’d been on every local news segment for the past two weeks coordinating sandbag drops and shelter spaces. He remembers her at 12, pigtails caked in mud, showing up at his old house begging him to teach her to bait a hook so she could beat her brothers at the family fishing tournament. Now she’s got a smudge of charcoal on her left cheek, chipped pale blue nail polish, and cutoffs that show off a scattering of freckles across her thighs, and when she grins at him, the corner of her mouth tugs up the exact same way her aunt’s used to, before the fights started.
She sets a dented plastic donation jar on the bar between them, the label scrawled in the same messy handwriting he remembers from the notes she used to leave on his fridge thanking him for the candy bars. “Knew you’d show up,” she says, and she leans in a little to talk over the noise of the jukebox blaring Hank Jr., so close he can smell coconut shampoo and the faint tang of campfire on her clothes, like she’d been out helping clear downed trees earlier that day. He tries not to stare. It feels wrong, noticing how her eyelashes are long, how the top button of her work shirt is undone to show a thin silver chain around her neck. He’s spent 12 years avoiding anyone related to his ex, and now he’s sitting here feeling like a teenager with a crush, and a sharp, hot twist of shame curls in his gut for half a second.
He snorts, wiping hot sauce off his chin with a napkin. “Only for the wings. Don’t get excited.” She laughs, loud and bright, and a guy carrying a stack of auction items stumbles past, bumping her hard from behind. She trips forward, falling against his chest, and his hands automatically go to her waist to steady her, the soft warmth of her skin seeping through the thin fabric of her shirt. She doesn’t pull away right away, tilting her head up to look at him, her breath warm against his neck, and the noise of the bar fades out for a second.
“I’ve had a crush on you since I was 16, Clay,” she says, quiet enough only he can hear, and he freezes, his hands still on her waist. Half of him is screaming to let go, to tell her that’s inappropriate, that he doesn’t mess with his ex’s family, that the whole town would talk if they saw them. The other half? He hasn’t felt anyone lean into him like that, like they actually want to be there, in longer than he can remember. The grudge he’s carried for 12 years feels suddenly stupid, heavy, like the old tool belts he used to haul up poles, and he realizes he doesn’t care what anyone thinks.
He grins, squeezing her waist a little before he lets go, nodding at the donation jar. “What’s the minimum to get in on that fishing trip auction lot? The guide they got listed is a hack. Can’t catch a cold in a rainstorm.” She smirks, leaning her hip against the bar, and taps the jar twice with one finger. “Two hundred bucks. And I’m coming with you. If you catch more fish than me, I buy you a month of free wings here. If I win, you volunteer with the cleanup crew next weekend.”
He pulls his worn leather wallet out of his jeans, slaps two crisp hundred dollar bills into the jar, and Jake raises an eyebrow at him from behind the bar, pouring a glass of sweet tea and setting it next to his beer. Lila winks at him, turning to go take bids from a group of farmers by the pool table, and he watches her walk away, her hips swaying a little more than necessary, like she knows he’s looking. He takes a sip of his beer, the familiar ache in his knee gone for the first time all week, and picks up the glass of sweet tea to set it on the edge of the bar for when she comes back.
